Pierluigi Collina reckons Sergio Ramos deserved another crack at the penalty in the Croatia match as the shot he had taken originally was wrongly stopped by the opposition goalie.
Danijel Subasic was in charge of the goal post of Croatia in that particular match and moved forward way too earlier than he should have. His feet were actually ahead of the goal-line even before Ramos had made any contact with the ball.
The soccer rulebook does not allow a goalie to do so and so the save was clearly invalid, but, the main referee or even the linesmen failed to take note of it and it went down in the papers as a missed penalty.
The conversion of that penalty might have given Spain a victory over Croatia. It was one-all at that point of time and it could have proven to be a winner which could have set up Croatia’s meeting with Italy rather than Spain’s.
According to Collina, not always do the goalies happen to be out of positions when the penalty kicks are executed. Most of the time, they remain where they should be and thus, it is understandable why the referee, on that occasion, was not too keen on keeping an eye on the feet of the Croatian goalie, but, because of the fact that penalties are enormously important, a referee must always be alert and ensure that neither of the goalie or the shot taker is breaking any rule.
Collina, the supremo of the match officials who work under the Union of European Football Associations, however also believes that the players should have the knowledge of the rules themselves as the match officials at work can’t be telling each one of them what the rules are.