testmeat photoblog

today is the last big event in the (european) footballing calendar, the champions league final, so it seems an appropriate day for a footballing picture. this was from last months match between cerro porteno and santos and shows an innovation which as far as i know hasn't made it across the ocean. when a freekick was conceeded the referee would walk ten yards and then spray a temporary line on the pitch to indicate the closest distance where the wall could stand. almost every freekick i've ever seen involves the wall edging closer than the designated ten yards, sometimes only by a few inches, and other times to a ridiculous degree. with a visible line on the pitch it makes it that much harder for the wall to seek that unfair advantage. i can't think of any downside and hope that it makes its way over to england. and on that note - vamos barca!

you may wonder why i chose to focus on the fence instead of the players, and if i could think of a reason other than 'i was using my compact camera and didn't have time to change it to manual focus' then i would. alas that's all i've got, which means it's all you've got. here's the original