6 Mar 2008(Thu)

March 5, 2008: In near flawless English, Antlers manager Oswaldo Oliveira is a quote machine for the media after every match.

He was in particularly fine form on Saturday after the Xerox Super Cup, or the Xerox Super Mess as one English-language newspaper so fittingly described it the next day.

Amongst Oswaldo's cutting observations was the role of television in such controversies; or, rather, the lack of it -- a subject I have written about before as the approach of the TV stations here differs vastly to England and, presumably, most other countries.

Oswaldo pointed out that controversial incidents were often "passed over" and the coverage simply "jumped" to the next moment. No slow-motion replays. No analysis. No debate. Who was right? Who was wrong?

In Saturday's match, the sports news shows had a feast of fouls to dissect and devour, from the red cards to disallowed goals, from the penalty award to the retaken kicks (on both sides) and, of course, the rare pitch invasion.

Wouldn't it have been entertaining, educational even, to see those moments replayed and replayed from different angles in the weekend football shows; not just to show the referee may have been wrong on occasions (Kubo's penalty), but also to show he or his assistant was right, such as Tashiro's disallowed goal in the first half when clearly the flag was up for offside against Araiba before he crossed the ball. It wasn't Tashiro who was offside.

Many decisions look wrong or harsh on first viewing, but replays often prove the officials to be right. On a few occasions this season, for example, I have heard the colour commentators on the English Premier League apologise to the ref and admit he did, in fact, make a great call.

The controversies came so thick and fast on Saturday that it was difficult to understand what was going on, so a thorough debate and analysis by the TV pundits would have shed some light.

It never came -- and the repeat of the match I saw on the G+ Channel in the early hours of Sunday morning ignored the post-shootout melee to focus on a hero interview with Hisato Sato, completely missing the drama and the theatre unfolding behind them.

Oswaldo was trying to be fair to both sides in his assessment, saying he thought the red card for Sanfrecce was unfair, too, while pointing out that the Sanfrecce keeper had advanced off his line more for the penalty misses of Danilo and Motoyama than Sogahata had in saving from Stoyanov and Saito.

Ideal topics for debate and for conclusions, but they were "passed over" -- as Oswaldo would say -- on everything I saw later on Saturday and Sunday.

ends