Egypt 2009: Ghana, Hungary through to semis + a tournament of too many red cards!

I can't for the life of me imagine how I previewed Italy-Costa Rica as today's match. Must be the stuff I ate last night. Anyway, on Friday there were two games.

9/10/2009: Ghana 3-2 South Korea

Goals: Dominic Adiyiah (twice), Ransford Osei (GHA) and Park Hee-Seong, Kim Dong-Sub (KOR).



9/10/2009: Italy 2-3 Hungary AET

Krisztian Nemeth (twice), Vladimir Koman (HUN) and Antonio Mazzottam, Giacomo Bonaventura (ITA)



This means Ghana play Hungary in the semi-final. Brazil vs. Germany and United Arab Emirates vs. Costa Rica are next.

Too many colours

However one of my pressing concerns has been the way the referees have been card happy. They've been stealing the show when the players must be doing that.

Check these stats:

234 yellow cards and 13 red cards in Egypt 2009.

That, for me, is simply cruel. And the championships aint even over!

Compare that to Canada 2007 where we had the folowing stats FOR THE WHOLE TOURNAMENT:

243 yellows, 12 red cards in 52 games.

Fifa must understand that these are kids who have not developed the discipline that senior teams may have, so they should let the games flow!

Laters....