I know every fan of every team in the league has a right to have a go at the officiating in the league from time to time (Yes Perth Glory you would be one of those due to the exhibition at Dairy Farmer's Stadium), however there is an ugly trend developing in the Roar games this season and i'ts being proliferated by a piece of bogus propaganda spreading like wildfire and seemingly supported by Fox Sports commentators.
"He goes down too easy".
One of the most ridiculous and overused sentiments uttered this Hyundai A-League season with monotonous regularity, when referring to Roar superstar Thomas Broich. I remember first hearing the comment watching the Brisbane Roar bring an end to Wellington Phoenix's unbeaten streak at the Caketin. The two kiwi commentators (who are unashamedly biased and make listening to the drivel excruciating) were talking about a clumsy tackle by Paul Iffil on Thomas Broich in which he slid in studs up and clipped the German footballer. The 2 Kiwi boofheads proceeded to espouse how it wasn't a foul (yes it was) and that Thomas has a reputation of "going down too easy". I was flabbergasted. I am keenly aware that Thomas has a target on his back and is one of the most fouled players in the league, but for this sort of comment to be thrown away, I was most certainly bothered by it, and I started to see the writing on the wall and the beginning of a smear campaign.
Lets get one thing straight, Thomas Broich has the best ball control in tight that has ever been seen in the A League (yes, I mean ever by anyone), he is fast, smart and tricky and every right back in the league has a recurring nightmare of Broich turning them inside out several times, just ask Sainsbury. Now because of the set of skills he has people are prone to foul him, it's merely a by-product of his skill, and the lack of skill from the defender, it's just a fact. I am confident in saying that Thomas Broich has NOT dived in his entire a league career. I can recall one incident when he went down in the box, but got up quickly and did not appeal for a penalty at all, he ran back to get in the play.
What is disturbing me is that now this "propaganda" has taken hold in people's minds and we are now not getting black and white penalties because of the seed of doubt in the referee's mind. Let's look at some recent examples. Wednesday night Thomas played the ball into the box, and then raced in and knocked it beyond Jamie Coyne who then took out Broich. No penalty. Let's look at the Mariners game, and in almost a carbon copy situation Alex Wilkinson did the exact same thing, no penalty. What further annoyed me about that incident was that not only did Wilkinson foul Broich, he knew he fouled him, he then proceeded to call for Broich to get a card for diving, then was confronted by McKay and proceeded to argue with him. Luckily karma payed back the Mariners captain in spades as he got a yellow for a rugby tackle on McKay and then scored a sublime own goal and then proceeded to hang his head and play with the grass.
Its not like the bad decisions are only limited to the German import. In the Perth game Mitch Nichols was about to score a great goal at the end of some fantastic build up play by the Roar only for the Glory centre back to slide and take his foot away from him. I would just love to hear the excuse from the referee. Again the Mariners scored a goal on the weekend from a blatant offside goal. The same touch judge in the first side gave an offside goal against the Roar for Franjic playing a ball......to himself and was ...I guess judged to be in an offside position, how utterly comical.
I guess some of these decisions are not given due to circumstances in the game as well. For instance, we may be a couple of goals ahead and the ref lets a decision slide. BULLSHIT, I don't care what the score is; call the game straight down the line every minute until the final whistle. As you can see, on Wednesday night, those lack of decision could have cost the Roar 3 points if Perth had found an equalizer.
I know you probably all thing I'm having a whinge, well I am, but all I want is equality in the decision making during a game. The score shouldn't matter, if the player already has a yellow card, if he commits a harsh foul, he deserves another one, and give the penalty if it is a penalty despite some crap reputation someone has invented for a player.
Some of you may think Thomas deserves this reputation, regardless if you agree or disagree; just imagine this sort of treatment was occurring to your best playmaker on your team, how would you react. One thing is undisputed, Thomas is fouled hard and fouled often, and now he is seemingly being deserted (by some extent) by the referee's. Let me ask you this, is this the way we want football players (Australian or Foreign, and I mean football players, not thugs and hacks) treated in our league. Do we want to foster a culture of skill and game play that is beautiful to watch or do we want imports to think twice about coming here because they are treated like pariah's and not protected by the "hard nuts".
