Our English director Graham Poll was one of the busiest game directors of the first decade. He passed the exam at the age of 17, and played in the English Premier League from the age of 30. He conducted a total of 1544 meetings, but of these, one of the most remembered is the world. At the 2006 World Cup, his fate led to the match between Croatia and Australia, where he gave the player three yellow cards in a completely stupid way. And FIFA wanted to expose the stupid poll decision to escape.
After the group draw at the 2006 German World Championships, Group F had one of the smoothest matches. This is where the Croatian national team traveled from Brazil and the big Western European clubs to Japan and Australia. In other words, it seems implausible that the top two wouldn’t make it to the top 16. Of course, their 1-0 loss to Brazil in the first matches did not shake the confidence of the Croats, of course they would have improved if they had started with another team. Problems did not start at that time, but when they could not score a goal against Japan, although players such as Luka Modric, Ivica Olic, Ivan Klasnik and Niko Kranjcar participated in the Croatian teams.
Croatia-Australia 2-2 (1-1)
January 22, 2006, Stuttgart, 52,000 NZ. Led by: Poll (Sharp, Turner) – English.
Croatia: Plitikusa – de Simic, Tomas, Simónik – Srna, IN. Kovac, Tudor, Babic – In Krangkar – Ulic, Preso
National Captain: Zlatko Kranjkar
Alternative: J. Lecco instead of N. Kranjar in the 64th minute, Modric instead of Olic in the 74th minute, Klasnik instead of Thomas in the 84th minute.
Australia: Kalac-Neill, Moore, Chipperfield-Emerton, Grella, Sterjovski, Culina -T. Cahill, Kewell – Viduka
National Captain: Guus Hiddink
Substitutions: Aloise instead of Grella in the 63rd minute, Bresciano instead of Stergowski in the 70th minute, and Kennedy in place of Chipperfield in the 76th minute.
Glszerz: Srna (1-0) II, Moore (from 11, 1-1) 39, N. Kovac (2-1) 56, Kewell (2-2) 79,
Yellow Card: D. Simic at 32, Tudor at 38, Simunic at 63, Pletikosa at 70, Emerton at 81, Simunic at 90th
Dead: De Simic in the 85th minute, Emerton in the 87th minute, Simonic in the 93rd minute
Croatia could win in the group stage against Australia with one point, while the opponent got three, because (in addition to the paper defeat to Brazil) he defeated Japan. In the last match, the match was simple: if Croatia beat Australia, they would qualify, otherwise Austria would go to the eighth round next to the CMVD.
It was an individual confrontation, and the European team showed it already in the second minute, when they took a free kick from Darigo Serena. In the seventh minute, the national team for the fifth continent could have equalized, but a mistake by Josep Simonic dropped Mark Vidoc in the 16th minute, and the English manager, Graham Pole, did not see any irregularities.
If the Hertha Berlin defender was punished for his move, he should have been given a yellow card for the case, but this was not done. Let’s say: It was Paul Simonek’s first dramatic (or tragicomedy?) act of the day.There was more to her.
Before that, Australia equalized with a penalty, then Niko Kovac, who was playing in Germany at the time, put Croatia in a position to take the lead again after a foul by goalkeeper Kalach. Today, in the 80th minute, Australia was already second in the group, thanks to the Liverpool footballer, Harry Kewell. At that time the score was 2-2, and this was also the final score of the match.
After that, anger prevailed, but the last few minutes were mostly unforgettable because of Graham Poll.
Before we go back to an earlier event in the Poll-Simunic Standard. The second act in this strange game came in the 63rd minute. Harry Kewell was sent to the ground by Simunic when he pushed him by the neck. It wasn’t as serious a disorder as it sounds, and it’s not even certain it was a crime. Poll did so and gave him a yellow card, and Simunic protested loudly, and even went to the queuing wall, moving away from the captain, his descendants said. It came as no surprise to anyone that Graham Ball showed him the yellow card.
This was followed in the 85th minute by Croatian Dario Simic, and in the 87th minute by Austrian Brett Emerton who got a second yellow, which automatically means red. They both took note of the decision and went down the stairs. At that point, there were still four minutes left in the game, and we got to the 90th minute, When Simunic received two yellow cards in the third minute and two yellow cards within 10 metres, he was still able to continue the match. Near the goal, he takes the opponent’s club hand and returns it, then hits another hand with his hand and foot on the club’s club. In the latter case, Poll, who was one meter away, only gave yellow, but this was also Simunic’s second target in this meeting.
He didn’t even complain, but turned around and headed downstairs. He was very surprised that he didn’t get a red card. Mark Viduka of Austria asked the referee if the opponent had already received a yellow card but received a negative answer. And Simonic’s brain was thinking that maybe if he didn’t speak up and carried on with the match, his score might win the match due to a subsequent foul.
The match ended in a 2-2 draw. In addition, the ball went to the Croatian goal, but the referee did not shoot due to lack of control (it is not certain that he made the right decision) and scored a goal. Then Simunic went to Graham Poll and said something to him.Then the brother showed him yellow for the third time (the second according to the reading of cowardice) and then changed it to red. Fans can watch the match anywhere in the world, as if unaware.
In Hungary, Zolten Heaththey broadcast this match on Sportklub. He is currently the director of Spler TV, and he still remembers those moments from 16 years ago:
We commented on the events not from a local perspective, but from a Budapest studio, and we also saw the same series of cameras, the so-called international broadcast. After the second yellow card was handed, along with World Television, we saw Simunic just reacting as if he had just been sent off, looking up, throwing a big card, and then the broadcast showing the offence. We did not even pay attention to the translation, I always followed the matches well. Lszl Nagy was the expert commentator next to me on the broadcast, at the same time we started to think what this game would mean for the Croatians in the last few minutes, who had to score a goal to get ahead. Moments later, we saw a photo session, and she commented to the team that Simonic was still on the field, which he couldn’t have, because he had just received his second yellow card. Then, miraculously, he took part in the next procedure, at which point his first reaction was to audition. Do I put yellow pages on my paper? Maybe I missed something? Deep down, I felt that something bad had happened here, the World Championships was my last chance in the career, I had prepared day and night for all my matches, and suddenly I couldn’t believe that my concentration might have let me down in such a state.
The situation was complicated by the fact that at that time there was no advanced IT system that would provide commentators with second minute data, as there is today, so it took a while before we could check ourselves in the background and reassure us. We have not seen ghosts, Graham Ball himself explained.
After the meeting, I had to wait a very long time for the minutes online quickly to arrive in the store. Publicly, the authorities also recognized the undeniable truth. They were actually deliberating about how to salvage the unsalvageable. Finally, they found a solution through a hoax: the yellow card Simunic received in the 90th minute (it was his second) was deleted from the scorebook.This solution may have worked at the 1930 World Cup, but when more than sixty cameras broadcast a soccer match in 200 countries around the world, to more than a billion people, it didn’t.
It was a poor attempt and, as everyone expected, it yielded no results. Since the world saw the second yellow card, and there was no one near Simunic, that is, it was not possible to try the usual explanation that he received something else, perhaps a complaint.
In this World Cup, there were already 5 Leaders in the meeting, not many of them saw what others in the world saw. After the summit, Paul, the two English assistants Phil Sharp and Glenn Turner, American fourth brother Kevin Stott, and American fourth brother George Barkey, were together on the leadership team. They checked their notes, but no one close to them had three whistles beside Simunic’s name. On the other hand, he was wearing a three-point shirt from Austria, next to Craig Moore’s name, and there was a yellow page in the survey notebook. We’ll come back to this later, but for now the assistants thought they misread something, and were too confident in our heads.
Who knows when they could have made a big mistake, if one of the FIFA leaders had not intervened and immediately took them all with him. There was no need to really prove anything, because the whole world saw the brother. Graham Ball immediately asked to leave Germany in the first car.After the International Federation officials began to participate, they came to the conclusion that this certification should be explained at the highest level. So the next day, our president at the time, Sepp Blatter, addressed the audience personally with the following sentences:
I can neither understand nor forgive what happened. He has a close relationship with his team, but such a review can happen to all of them. I hope our leadership committee will take the necessary steps.”Of course, after the initial confession, everyone was bold. Graham Ball did not comment on the matter for a long time, in agreement with him, it was said The first yellow card was accidentally handed not to the Croatian trio (Simonek), but to the Austrian trio (Craig Moore). Obviously this happened, it made the poll itself today more ridiculous with more explanation than wrong. Because he saw in his later notes that Simunic spoke English with a strong local accent (he was born in Australia and raised there, so he’s nicknamed Aussie Joe), and this tricked him. This might be a silly argument, but in Australia the Graham Poll language is spoken (well).
Horvtorszg did not take it, because she took advantage of the situation, but he could not live with it. The case would have been more interesting if Hrvtorszg had come forward, because Graham Poole – let’s call it that – inattention would be an entirely different matter.
Australia reached the top 16 in dramatic fashion. In the 95th minute of the original time, 0-0, Italian Fabio Grosso fouled Lucas Niel in the 16th penalty area, and sent the Austrians home with their eleventh penalty kick.
Australia-Croatia manager Graham Ball was no longer in charge of the World Championships at that time. He was one of the three professional World Cup leaderboards. In other words, he didn’t have to work on weekdays, he could focus on training during the whole playing period. According to Mick Dennis, Treasurer of the Book, this is because of this fact It was the first opportunity to make the decision, because FIFA wanted to prove that the future is professionalism even in the case of referees.The survey was never awarded a major international award again. After the World Cup, he was still able to lead the European Championship qualifiers, Poland and Serbia, but he did so mainly so as not to be associated with the memory of that Croatian-Austrian team. He was 43 years old at the time, so he had time. But after this decision, he could no longer claim a place among the best players in the world.
