The Bear Minimum

The FIFA World Cup is well into swing now, and I’m thoroughly enjoying watching it!

Right now the Australia vs Ghana match is on, and when I can pull my gaze from the screen I’m here writing about it. I’ve got friends in Australia, so I want the team to do well, but alas, it seems the referees are being very harsh with the team. In their first match against against Germany, one of their top players was red carded, unfairly in my opinion, and in the fist half of this match one of Australia’s other top players has been red carded.

Our own fair nation has not been hit with the dreaded red card, thankfully, though there were quite a few yellow cards in the match against the US. We won, of course, but nonetheless, it’s not a happy sight to see any of those cards held up for our team. A draw with Argentina, but I still think we’re going through.

The games have mostly been good, but of course, those vuvuzelas, the long plastic tubes the crowd has so ardently been tooting on, have been a strong drawback. I don’t like the sound of bees at the best of times, the sound of a dozen of them in my living room is intensely displeasing. Apparently one broadcaster has used some very tech-savvy software that can actually pick out the sound of the vuvuzelas and mute them! Ahhh, just listen to this! Isn’t that blissful? I certainly think so.

I think this cup has been good so far, but not quite as good as the last one. I feel like the venues aren’t quite as good as the previous go round, and those vuvuzelas really do detract. I also feel that the refereeing has been very uneven this cup, with an obvious red-card worthy tackle having just occurred by a Ghanan player who was instead yellow carded. The referees do really seem very card-happy at this stage, and whilst I’m very happy to see rules enforced, I don’t think the calls are accurate enough at the moment.