RateTheRef

Am I the only person to think that Urs Meier was correct in disallowing Campbell's goal? I would agree that England were hard done by in the other examples, though Lampard's goal would have required guesswork from the officials, so it was perhaps unfortunate (And wrong) rather than bizarre.

On occasions, though, England have had the benefit of the doubt - Germans still remain to be convinced that they were not on the wrong end of a decision in 1966.

In a different sport, New Zealand were robbed of a merited victory in the Cricket World Cup - and showed great good grace in the circumstances, while the reported comment of Ashley Giles was rather less felicitous, not to mention inaccurate.

There is a feeling elsewhere that English sport suffers from an occasional sense of self-righteous superiority - and I find it hard to disagree with that view.

The Urs Meier decision was correct, as was the Rooney red card. Also England benefited from a goalline decision in Euro 2012 which everyone seems to forget!

Well then twenty four hours later.

 Was it a penalty last night for England or did Sterling take a dive ?

 Looking on the various BBC and SKY SPORTS chatrooms Danny Makelle  ,Raheem  Sterling ,the England team and indeed anyone who just happens to be English should be banished from earth forthwith for the award of the penalty that led to the winning English goal.

In my opinion yes it was a bit soft but the referees position was perfect to see the factors that led him into the decision but also when we consider what has gone against us over the decades with Hand of God, Urs Meier in 2004 disallowing a perfectly good Sol Campbell header in Euros against Portugal, the "wink" from Ronaldo after Rooney was sent off and the bizarre decision to allow play to continue after Frank Lampard had clearly scored a goal against the Germans in 2010 then it is about time we were at the handle end of the walking stick rather than the mucky end.

Anyone got thoughts ?

Having seen it again I remain convinced that it wasn't a penalty ( unless football is now a non contact sport ) but I am more unconvinced that Sterling dived. I think he lost his balance and as he was going down made very sure to brush the Danish players leg taking a bet that the referee would misread the cause of the fall and give a penalty kick. Sterling won the bet. Was Sterling culpable? No, he was just doing what pretty much every footballer would do in that situation.  We look to world class referees to read such situations correctly. Makkelie didn't. Had he given a similar penalty to Denmark which cost England the game, today there would be howls of " we were robbed ". Sauce for the goose and all that. The Danes are justified in taking up the same cry. I don't think Makkelie was biased, a 'homer' or anything like that. He gave a decision based on what he saw and thought had happened. He was wrong. England were lucky, Denmark very unlucky. That for me just about sums it up.

England's opponents on Sunday have been known to practise the dark arts quite well themselves but I believe Kuipers is a far more experienced and better referee that Makkelie. A little saying keeps going through my mind though; ' what goes around comes around'   We'll see