The night God handed justice to cheating Lionel Messi and Barcelona

mate not being funny, but what is all that about, first and english lesson mate. the brits also incorperate scotland and wales, not just the english so if you are directing that at the brits you are also having ago at your self. secondly chelseas third team and probably our youth team could destroy your national side. and finally takes a chill pill mate. you obviously have major problems and want to take it out on someone.there is just no need for all that filth, it just shows up scotland when you start like that

video evidence during a game absolutely not....altho the french will claim it did happen during the world cup final..after the game we have alredy.. if players can be punished for fouls unseen by the ref, why shouldnt messi, be punished now? the reason it wont happen , is because spanish football is about as corrupt as italian football....and its run by the big clubs... third party premiums i.e. incentive payments for players of a third club to win a game are common place... calderon , the pres fo real madrid has publicly stated he doesnt see a problem in this.. nunez pers of braca in the nineties said the same...molinero now with malaga, did admit to be paid by a thrid party whlist olaying for athletico...its a bit like sheffield and wigan getting to gether and offering the manu squad a couple of million to beat westham..... i call this corrupt

Hi Donna, For the sake of consistency and impartiality, I hope you wrote a similar piece when Paul Scholes scored with his hand against Poland (in what I believe was Kevin Keegan's first match in charge). I suspect that you did not, but would love to corrected and proved wrong on that. Let me be quite clear as an Argentine, that I perfectly understand the criticism directed at Messi. But it's alot harder to take the criticism seriously when you claim such things wouldn't fly in the Premiership. I'd appreciate it if you didn't make out that the English game, or English players are whiter than white. If you haven't seen English players "cheating" their fellow pros, with dives (I remember Gerrard diving to win a penalty against Hungary I believe not long ago) and handballs (ala Scholes) then it's because you are closing your eyes to it. It's much easier for you to cast our words such as "Argie cheat", rather English cheat. In football, cheating goes on all over the pitch. Defenders tug shirts and of

continued...Defenders tug shirts and often get away with it, Messi took a chance, as Diego did many years ago and got away with it. The same chance Scholes took that he got away with. It would just be nice if the outcry was more consistent. I can accept Messi and Diego handballed and that the goals should not have been allowed. But can you accept that your holier than thou players have got away with similar acts? I hope so. Thanks for your time.

as i said, he got away with to the benefit of his team during the game, but should be banned fro 3 games now , as if he had commited a foul unseen by the ref... the same as any otgher player in any other country what is the problem?...leave the past where it is otherwise i ll start talking about the 1966 world cup final.. ps i thought the article was well written.. amazing what happens when u leave your manu bubble....

Hi Klaus, but why would Messi be banned for 3 games? If the referee had spotted the incident, he would have given Messi a yellow card, not a red card. So if you want to give him a retrospective yellow, then by all means. But then you must do this for every indiscretion not seen by the ref, not just this one because it is a high profile incident and will have more exposure than say someone doing the same in a match between Recreativo & Gimnastic, or Middlesbrough & Watford. Regarding the past, why shouldn't it be brought up? Donna has for example. I don't know if you know, but in the Copa America 95, we (Argentina) were the victims of a handball by Brazilian forward, Tulio. But you have to take it on the chin, we got away with it v England in 86 and Brazil got away with it v us in 95. And England got away with it v Poland under Keegan. Things like this happen and if it is to be criticised, it should be done so across ALL NATIONS, not just picking and choosing when some people want to uphold their high

...continued...uphold their high standards of sportsmanship and fair play. Do you agree?

this is a job not a kick around down the local park. These guys get paid 10's of thousands of times more than the average wage to do one thing...WIN. Messi did a better job than most of his teammates.

No wonder, Argentina, Italy and Germany are really nothing but remembered for cheating and are not champions at all.

alright, i agree that Lionel Messi did cheat. But seriously, i really don't see why this is becomming a big deal. The chances of barca winning la liga is very slim. Secondly, if you're gunna put Messi on the spotlight for cheating you're gunna have to do it with every single football player who dives. That's quite a bunch isn't? Therefore just leave Messi alone, everyone knows, even he knows he cheated.

I didn’t say that players from other countries don’t cheat - including England. What infuriated me was that here was another Argentinian repeating what Maradona did in 1986 and again getting away with it. Except that this time some sort of justice prevailed when Barca failed to win the game. In 1986, there was no justice for England - Argentina won thanks to Maradona’s ‘Hand of God' - when the score was actually 1-1 in terms of legitimate goals. I’d have had no complaints had England lost to a legitimate goal in extra time…but losing to a blatantly illegal con-trick is hard to take. It’s something that has happened to lots of teams and it stinks. The problem is that in reality, the hand of God rarely interferes. In Maradona’s case, it was clearly the hand of Satan!

theoretically u are rite of course, but perfect justice doesnt happen... if the cameras can prove that any player has broken the rules he can and should be punished... the punishment should fit the 'crime' and the advantage gained if any...in this case he blatantly tried to get an advantage...nothing subjective, its a case of blackj and white...he should be banned , otherwise its no deterrent...

tom, you're an idiot, infact, italy's di rossi is the only player I've ever seen go up to the ref to discount his own goal because of a handball.

...did a bit of research... the same happened in germany last season oliver neuville scored with his hand ..ref never picked it up, result stood, but neuville was banned for 2 games...

is that the same di rossi who nutted the us player in germany last year??/

I can see that many of you leaving comments here dont even play soccer or even worst, DONT KNOW ANYTHING ABPUT SOCCER!. i read almost every comment and all i can say is that there are few soccer players reading this article and i am glad im not the only one. first of all, messi is not the first player to get away with a hand-goal, and secondly, soccer is all about winning, and messi tried just that, as many others did too. so im sorry for the people that are used to footballs and tenis' "challenges" or the 900 referees at baseball fields or the slow pace hockey games. Soccer is the number one sport in the world. recommend you start getting familiar with it.

About Messi's handball- The guy was an inch away from getting his head to the ball and therefore punched it in, from then on its the referees fault, hes trying to win a league title for his team hes not gonna think twice about it. Van Nistelrooy set up Real's 1st goal last week by punching it to Ramos as he admitted. Ruud should've been booked which wouldve led to a suspension... missing the Zaragoza match which he won the title for the Real Mierda with his 2 goals

Do you really think it's just Messi, Maradonna, and select few that have scored a goal with their hand and gotten away with it? NO! Soccer is about winning, and if you watched the match you could obviously see Messi didn't mean to purposely hit the ball with his hand, but he went to head it and caught the ball in his hand rather. I think its ridiculous how people are going and call him a dirty cheater. Beacuse if getting a goal called fair when it really wasn't then alot more players than just Messi arre dirty cheaters, such as defenders who make illegal tackles dissrupting a shot and not getting booked on them. I could go on with examples, so really Messi isn't a bad guy. People just want a reason to make him look bad, because they are jealous of all the skills he has.

Its football people

I’ve just remembered something from my childhood that changes my standpoint a little. In the early 60s, I remember seeing Cardiff City’s Derek Tapscott punch the ball into the net against his old club Arsenal at Ninian Park and getting away with it. Cardiff won 1-0 and as a Bluebirds fan, I recall being very amused by it - particularly as the Arsenal goalkeeper, Jack Kelsey, understandably went berserk. On reflection, Tappy’s crime was just as bad as Messi’s. I suppose that realistically it depends if you support the side that benefits from the cheating. But there’s really no way you can condone it.

okay, it seems like this journalist dislikes argentinians. anybody who knows and watches football, knows that there have been many handballs counted for goals. although it is cheating, so is diving. Henry cheated when he dived against Spain in the WC. Cristiano R cheats almost every single game by diving. This journalist has only written a biased article. Messi has skills which will flourish to amazement when he reaches his pennicle. Watch Out.

I truly believe the game i love football will never be the same if refs could use video technology if they felt something did happen but they needed proof. A perfect example is the goal Messi scored against Espanyol. The famous Hand Of God. Even though i believe it was cheating. That is what makes the game intersting. And another thought is that why in the hell do you have assistent refs if they dont help you. Surely the assistent ref should have seen it. I just seriousy hope it dosent come to that. And this is the last thing i will say Real Madrid will leave win the trophy no doubt in that!

I have to say that I agree with Donna on this point. I feel just as strongly about the beautiful game, and hate to see the way that South Americans in particular view this sort of thing - i.e., far from it denounced, a player is held in higher regard if they can get away with this sort of thing. With Messi, there is less than no need to do this sort of thing - he is a prodigously talented player who will go on to great things. Why oh why the FA's of the World do not take a long and hard look at a video referee able to make instant decisions & be in constant contact with the referee, as well as retrospective bans for situations such as this, is far, far beyond me.

as i said in my previous comment.. excaatly the same happened last season in germany... loliver neuville scored with his hand...ref didnt see it goal stood...afterwards he wqas banned for two games on the basis of video evidence....much as if he had elbowed somebody.... where is the problem??....if the spanish fa doesnt react it just shows that the game there is just as corrut and favoring the big clubs as in italy...see my comments re third party payments....