It was a Fan Zone. Something special about it. Though if you live in Vienna (like me), it's just a place for the foreigners to be corralled for easy extermination.
maef wrote:
Unfortunately, I seem to be quite a pessimist. While most other Austrians were fairly happy about the draw against Poland, I'm rather disappointed. Not just about this game, about our performance in the Euro in general.
I know, most of the people who read/post in this thread are well informed about the tournament anyway, but let me sum it up for you.
Disclaimer: Yes, I am going to refer to the Austrian national team as "us". Not just out of patriotism, also out of convenience.
Austria vs. Croatia:
Yes, the much-disputed penalty right at the start of the game. While I do think it was a tough decision to make that call, you can't really argue with it. He didn't necessarily have to blow the whistle, but it was definitely a justifiable call and well within the rules. He could have let it slide for the sake of the game, but well... sucks to be us.
After being completely dumbfounded for the next half hour, Austria started to get their act back together and dominated the game. Especially in the second half we had one chance after another, but failed to score. I'm not going to try and blame this on anyone but our own inability.
In overtime though, Kienast was massively held back by a Croatian player on an Austrian free-kick, essentially preventing him from getting in position for a decent header. The ball was coming towards him and the ref stood less than 5 meters away. This should definitely have been a penalty, especially when you consider the FIFA advised the refs to be strict on this kind of thing just before the Euro.
Austria vs. Poland:
We started off incredibly strong with one great chance after another. Again, there's no one to blame but ourselves for not going ahead at least 2:0 right then and there.
About half an hour into the game Poland scores on us. From an offside position. The side-ref has to do nothing at that point but check for offsides, so again there's no excuse for overseeing it. At least this time we handled the score a bit better, not being completely stumped for the rest of the half.
At some point, Ivanschitz storms into Poland's box all by himself and the defender grabs him by his shirt to rip him to the ground. Again, a penalty in my opinion, but no call.
In overtime, we get the previously discussed penalty. A justified call if you ask me, even though Prödl was held back less than Kienast was in the game against Croatia.
Sidenote: What I really don't get is: How in the world can people and even newspapers from Poland complain about that penalty? They said the referee "stole" the victory from them.
Not only were the refs advised to be strict on those things, what's worse is that their goal was an offside. Penalties are a matter of interpretation, offside is a goddamn fact. While some might call the penalty a harsh decision, their goal was definitely irregular.
He basically gave them a goal that wasn't supposed to count and they still bitch around. I just don't get it.
tl;dr: We should have gotten 3 penalties in those 2 games, one of which was called, and wasted loads of chances to score. A little more luck and ref decisions going more in favor and we could already have 6 points and be qualified for the quarter-finals.
Considering that, I just can't be happy about the outcome of Thursday's game.
I agree with you on all points. No argument from me at all.
And here's proof of the Poland offsides goal:
