Guess it was the Group of Death after all

Nedved deserved better. The Czechs were superb for 23 minutes, then the Italians went one up and killed off the game even before they scored their second.

***

So the problem isn't individual referees, it's the strictness of the guidelines. The problem last time was with the shitty line calls (which could have been avoided with video replay) but that's been a minor issue here. I think in an effort to achieve consistency the refs have been instructed to card players for anything, resulting in way too many suspensions and enforced benchings. Deep teams like Argentina don't suffer, but what's the point of Ghana without Essien? Either the card guidelines need to be relaxed or the suspension conditions need to be loosened.