Thoughts on the last week

No big issues I feel the need to blog about today, but plenty of wee things worth mentioning...

1) A rare pang of sympathy from me towards referees this week - Howard Webb clearly made the right decision to award Brazil a penalty for handball on the goal-line against Egypt, but because he took some time and (maybe) the fourth official was involved, a massive stink has been kicked up. It's hard enough to find refs who get the big decisions right, if we now slag them off because of the way they get it right they really are screwed.

Of course, the whole issue would be less cloudy if TV evidence was allowed; replays were shown on the big screen of the incident anyway, so everyone else in the stadium knew it was a handball!

2) Thank goodness for Egypt, who have been the only team at the Confed cup not European or South American who look like they can put two passes together. New Zealand, South Africa and Iraq, quite frankly, do not belong on the same pitch as their classier opponents. It tells you how far Asian football in particular has fallen that North Korea have qualified for the World Cup. There will be a lot of much better footballing nations who will not even get remotely close to reaching South Africa.

3) Tony Mowbray appears to be about as good a pick for Celtic manager as the fans could hope for. And of course the fact he is a "Celtic man" has nothing to do with it...but there is just the teensiest sniff of John Barnes about the whole thing (though Mowbray has, of course, more experience and managerial pedigree); Barnes was hailed as a man who would provide beautiful football, and look what happened to him.

L.