Absolutely. I wish we had those days back. No incessant replays and no one even knew who the referee was. It is so easy to referee from your sofa with beer in hand and after all the replays from every angle. The referees see it fleetingly and only the once and at full speed and with players frequently blocking their view of the incident and have to make an instant decision and especially if VAR can’t intervene and then fans expect perfection i.e. a decision in their favour.
And I also want to add that on the occasions when we felt betrayed the people in the stadium really turned into the literal 12th man and the atmosphere greatly improved
@StanSB another current issue that @Mascot and others have highlighted about the PL is that the PGMOL refs are predominantly from the greater Manchester area and they have a natural aversion to Liverpool and scousers. So it’s not much of an extrapolation to see natural biases come into play in their referring. I doubt that the majority of the Bundesliga referees originate from the greater Münich area, for example.
I watch the Bundesliga quite frequently and I can readily say that the quality and consistency of refereeing is far better than the PL currently. I don’t ever remember myself getting agitated by foul calls/non calls by refs in PL matches where I support neither teams
ok, thank you. I’m from Saarbrücken, Germany. And what I wrote in this thread stems form the experience of supporting 1. FC Saarbrücken for almost two decades in the age before sophisticated technology.
I mean this is half the challenge. I can quite happily sit down and watch a Bundesliga match and not even notice the ref. They apply the rules and leave their personality off the pitch.
Occasionally they make mistakes, but that is just a reminder that they are human.
Then ignore my grammatical nit picking, the whole literal vs. figurative thing is just one that annoys the heck out of me… I should ignore, but I can’t.
Now, I shall go and educate myself about 1. FC Saarbrücken, because I’m embarrassed to say I’ve never heard of them before.
I’ve said this before, but I wish there was an option to view the match as if one were in the stadium: a single panning camera shot from the middle of the Main Stand, no commentary, no replays, no analysis, but with the full stadium atmosphere, including George Sephton on the Tannoy, and full surround stadium sound (swearing included)
No problem at all, thats one of the reasons I am here apart from my love for LFC - a friendly forum which prevents my English from getting too rusty
Dont bother educating yourself about the FCS. Hopeless case. Just like a woman you love with all of your heart and every fibre of your body who doesn’t give a fuck about you
But then, being a supporter always has elements of masochism in it.
I’m with you but, as a barely monolingual english speaker, I find it helps to remind myself that those for whom english is a second/third/sixth language are doing a fuck side better than I (or you) would do in our second let alone third/sixth language.
