Is it just me or has this tournament been played in a really fantastic spirit?

There doesn't seem to have been much diving, no real squabbling with referees and officials, no great animosity between players and even quite controversial decisions seem to have been accepted with grace.

Could it be that UEFA's "Respect" campaign has actually had some effect?

There's been plenty of diving, but thankfully the refs have been ignoring it.

I can't think of a single soft penalty that's been given.

edit: Just thought of it: Romania v Italy

Well, there haven't been many penalties given at all. At least it seems that way to me. Seems like the refs have been trying to stay out of the game.

Tempting fate, this. Cue 1974-style final, with a penalty given to Spain within 50 seconds of the kickoff and another given to Germany 10 minutes later ...

There's certainly been a general acceptance of refereeing decisions throughout games. It's notable that both sets of players appear to expect decisions to be made at certain times, and accept it when a referee calls it against them. So you have situations when a player making a challenge catches his opponent in a quite innocuous manner, and when the free kick is given against him he understands and accepts the decision.

Michael Ballack is the exception to this.

italy romania wasn't a soft penalty, if a forward falls to the ground and the defender's arm is around his throat, then It's the defender's fault.

There has been some horrendously bad refereeing in this tournament. Refereeing that has fundamentally affected the course of the tournament. Bad decisions at key moments, van nistelrooy against Italy (the ref almost certainly didn't see panucci, he just didn't see van nistelrooy) Luca toni against Romania, Ooijer's handball at 1-0 against france, ballack's shove to make it 3-1 to germany against Portugal etc etc. There was a 2 minute spell in the germany portugal game where the ref missed Freidrich stamping on Ronaldo, and missed Petit trying to break Lahm's leg.

yes, there have been bad decisions. i can also add the foul on lahm in the semifinal - was it a penalty? or free kick? No, play on - but there has been very little of the haranguing and intimidating of referees.
and that is something to be glad of

The referees aren't going to spot every single incident, AIATL. They're human and they aren't able to look at three or four replays from varying angles.

Busacca's performance in the Germany-Turkey game stands out as the poorest of the tournament, but it's a 31-match competition, you're going to get one or two howlers along the way.

As an aside, at the last World Cup there were 28 red cards in 64 games, nearly one every two matches. At this thing there have been three red cards in 30 games -- two for shoves that left the victims physically unharmed, and one for a professional foul.

I think there's been a clear directive not to blow (as well as not to card) unless certain. The errors that have been made have generally been of omission.

Yes, the best officiated major tournament in a long, long time. I wonder if the Holland v Portugal match in the last WC proved a watershed? Someone reckoned, after that, it was time do it another way.

To be honest, the two sets of players in that Holland-Portugal game behaved so childishly that the referee didn't really have much choice other than to hand out the number of cards that he did.

You would have thought that after, say, red card number two and booking number eight, it would have dawned on them to behave in a vaguely civilised fashion for the remainder of the game. But no, they just kept on kicking and shoving and (in the case of Figo) headbutting each other.

Very true what H o H says of that game; the players behaved in a disgusting manner and deserved what they got.

Back to Euro 2008: I said I thought the thing was being played in a great spirit on another thread, and am happy to repeat myself here. Very little playacting, players on different sides appearing to actually get on well with each other, and lots of handshakes/pats on backs/hugs after potentially explosive incidents. Even better, we've seen hardly anything of one of the ugliest aspects of the modern game, i.e. players demanding the ref show a card to a rival. I really hate that.

I agree, and wrote something similar on here at the time. Nevertheless, if I recall correctly, the ref whipped out are card at the first bad tackle in that match and it didn't work, in the sense of setting an example, the fouls got worse and the cards kept coming. He was however correct in his actions, as that's how FIFA wanted officiating done. In this competition refs did a lot more talking to players, especially before the act — at dead ball situations particularly — and it has worked, hats off to UEFA. It makes sense, getting an early card is just as likely to piss you off as calm you down, it also makes you a target for opposition players to wind up. This way everyone can take a deep breathe and let the adrenaline settle.