Could the Matildas have been caught up in a conspiracy?

mate your english is fine, better than many native born english speakers.

Second that. Not a penalty.

I disagree on the penalty. It wasn't a clear foul. The Marta's Dive, on the other hand, is famous. She learned with Neymar - or, most likely, showed him how it's done.That one I can agree with you...

My thoughts are that Brazil was the better team in general play and created more opportunities, but the Matildas should still have won the match in normal time when an obvious 2nd half penalty of Heyman being taken down in the box , was ignored by the officials. It was a penalty all day in my opinion ! Then they hit the crossbar ! Then in the shootout with victory a kick away, Gorrie missed the 5th spot kick with a terribly taken waist high straight kick that blew their chances of a medal.

Rubbish. I've watched every penalty kick and the Brazilian goalkeeper was mostly within the commonly accepted limit. Only on the first penalty she was clearly off the line, but she didn't keep that one anyway. Almost every goalkeeper in every penalty shootout is a step or two off the line when the ball is hit. Nothing to whinge here. Just watch other penalty shootouts during the World Cups and see. Just accept the loss.

Yep Matildas have talked themselves up a fair bit. But if you saw the remarkable qualification in the asian olympic qualifiers and the last world cup a few things occured. Despite the hype and quality in abundance in many fast skilful forwards analysis shows Australia rarely control games when playing top 20 nations. They got goals in AOQ at fortunate times...you make your own luck...but you could never say they dominated teams. Indeed most Asian teams, bar Japan, had enough chances to beat Australia. Hardly signs of a guaranteed medal. A chance for sure.But with our current squad that's all it was. The midfield didnt dominate in any game bar Zimbabwe. Errors v Canada, and the two goals conceded via Germany were a Coaches nightmare. Kellond Knight, a great player in the last world cup struggled to match her performances here, she simply switched off in the precious seconds after the De Vanna brilliance and Ford goal. The two eagar Aussies who chased sandwiched and foul the German running to the sideline to retrieve the ball in the 90th minute. Why? It was a Brett Emerton v Croatia stoopid handball moment. Completely dumb and subsequently very costly. Germany scored from the free kick. (Grosseto swept past Bresciano and onto Neil. Emerton, suspended, would never had let Grosetto past him.) And we played Brazil, the hosts, then not France as a result of two moments of our own undoing. We were great against Brazil. The hosts with a packed stadium How great to see the Matildas on this stage. But our midfield rarely kept the ball. Surely we are aiming for better than that. The amount of times our midfield simply passed the ball away. But our defence stood firm. Like in the World Cup, Brazil couldnt take us although they had the better chances. Lydia was outstanding, again. Her save in the last minute Amazing. Her save from Marta match winning we thought. We could have won the shootout. But in the night Brazil were probably the better team. And we with all our creative forwards got few real opportunities. And as the second half against Germany showed we need a lot to ensure we score. De Vanna - despite the rise of Super Sam Kerr and the other forwards its still De Vanna who sets the bar. The tap in for no 1 v Zimbabwe not insignificant but her run and contribution for the second v Germany had me out of my seat punching the air. She was on the bench v Canada. You just wonder. A moment of pace skill composure. And vision. 2-0 lead against Germany. De Vanna will be gone in a year or so maybe but if this was her last world stage what a way to go out. And what pleasure she has given. What skill pace and guts. Love Lisa. I woke up this morning and it still hurt. I knew Gorrie would score but she didn't Why? We'll never know. It was Iran all over again or Italy in 2006. And now we have our Matildas moment. Or maybe its just an Australian moment. If only. In 2006 Italy went on to beat Ukraine for a place in the World Cup semi final The Socceroos so close. And now Brazil will play Sweden for a World Cup Final spot. It could have been us v Sweden. The squad worked well but like any team Socceroos, Matilda or your favourite club we love to hear the managers thoughts. Catley played with significant injury apparently. Why did our best ball retainer Kellond-Knight switch to full back v Brazil. To contain Marta? But look what we lost. Why did we take so many forwards and so few midfielders? Are players that interchangeable? Ford, Logarzo were two who were either strikers or full backs or in Logarzo's case a midfielder as well. Lydia, De Vanna, and Polks were standouts for me. Ford, Kerr and Heyman were great as well. And the defence Kennedy Alleway worked so hard. The midfield was mainly held by Gorrie Van Egmond Kellond Knight ans Simon all worked like crazy especially against Brazil but we never really controlled this area of the field. Not in the World Cup, the Asian Cup and now the Olympics. Medal winners keep the ball. A lot. Germany and Brazil did thus better than us. Maybe that is the key to our progression. We have the guts fitness and determination in spades. We have defensive capability. Germany or Brazil couldnt outscore us. And we have pace and flair up top in abundance - but we'll miss our De Vanna moments - and in midfield we have improved a lot. But this is the key to further success. Do we have the depth?

While I think it's pretty standard for keepers to advance a foot or two off the line during penalties, what Barbara was doing was consistently coming off the line early by 1-2 metres! I'd love to know how far she was on the first attempt. I don't blame her, it's up to the refs to notice it and call it out, which they failed miserably at. They should be dropped for the rest of the Olympics

Yes Guilherme......its called pushing with an arm in the back. Fabiana knew exactly what she was doing in the 88th minute when pushing Heyman over, inside the Penalty area. IMO the Brazilians knew even after the first 20 minutes of how much they could get away with where the ref wouldn't blow the whistle against them, even Marta got in on the act where she could have easily secured a Gold Medal over at the Diving Arena after her performance against the Matildas.

I understanding what you're saying RN, but the Matilda's aren't a minnow; we're ranked 5th which is higher than Brazil. http://m.fifa.com/fifa-world-ranking/ranking-table/women/index.html

Nope. Michelle was already falling. Normal "body play". Again, I don't know if there's a equivalent to that expression in english.

Agree on all of the above, but it never should have gotten to a penalty shoot out if the penalty that should have been awarded in the 82nd minute had of been. Take a look at the replay - it is the most blatant shove into the back of Michelle Heyman who was through on goal. An astonishingly obvious penalty and send off as deliberate foul preventing a clear goal scoring opportunity by the last defender.

Brains Trust - The law states quite clearly that the goalkeeper must stay on the line until the ball is kicked, Failure to do this will be deemed an "infringement" for which the goalkeeper will duly be cautioned, In fact any player who infringes the penalty area before the ball is kicked will be deemed to have done so deliberately and they too should be cautioned. Check out FIFA Rules, Number 14 ,concerning penalty kicks. It explains who and what should take place in the penalty area, Cheers jb

This penalty nonsense is a mere distraction. The real concern is the poor standard of both teams but especially the Matildas. It is tactics and coaching. Rather than build from the back, there are way too many poor passes and wild kicks up to the front with fingers crossed. The midfield was entirely ineffective and often non-existent. I've been watching women's soccer for over 30 years and these woman still play like poorly trained schoolboys. Time for Van Egmond to move on.

Yes. Brazil played well. But it wouldn't be unfair if Australia had won.

Because most of the rules at football are interpretative. Again, I agree that the move was illegal, but that sort of infringement is frequent at the penalty shoot-out. You can see the same kind of "fly" - as we call it - at the men wolrd cup finals of 1994 (Brazil vs. Italy) and 2006 (France vs. Italy). It isn't fair, but it happens quite a lot. About your questions: 1) I don't know if the referee spoke spanish, but I seriously hope not, since brazilians don't understand it. But Bárbara speaks english and, most of all, she "speaks" football. She probably learned the Rule 14 years ago hahhaha 2) As I said, it is common to see officials and referees intimidated by the crowd. If the main referee choose not to call for the infringement I seriously doubt the other ones would do it. 3) There are a lot of rules open to interpretation. When the first half of ET ends, for instance, the players are not allowed to rest or talk with the bench for instructions. This wasn't the case yesterday. The "advantage law" was also ignored sometimes. That's one of the reasons football is so amazing, to me: it is plastic, human and anything can happen. But when my team loses because a flying goalkeeper isn't punished I want to kill the referee hahaha Once again, I'm sorry about the english ;)

I don;t know which rule book you have but every version I have is like this, one does mention cautions but only if the penalty kick is retaken. the goalkeeper or a team-mate infringes the Laws of the Game: • if the ball enters the goal, a goal is awarded • if the ball does not enter the goal, the kick is retaken; the goalkeeper is cautioned if responsible for the infringement

Like others watching this live, I said to my wife that the Brazil goal keeper was breaking the rule about being required to remain on the line. Our Lydia Williams was pretty much complying with the rule. So the referees had clear views of what was happening and chose to do nothing. Did they know the rule? You surely must think so - honestly! Did they choose to ignore it? Appears so. Why? Only an answer that includes the words 'home side decision' makes sense. However, I thought Brazil were better than the Matildas overall and deserved to go to the semifinals.

Guilherme - Your English is fine. In this game the Brazilian team probably deserved to advance to the next round, two "world class" saves made by the Aussie keeper and some stuffy defending by the 2 centre-baclks keeping their team "in " the game, so there is little doubt that the Brazilian team had the better individual players than their counterparts,that is, better in the basic skills of the game, but to see the Rules of the game so blatantly ignored by highly rated officials ,leaves a huge question mark. Nothing will happen of course but for a sport that just recently has come in for a huge amount of investigation at the highest level it is this sort of occurrence that leaves a distinct "bad smell" around a tournament that is under worldwide scrutiny. Questions - (1) Did the referee,a Canadian, speak Spanish when lecturing both goalkeepers before the shoot -out commenced,if not, did the Brazilian goalkeeper fully understand Rule 14, (2) As there was at least 3 officials used to supervise the "shoot -out" are we to believe not one of those 3 were instructed to watch the goalkeeper to ensure Rule 14 was not abused. (3) If this rule had been adhered to the Brazilian keeper would have surely earned 2 cautions and been banned from the game.Why was this not done with untold millions of football fans watching. So Guilherme,we are left to wonder, if the recent high level investigation has percolated down from Geneva to Bela Horizonte and, like millions of onlookers worldwide watching this game, why was such a blatant disregard for a specific Law of the Game constantly ignored over the "life" of the penalty shoot out.??? Cheers jb

First of all, i'm sorry about my english... Being brazilian i do not have much opportunities to work it better. Here is what we think in Brazil: Bárbara, despite the perfect match and amazing finish, did run towards the ball at the penalties. It is, in fact, an infringement. But in our extensive experience with football we believe that it wasn't an "error" or a conspiracy that prevent the officials to call for the violation. It is very common to see that happening when they are intimidated by the crowd. Simple like that.

Finn - In having a reasonably good game, despite coming in for some heavy "attention" from the Brazilian captain,the Canadian referee and her cohorts appeared not to know ,or worse still, chose to ignore Law 14 which states quite clearly that a goalkeeper shall not move off the goal-line until the ball is kicked by the penalty taker, If he/she does move forward,they will be cautioned and the kick will be re-taken. In this penalty shoot -out the Brazilian goalkeeper would not have survived past the first 5 attempts without getting a secpnd caution and the resulting "red" card. In view of the photographic evidence available should this penalty shoot out not be deemed as illegal and the result changed to favour the team that stuck to the rules?????. One cannot help but wonder if your "theory" does not contain just a grain of substance. I was watching the game on TV and said to my wife almost immediately that the Brazilian goallkeeper was breaking Rule 14. Cheers jb