Cristiano Ronaldo’s controversial penalty towards Ghana has been referred to as a piece of “genius” by the FIFA technical examine group member Sunday Oliseh.
Intelligent gamers ought to get as a lot credit score as new expertise, based on Sunday Oliseh, a midfielder who performed at two World Cups for Nigeria and is learning video games in Qatar for FIFA.
“Possibly the strikers are getting smarter? For those who have a look at the penalty that Ronaldo bought,” he mentioned in regards to the Portugal star seeming to tempt a Ghana defender right into a deal with that was judged a foul.
“Folks can say what they need about this man, however the smartness and the ingenious thought to simply being affected person and look forward to that break up second to the touch the ball first earlier than you,” Oliseh mentioned, “and proceed my leg in order that your contact will hit my leg.”
“That’s whole genius,” he added.
Ronaldo bought off the turf to open the scoring in Portugal’s 3-2 win, one of many seven penalties transformed among the many 41 whole objectives in 16 video games by way of Thursday.
FIFA’s knowledgeable analysts picked their World Cup developments Saturday from the primary 16 video games after every crew performed as soon as.
What the Technical Examine Group noticed was extra and higher crosses bearing fruit with an enormous improve within the variety of objectives — 14 as a substitute of three — coming from huge areas in comparison with the 2018 event on the similar stage.
The 9 penalty kicks awarded within the first 16 video games put this World Cup on observe for a file 36 in all the 64-game event. There have been 29 given by referees in 2018 once they first had video evaluations.
FIFA information confirmed England, Spain, Germany and Argentina had been best at “counter-pressing” ways many gamers routinely use at their golf equipment.