Hosts vs Pharaohs

[GraemeS]

It is clear referees have been told to ease up on yellow cards. Busacca is not a fan of cards and it is clear that referees have been told to only card for foul challenges or instances where they have little choice. FIFA do not want suspensions in the knockout stage. So far there are 52 yellows.
If these games were refereed using PL or EUFA CL card standards there would be many teams without players for their third group game never mind the knockouts
I think the Gazza second yellow still lingers in FIFA.

Which is a completely circular argument. FIFA control the competition rules around accumulated yellow card suspensions - if they want to get rid of that problem, then they should change the competition rules. God knows they're happy to tinker with competition rules when it comes to splitting teams on even points, those are different every time the WC comes round!