More on the World Cup

[RS-SquiZo]

hm looks like I and many others were wrong. http://i.imgur.com/QxJvh.jpg

[RS-Zouo]

Fail.. commented on wrong post.

[Rom]

The referees have a tough ass job. The goalie played it smart, and admitted he 'fooled' the referee by acting like nothing happened, and playing the ball quickly.

Watching in slow motion on TV everyone is an expert, and everything is 'obvious'. Watch the offside goal of Argentina against Mexico. Action is QUICK...you can barely tell it is offside in real speed - but in slow mo, or on a stopped frame it's like, oh wow, But again, at live speed, the players and the ball moved so quick, you'd have to watch the action at least a couple times to make a call.

Never the less, there are 3 of them. For the 'bounce-out' goal, the side referee seemed to be close enough...I dunno.

IMO, FIFA will eventually allow video replays for stuff like that or PKs, etc.

[RS-SquiZo]

Dude I would never ever compare a close offside situation with this one. The ball was in by like at least a meter. The side referee (or however hes called in english) HAD to see it. he did have a free view on the ball, the first referee didnt. I do understand that he wasnt sure but as I said, the side referee should have told him.
Quite the same with the offside situation with Tevez. It was pretty obvious in my opinion. Yes the game is fast, but seriosuly.. such obvious situations shouldnt cause such trouble.

[RS-Bocephus]

Skylark, I can only offer you my condolences...


You know know how it feels to support the US team:

Shitty defense allows a horrible goal (or two),

Team finally gets their shit together - only to get fucked by the officiating,

Comeback continues, only to fall just short.                    OK, this isn't terribly applicable to you but I do believe that would have been a much different score had that goal counted.  I still think Germany would have won as they looked to be the better team over the course of the tournament to date, but I think it would have been a much more respectable match.


Here we are nearly two days later and i've finally begun to get over my disappointment in the US performance.  It actually took my wife (who doesn't know a goal kick from a corner kick) to get me on the path to normalcy.  She basically reminded me that I've been bitching for over a month the the US defense is horse-shit so I really shouldn't be that surprised that the defense gave it all away and told me to get my head out of my ass and stop pouting.

I just can't help thinking about what could have been.  I mean, the US is no where near good enough to win the tournament but the semifinals were within reach.  I don't think the US will ever gain find its stars aligned so perfectly:  A very navigable group, that they (fortunately) won and wound up in, by far, the easiest quadrant of the bracket - not a single superpower until the semi-final.  However, even if we had pulled another rabbit out of our asses and came back to beat Ghana, surely Uruguay would have absolutely shredded our defense for something like 4 or 5 goals - those guys have looked very very good.


And, I must say, what started out as a World Cup overrun with bitching about the ball has clearly turned into one of bitching about the officiating.  I mean, this has gotten patently absurd.  It started with the awful red card for Australia in the first match vs. Germany.  It should have been a sign of things to come, I guess, when we then got the the phantom goal-line handball (when the ball actually hit him in the face) on Robbie Findley of the US for a yellow and accumulation suspension, and has only gotten worse from there.  This is unbelievable.  

Lets hope, for the sake of the game, that the final has a badly blown call as well.  Maybe that will be what it takes for FIFA to finally embrace one of the many forms of technology that can help the officials and better the game.  I don't want anything crazy or overbearing - just something that will, at the very least, prevent the type of call that we saw in the England-Germany match.  Personally, I can live with a wrong offsides call (when it's not as blatant at what we saw in Mexico-Argentina - no excuse for that one) as it's a very difficult thing to judge - looking at two places at once is tough for just about anything but a chameleon.  But I would like to see some form of replay introduced on the type of play like that Lampard goal or the one that ended up with Kaka getting a second yellow and missing the Portugal match.  There's no reason why the fourth (or an additional, video specific) official can't quickly view a replay and provide input as to exactly what happened.  I mean, they're already wearing headsets and there's just too many players and too much space for one guy (although he does have the linesmen too) to see it all.

[RS-LoveOfProfit]

+1 All the bad calls are embarrassment.  Its hard to get people that aren't interested in soccer interested when they see so much fail.

[RS-LoveOfProfit]

Hahaha anyone seen the first ep of the new Top Gear season? I lol'd xD
Here's the first part:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYaZ-wy3HJU&feature=player_embedded

ps
It's on topic of the world cup, once Stiggy drives. :P

[chillybilly]

+1 All the bad calls are embarrassment.  Its hard to get people that aren't interested in soccer interested when they see so much fail.

This.

I've followed the US in the World Cup and actually watched US vs Ghana and the England vs Germany game and have tried pretty hard to get vested into the sport.  The thing I am walking away with (other than that Germany seems really, really fast) is why should I get interested into a sport that constantly makes game breaking officiating calls?  It seems pretty ridiculous that these things are happening with the money the sport has and the technology available.  Does FIFA really want their world showcase sports event's buzz to be about the horribly, consistently blown official calls?  I guess so.

Good luck to Germany and I hope Brazil and Germany face each other. I think that would be a very fun game.

[RS-SquiZo]

Chilly this WC is the worst one to start watching soccer.. honestly. This is far from normal. All those referees do a pretty good job normally in Germany, Spain, England, Italy and so on. I have absolutely no idea wtf is wrong right now.
using technology.. well its a question thats quite hard to answer. I mean, yea stuff like that shouldnt happen. But when I have a look at the past, those wrong calls are history. The whole thing about Germany-England is about that wembley goal back in ´66. Lots of other stuff is about if a call was wrong or not. But still I think that in such cases as Lampards scored goal something needs to happen.
A good way to take care of it is how they do it in hockey. Every team has the oportunity to check replays, but only once. Thats perfect imo. There is a similar rule in Tennis. Every player is allowed to call for a replay 3 times a match. Works perfectly fine.
I actually do agree with what the FIFA says about the whole issue.. this is football guys. Controling everything with cameras and stuff would kinda destroy a lot of the thrill. I think I would even stop watching it.. well parhaps.. kinda hard to tell. I love the stories and discussions about this sport, if a call was wrong or not, etc. I love this sport and I cant imagine how much we would have missed without some bad calls. I know that it sounds quite rediculous to US ppl as they are not used to it. But this whole thing is just part of game and it should still be part of the game in the future. But such horrible calls as in this WC cant happen again.. thats just fuckin retarded...
Oh btw.. whats quite funny in my opinion is that referees are giving yellows and reds for every fuckin BS but still its the fairest WC in history lol

[RS-LoveOfProfit]

Adding a 4th (and 5th) goalie at each goal in lieue of replays could work too IMO. FIFA's response again using cameras / replays is that they want the football to be the same for the world cup as it is in smaller leagues. This is a bullshit argument.

Look at tennis. Smaller tournaments don't have cameras etc. But at the top level of sports it should be player vs player or team vs team as in soccer...not team vs team vs referee blindness. In other words, everything should be done to make ref. calls as fair and accurate as possible in order to accurately gauge which team truly is the best in the world, not which team gets lucky with a call. That's not sportsmanship.

[RS-SquiZo]

I do agree that FIFA is not taking care of this problem the right way.. but as I said I agree with them that they dont want to use any technology out there that would help in any way.
but yea I do agree that the better team should win and not the luckier one.

[chillybilly]

I can appreciate the soccer purists who accept the game how it is.  I think putting a chip in the ball would be the easiest way to make sure goal scoring is accurate without changing the game too much though.  Then again, I guess you're telling me that a bad call every now and then is just part of the game.  It seems strange to me because most US sports work so hard to eliminate errors but I understand that with a game that has the tradition of soccer that people's outlooks have been shaped by 100+ (?) years.

Boy, Brazil looks pretty amazing.  It will be nice to see them wipe the floor with Ghanna.

[RS-Bocephus]

Adding a 4th (and 5th) goalie at each goal in lieue of replays could work too IMO. FIFA's response again using cameras / replays is that they want the football to be the same for the world cup as it is in smaller leagues. This is a bullshit argument.

Agree completely...  The only argument that I've heard to date is the one you mention and that it would cost too much $$.  All bullshit.

And I don't see a problem with adding an additional official at each goal line (or standing behind the net if FIFA is concerned about interference) and I'd hope that official was allowed to make foul calls as well. 

[RS-LoveOfProfit]

Oops, I of course meant 4th and 5th referee* not goalie. xD I'm pretty sure people would in fact object to adding more goalies. 

[RS-Bocephus]

I can appreciate the soccer purists who accept the game how it is.  I think putting a chip in the ball would be the easiest way to make sure goal scoring is accurate without changing the game too much though.  Then again, I guess you're telling me that a bad call every now and then is just part of the game.  It seems strange to me because most US sports work so hard to eliminate errors but I understand that with a game that has the tradition of soccer that people's outlooks have been shaped by 100+ (?) years.

Boy, Brazil looks pretty amazing.  It will be nice to see them wipe the floor with Ghanna.

Bad calls are a part of sport.  But even MLB has recently added replay for a very limited number of situations.  If MLB can do it, FIFA can do it.  It's time.

And Brazil is amazing.  What you don't even realize is that this Brazil team is actually sort of ugly to watch compared to some of their teams of the past 50 or so years.  The current coach was a defensive star for the team in the 1990's and has brought a very boring (by Brazil's standards) style to the team.  But it's hard to argue with his results - As of the start of the tournament, they have only lost like 4 times since he took over in 2006, and they play a ton of matches compared to most national sides.

Heard the terms "joga bonito" or "beautiful game"?  Yep, they're referencing Brazil.  But what really separates Brazil from some of the other national teams that play beautiful soccer?  Well, they have the total package.  Every player on the field has tremendous skill on the ball and can score from nearly anywhere on the field but they are also a very physical team when it comes to defending.  They typically use a bruising back line that can really dish out the punishment if it needs to (all while using players with more skill than just about any US player).  Notice how Brazil refuse to allow atacking players to shoot on their goal or even get many crosses off?  Now contrast that to the swiss-cheese defense of the US and you'll see just how far we have to go yet.

Spain is currently the most attractive team to watch offensively but they don't have the physicality of Brazil.  Spain-Portugal should also be a nice match to watch for the aesthetics of the sport as Portugal is usually though of as Brazil junior - and Dunga just recently called them Brazil's B-Team.