A kick in the guts for the beautiful game

Q says:

12:14pm | 24/01/13

Well….he was a Crystal Palace fan….

fml says:

12:26pm | 24/01/13

Still more respectable than utd fans… and more liked!

Q says:

12:38pm | 24/01/13

@fml….you got that right….

Dissident says:

12:51pm | 24/01/13

Hazard has to be given a ban of about 6 weeks - twice the ban that you would ordinarily get for violent conduct against a player. Violent conduct against a player is reasonably forseeable - they go into those tackles hard and are engaged in a physical tustle, so it is inevitably going to happen that it gets a bit willing every now and again.

On the other hand, kicking a punk kid (and yeah, he is a punk kid) for not instantly returning the ball is completely unjustifiable.

If you argue that it is ok to kick a ball-boy for delaying tactics, then is it ok to kick a player for doing it? Like when a goalkeeper’s team is leading 1-0 in injury time, he gets a goal kick and he has to re-adjust the ball, pull up his socks, etc.

When you play away, you have to accept that there will be subtle ways (and not so subtle ways) that the whole stadium is against you. The fact that he was taking a long time to return the ball to Chelsea is just the way the game is played. Next thing you know Hazard will say that he kicked the ballboy because the crowd were singing naughty songs.

Ball-boys wasting time. Crowds singing nasty songs. Fergie time equivalent (don’t kid yourself, it doesn’t only happen at Old Trafford). Away teams have to deal.

Ping him hard.

Punters Pal says:

02:44pm | 24/01/13

Any comments which include pathetic phrases like wanktona or Manure are written by a six year old, or an adult with a mind of a six year old. Is this the best you can come up? Truly pathetic.

JB says:

04:16pm | 24/01/13

@Dissident, 6 weeks is too harsh. I could quiet easily argue in court that by the boy deliberately not given up the ball in a timely manner he provoked Hazzard.
No what he did was not acceptable but the boy has hopefully learnt a lesson that when passion is high and the players are under considerable pressure to win do your job and don’t deliberately provoke him which he did.  The kid was also hamming up the kick like an Italian soccer player!

Jason says:

04:36pm | 24/01/13

Deserves a ban, but the kick was hardly unprovoked and there didn’t seem to be much force in it.  Kid was obviously bunging it on and given his earlier tweet, no surprises there.

Dissident says:

04:48pm | 24/01/13

@JB - You can argue anything you like in a court, the problem is getting the judge to agree. It is exceedingly difficult to prove somebody else’s intent beyond a reasonable doubt. Ever tried doing that? Tough gig, that one.

In one regard you are bang on the money though. The ball boy hammed it up well and good and his twitter account clearly shows that he is a knob. It is also apparent that he was going to take any opportunity available to help his team. Hazard shouldn’t have given him that opportunity.

The issue is that Hazard’s idiocy is so unparalleled (Cantona’s was blind rage and he got less than he deserved, thug) that he has to be punished hard.

The fact is that the ball boy would never have fallen on the ball and lolled about on it like a beached whale in the first place if Hazard hadn’t jostled him. The fact that Hazard jostled him gave him the ‘plausible deniability’ option and without that Hazard jostling he would have had no option but to return the ball. If he fell over, he would have been embarrased, quickly got up, got the ball and rolled it back. Since Hazard wrestled him he had the perfect excuse to go to ground, flimsy though it is (let’s face it, Hazard ain’t the biggest guy in the world. He looks like he is still waiting for the other one to drop…) Divers don’t dive when there is nobody within 10 metres of them - this little puke is no different.

I contend that the worst thing that would have happened if Hazard had stayed on the pitch instead of rushing a punk kid, is that the ball boy would have meandered over to the ball and rolled it back to the keeper. 10 seconds at the most. Meanwhile the referee would be adding more time to his injury time calculation.

Also, they never rescind red cards for players who react to provocation from opposition players - Zidane will testify to that - so there is buckley’s chance that provocation from a ball boy is going to be any different.

Nope, six weeks at least for my mind - at least that’s what I think the FA would give him. If I had the choice I would give him 10 weeks, 1 for the red card and 9 for being an absolute moron. Now the only question is whether

fml says:

12:01pm | 24/01/13

Is this supposed to be sarcasm? I wonder why you say to man up, then list a bunch of sports played by sooks and pansies?

Wayne Kerr says:

12:05pm | 24/01/13

funny, all I heard from your comment was blah blah blah blah blah.

Steve says:

12:12pm | 24/01/13

yea too bloody right aye mate. Socca is for pansies. You never see bones popping out of legs, twisted knees, dislocated elbows or shoulders, concussions from headbutting each other.

Oh, wait you do?

If you’re an 80kg male (average weight) playing soccer you can still get seriously injured. It does not make you ‘less of a man’.

If you’re an 80kg male playing RU, RL - it does not make you ‘more of a man’, rather ‘more of an idiot’.

“I’m tough because I can my head knocked back by a guy 30kgs more than me.” Real smart Einstein.

soccer is happy says:

12:34pm | 24/01/13

Stavros is right

If you play soccer, you are not a man. All you have to do is to touch a soccer player with a pinkie, and he will collapse to the ground holding another part of his anatomy. While balling his eyes out like a girl in a twillight movie.

Until they ban diving/acting/faking/crying in Soccer will never be a man’s game.

Mont says:

12:57pm | 24/01/13

@soccer is happy, too bad for you then that it is the most popular man’s sport on the planet

Jason says:

01:03pm | 24/01/13

Soccer is for wimps. The truth hurts doesn’t it.

soccer is happy says:

01:25pm | 24/01/13

Mont

Now you know why the PIGS government debt happened

Greece plays soccer ...
Italy plays soccer
Spain plays soccer
Portugal plays soccer

They are all not man

DG says:

02:48pm | 24/01/13

Soccer - the game little boys play when mummy won’t let them play rugby.

Mike says:

04:07pm | 24/01/13

Well Stavros, in the 70s (probably before you were born), there were ‘hard men’ of soccer - VERY tough, nasty men with equally tough nicknames like Chopper, Basher etc. - Joe Jordan, Nobby Stiles, Ron Harris etc. 

Old school men of courage, respect and honour, when the ships were made of wood and men were made of steel.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/135906-footballs-hard-men-the-whos-who-of-the-hardest-men-in-soccer

If these men fell over, you’d get laughed at for being a cissy (then sacked).  If you got tackled by them, you got up and gave them a smirk with a “Come on then…that all you got pal ?” because you had to be hard.  If you weren’t, you didn’t play.

Today’s soccer players (especially the Continental ones) fall over like a house of cards in search of the easy penalty.  That’s why I don’t watch the World Cup anymore, because it’s so full of divers and straw men.

I don’t particularly care for Chelsea, but kicking a boy (not a man) because he’s holding a ball and allegedly time wasting is disgusting.  There wouldn’t be any time lost because FA rules state that the ball is out of play, therefore, the referee’s watch is stopped.

The way you handle it is to stand there and say “Give us the ball back son, stop messing” and wait.  When he doesn’t, the crowd will see it, they start booing HIM, you are the better man for standing there and not wrestling it off him like a bully or a coward.

Badly handled by him - what kind of an example is that to the kids out there ?  If someone doesn’t give you the ball back, you kick him…yeah, real nice and real sportsmanship.

Cory says:

04:08pm | 24/01/13

I love the inferiority complex local sports have about the world.

First game this season, a friendly match I might add, I got 6 stitches just above my eyebrow from a knee to the face. Yeah, real pansy sport. What scars do you have from sitting on your couch drinking beer and watching your thugby?

Mike says:

04:11pm | 24/01/13

Everything else - the game little boys play when mummy won’t let them play Boxing, MMA, kickboxing or a REAL contact sport.  Trumps the lot of you.

JoniM says:

12:51pm | 24/01/13

You can’t really blame Hazard !
As member of one of the richest clubs in the world full of multi -million dollar imported players, and you are getting “bitch slapped” by a puny Welsh team, .......well you must give him some leniency !
How embarrassing !

Wayne Kerr says:

12:21pm | 24/01/13

* the kid deserved the kick.

soccer is happy says:

12:37pm | 24/01/13

I would have kicked him harder, the kid is no soccer player, as all soccer players knows that if you get kicked in the shin, you automatically holds your head

T-rev says:

02:24pm | 24/01/13

Kid got what was coming to him… and, given the fanatacism from many UK soccer fans, I expect he will get what is coming to him when he steps out in public for the next few weeks.

Probably end up glassed at a pub or something

Not Bear says:

12:29pm | 24/01/13

So tough Bear you soft being the keyboard warrier moron

Bear says:

01:24pm | 24/01/13

@not me . I like EPL but they’re still soft.

fml says:

01:03pm | 24/01/13

Come on, bradford!

Rev says:

02:28pm | 24/01/13

Agreed, hope Bradford get up.  But if they don’t, Swansea are more than capable of making a good run at the Europa league with a couple of signings in the summer.

JTO says:

12:37pm | 24/01/13

Chris Judd didn’t even have the excuse that someone was trying to cheat him out of a fair contest. He’s just a thug. I really hate Carlton… I mean violence. That’s what I hate. And Collingwood.

fml says:

02:15pm | 24/01/13

Nor has the real football…

StuieG says:

02:44pm | 24/01/13

Meh, represented my state as a 16 yr old. Captained a couple of years and won the odd GF and most importantly never been carded, yellow or red. just because I think some punk deserved a clip round the ear doesn’t make me a nutter.

Troy Flynn says:

03:56pm | 24/01/13

Sami, it hasn’t been a sport for decades. It’s a business.

Tim the Toolman says:

04:16pm | 24/01/13

No, he deserved a harder kicking.  If it’s going to act like a ball, start using him like one.

Tim the Toolman says:

04:19pm | 24/01/13

“There isn’t a “but” when it comes to condemning and punishing a grown man for assaulting a child, Anthony.”

He was 17, he knew exactly what he was doing, and he was counting on a society like the one you promote to get away with being an absolute tool.  Apparently you can do whatever the hell you want to ruin other peoples lives, but woe betide you should suffer any consequences.

mal says:

04:57pm | 24/01/13

Its emotional adolescents like you that have created this unaccountable antisocial world full of sociopaths .Children today fear nothing especially the law.Have alook at western world to see where that so called logic has got us.Corruption,theft, lies, violence, greed, selfworship .The lazy steal the benifits of other peoples hard physical labour and see nothing wrong with it.A little bit of fear is a good thing, thats how the government controls you[ thugery] is that ok ?

mal says:

04:57pm | 24/01/13

Its emotional adolescents like you that have created this unaccountable antisocial world full of sociopaths .Children today fear nothing especially the law.Have alook at western world to see where that so called logic has got us.Corruption,theft, lies, violence, greed, selfworship .The lazy steal the benifits of other peoples hard physical labour and see nothing wrong with it.A little bit of fear is a good thing, thats how the government controls you[ thugery] is that ok ?

Kramer says:

04:45pm | 24/01/13

Hence the term ‘ball man’ should be used!

Simon Trent says:

07:41pm | 24/01/13

You cared enough to comment.