Fifa World Cup 2010

[Jdvn1]

I got you- there was a foul by the Slovenians by the Americans which resulted in the whistle which made the play dead, resulting in no-goal.

...

A penalty in sports is designed to prevent the team that committed it from getting an unfair advantage. Here, the team that got caught committing a penalty did actually benefit.

This.

Though the call may have been technically correct, it was a bad call. There are a lot of "technically correct" calls that refs choose to call or not call--it happens almost constantly. There's an important difference between correct/incorrect and good/bad.

 

[Morrus]

I've never disputed that. I've said that it harms the sport to have a massive, sports-mad wealthy nation hate your product. No matter how successful you are, you can always be more successful. That's why so many businesses are selling their souls to get into the Chinese market. As an analogy, the NFL's doing just fine, but if it could open up foreign markets, it would be doing better. Same deal here.

But surely you have to think about who it would benefit, and who would have influence in such decisions?

Most of the money is at the club level; the World Cup in a drop in the ocean. ManU, for example, wouldn't benefit from a strong US domestic league (it wouldn't suffer from one, either); and the top wealthy European teams no doubt have a lot of influence in these things. But there's always a very strong resistance to change in most things, especially things which have been succesfully earning clubs insane anount of money for decades.

I think the question would have to be: why would the top European club teams and power brokers get behind such a change? You'd need to convince them it was in their own interest to do so. In fact, they might resist the idea of another strong market opening up and poachng the best players.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

My last point about the disallowed goal...and I really mean it (I may discuss this point, but I won't bring up anything else).

What I saw was a pile of Slovenians bearhugging American players moments before the goal. That was the foul, as far as I can tell.

If that is really what the ref called, why was there a change of possession?

If he was calling the mugging of the American players by Slovenians, given where it occurred, it should have resulted in cards and either a PK or some kind of free kick. If nothing else, the Americans should have retained possession of the ball with an indirect kick or some such.

But instead, the Americans lost both the goal AND possession.

Ergo, he must have called something against the Americans.

 

[roguerouge]

I'm starting to think that FIFA's just cheap. The Brazil game confirms my impression that having 3 refs for a game with 22 players is several too few. The NFL has 6. The MLB has 6 for its playoff games. The NBA has 3, although all of the action is occurring in a restricted area and all three can make any call, unlike soccer. Heck, tennis has more refs for just two players! The only sport with parity in the US is the NHL, which has one on-site ref who makes all the calls, although they have 3 goal judges, with less frequent calls than soccer's line judges.

Seriously, adding more refs on the field wouldn't slow things down and would reduce the likelihood of game-altering obstructed view calls. Why, other than tradition, is one ref superior to two or three?

 

[roguerouge]

But surely you have to think about who it would benefit, and who would have influence in such decisions?

I think the question would have to be: why would the top European club teams and power brokers get behind such a change? You'd need to convince them it was in their own interest to do so. In fact, they might resist the idea of another strong market opening up and poachng the best players.

So, because the Americans might be in favor of a rule change of requiring refs to actually announce the calls to the fans/players, it would get voted down... even though the rule change would benefit and harm everybody equally? Can we say we hate having ANY refs in the hopes that they'll add more of them just to spite us?

That's as bad as the NFL owner shenanigans around voting for whatever will harm Raiders' Davis or Cowboys' Jones. One would hope that a congregation of billionaires would have more acumen than that, but then, that's why you have governing bodies and commissioners in the first place, I guess.

 

[roguerouge]

Seven goals? 7?? Against a team that drops back 9? Anyone see the NK-Portugal game, tell me what happened?

 

[Plane Sailing]

So, because the Americans might be in favor of a rule change of requiring refs to actually announce the calls to the fans/players, it would get voted down... even though the rule change would benefit and harm everybody equally? Can we say we hate having ANY refs in the hopes that they'll add more of them just to spite us?

Big changes do happen sometimes - it was as a result of problems in the 1966 world cup that yellow and red cards were introduced - to make it crystal clear to everyone on and off the pitch that a warning/booking had been made.

However.

Arguably the USA having a bad decision against them pales into insignificance compared to the referee missing the blatant French handball which put Ireland out of the world cup - and FIFA didn't make any changes or respond to the issues on that occasion, so it isn't worth holding breath!

 

[roguerouge]

Oh, agreed. They must be feeling a great deal of schadenfreude watching the French fall apart so badly.

 

[Phaezen]

Seven goals? 7?? Against a team that drops back 9? Anyone see the NK-Portugal game, tell me what happened?

Portugal were just too strong, creative and accurate for DPR Korea today.

Here are the goals:

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Really looking forward to the Brazil vs Portugal game on Friday, hoping to catch it at a 3d cinema

EDIT: found a better quality video

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Big changes do happen sometimes - it was as a result of problems in the 1966 world cup that yellow and red cards were introduced - to make it crystal clear to everyone on and off the pitch that a warning/booking had been made.

However.

Arguably the USA having a bad decision against them pales into insignificance compared to the referee missing the blatant French handball which put Ireland out of the world cup - and FIFA didn't make any changes or respond to the issues on that occasion, so it isn't worth holding breath!

And the Hand of God goal and the...well, the list DOES go on.