FIFA Shelves Frings for Hit
Coach Juergen Klinsmann’s Germany, which has been barreling through the World Cup much like the intercity express trains that crisscross the country day and night, finally encountered a warning light Monday.
It might not stop Germany, which plays Italy in Dortmund today in the first of the two semifinals, but it might slow it down.
Torsten Frings, the defensive midfielder from Werder Bremen who has been vastly influential in keeping the German team’s shape and in bolstering its defense, was suspended for one game by FIFA for his involvement in a postgame melee with Argentina.
Frings was caught on videotape throwing a punch at Argentina forward Julio Ricardo Cruz in the aftermath of Germany’s 4-2 penalty-kicks victory over the South Americans in the quarterfinals at Berlin on Friday. The teams had played to a 1-1 tie in regulation and overtime.
In addition to the one-game suspension, Frings, 29, was put on six months’ probation and fined $4,085 by FIFA’s disciplinary committee, which said the punishment was “the result of the unequivocal television images showing his assault on Cruz.”
During the melee, referee Lubos Michel of Slovakia red-carded Argentina’s Leandro Cufre for kicking Germany defender Per Mertesacker.
Another Argentine player, Maxi Rodriguez, remains under investigation by FIFA for allegedly striking Germany midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger.
“The team is very disappointed about the FIFA decision,” said Oliver Bierhoff, the German team manager who tried to separate players involved in the fracas. “We haven’t seen the written reasons but will accept FIFA’s decision.”
Detailed images of the brawl were first shown on Italian television and then rebroadcast in Germany. Italy’s coach, Marcello Lippi, went out of his way Monday to insist that his team had nothing to do with Frings’ suspension.
“Let this be clear for everyone, no one from our side has lifted a finger for this to happen,” Lippi said. “There was disbelief on our part this morning.”
Some of that disbelief was no doubt generated by Germany’s mass-selling tabloid newspaper Bild, which Monday claimed in a front-page headline that “Italians Want Frings Suspended” and then asked, “Are They So Afraid of Us?”
No, said Lippi.
“Our federation has been very clear about this,” he said. “We didn’t know anything. I don’t know what happened. None of us said a word. If other people want to wind things up for their own reasons, that has nothing to do with us.”
Frings had protested his innocence, claiming that anything he did was defensive.
“I found myself in a crowd of people where everyone was hitting out wildly,” he told the German newspaper Kreiszeitung Syke. “I took two punches myself. I put out my hands to protect myself, that was all.”
Italy’s players said the German team had enough depth to cover for Frings’ absence, with either Tim Borowski or Sebastian Kehl expected to start in Frings’ place.
Germany already has an advantage going into the match. It will have the majority of the crowd behind it and it has never lost a game in Dortmund, going 13-0-1 in international matches played there over the last 71 years.
“Playing in Dortmund only adds to the faith that we will win,” team captain Michael Ballack said Monday.
Tonight’s winner will play the winner of Wednesday’s semifinal, in Munich involving France and Portugal, in the championship game in Berlin on Sunday.
