Talking points on Sunday's huge U.S. women's win
by Steve Davis on Jul 11, 2011 10:10 AM EDT
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Rare is the soccer event involving a U.S. team that our sports nation is yakking about – but that I am not writing about. So it is with the Women’s World Cup, which I am watching as an interested observer, but not necessarily as a journalist.
It’s a strange place. So many casual fans know as much or more about Pia Sundhage and Co. as I do, so I simply don’t have anything pressing or poignant to say about Sunday’s huge moment in U.S. Soccer.
I will take a moment to point out two of my raging pet peeves about the game, and about FIFA’s goofy ways. I suppose FIFA is like the U.S. government: it’s fatally flawed, but it’s the only one we have so we live with it.
This business of issuing red cards to goalkeepers and defenders who deny goal scoring opportunities inside the penalty area needs to change, and yesterday was a clear example of why.
I have no problem with Australian referee Jacqui Melksham calling the penalty kick. U.S. defender Rachel Buehler had a handful of Marta’s jersey and then lunged desperately. Spot shot, fair enough. But to further change the game so dramatically is always so brutally harsh.
It’s not that the rule is pitifully wrongheaded, because it isn’t in theory. It’s just that so much is left up to subjective interpretation. Most fouls inside the penalty area deny a goal scoring opportunity, but to what degree?
So, with so much left up to discretion, chance, the referee’s (potentially obstructed) sight angle and good old fashioned human error, this decision is simply too weighty to mete such unrelenting punishment. We’re talking about triple jeopardy here: potentially game-turning penalty kick, definitely game-changing loss of a player and then the subsequent suspension.
I know the argument to this: don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time. But anybody who watches our game knows that defenders do the crime all the time and simply aren’t punished for it. And occasionally, referees get it very, very wrong. (Nat Borchers and Real Salt Lake know about that; last week’s PK and ejection against New England was a ridiculously inept decision and another shining example of a fatally flawed policy.)
This was all brought up 17 months ago as FIFA and the international law making board talked about downgrading the “denial of goal-scoring opportunity” clause to a yellow card. But, this being FIFA, no further action was taken. Presumably they used the time to further clamp down on ethics breaches.
The other pet peeve: this business of encroachment on penalty kicks. (I can only assume the PK re-take in question was encroachment, because Hope Solo certainly didn’t move off her line enough to deserve censure.) I absolutely think encroachment should be called when it’s egregious or when it affects the action. For instance, even one early step inside the penalty area should be cited if a player gains an advantage on a rebound near goal. But that wasn’t the case Sunday. So, again, this is a subjective choice.
I would be absolutely shocked to discover Melksham has never presided over a penalty kick, successful or otherwise, where someone wasn’t in the penalty area early, and where she didn’t decide to simply let it go.
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Steve
I completely agree with what you say on the red card rule. It is one thing to screw a team over by a poor penalty call, it is another to screw them over with a penalty and a red card.
Either way, I now believe in karma. The US played with more heart than i have seen since the liverpool comeback and fully deserved the win. Now, we need the men to play like that. What do you think was more dramatic, this women’s game or the men’s game against algeria last year?
Women’s game X 1000. WC quarters, ridiculous call after ridiculous call, playing 1 person down for 55 minutes, fantom fouls taking out Brazilian players in a heap, evening the game in the 122nd minute (when does extra time go into stoppage?).
This woman’s game featured 2 teams with lots of talent. The Men were vastly superior to Algeria and bailed themselves out on a well-timed breakaway.
Extra time is extended
when the other team is wasting time by falling to the ground 40 yards from the play, getting on a stretcher, and then unbuckling themselves from the stretcher before it’s off the field.
Your First Ever Pinstripe Bowl Champions- The Syracuse Orange
by bigbluethruandthru on Jul 12, 2011 11:20 PM EDT up reply actions
Anyone find it funny
That the Brazilian goalkeeper came off her line on every. single. PK?
God that keeper was absolutely dreadful.
"Oh so if he's not Muslim he just gets a pass? That's called profiling mother and I don't do it!" - Sterling Mallory Archer
I agree
That keeper was wacko. Ok fine, you do your normal jumping off the line on the first kick to see how lenient the ref will be (ignoring the fact that Solo had presumably already been called for it). But after you’ve been caught, why keep doing it? You look like an ass. And as an observer I was much less nervous about the whole affair because I was confident any miss would be retaken until the GK changed her approach.
I'm not familiar with the way the rules are written
If the rule is changed would a red card still be given to the last defender that takes down the offensive player on a break away? I like that rule as it stops the defender from making a “professional” foul. Is that a different rule or part of what you say should be changed?
The rule needs to stay
I agree with Mark that the rule needs to stay. While there are injustices here, just look at the difference in behavior by defenders at midfield and inside the 18.
If a player is flying by the defense it is considerable acceptable tactics to simply take them down by any means necessary and they expect a simple yellow card for anything from a head-lock to cynically sweeping their legs. By comparison, no one does this in the box at all.
We want defenders to be able to make a tackle but we don’t want cynical fouls to halt what is already a monumental task to score in this game.
Where you probably should see some leeway given, I think, is in making a distinction between calling a penalty kick on a 50/50 ball like Buehler and Marta’s without forcing the ref to give a red card. I think getting rid of the rule entirely though would cause more harm than good.
Red cards
I think if they are going to call red cards on defenders, then divers in the penalty area should be getting red cards too.
The fatal flaw in your logic Steve, is that we are the USA
it doesn’t matter what rules FIFA uses. This is FIFA. In every major tournament we play in, there will always be the “USA special.” You know it’s coming. It happens almost without fail.
2002 – Torsten Frings:
2006 – phantom red and pk on gooch:
2010 – among others:
Win or lose, we'll always be there for you.
by johnjahafanclub on Jul 11, 2011 6:29 PM EDT reply actions
WTF?
Did you see some of the favorable calls to South Korea in that WC?
I would say FIFA hates Spain in Italy more if it wasn’t for the fact that the refs were obviously bribed.
Oh I am with you on South Korea man
there was a lot of shady calls that WC.
The bolivian ref in the Korea-Italy match has been documented taking money and whispers abound of Korean mob payments to him to buy the result that match. He once tagged on 10 minutes of stoppage time in a bolivian league match and then blew the game dead as soon as the away team scored the go ahead goal. He was recently arrested in JFK airport with 4 kilos of heroine attached to his body.
However, that was just one world cup. The “USA Special” has been going on much longer than that. During that time Italy and Spain have both won the whole damn thing so there’s not much for them to complain about.
Win or lose, we'll always be there for you.
by johnjahafanclub on Jul 12, 2011 3:21 PM EDT up reply actions
You wonder if the US momentum came from the Brazilian defender fake
I’m forgetting her name at this moment, but she fell to the ground for no reason, stalled the game for a strecher to come out, and then when out of the field just hopped off and seemed perfectly fine. Not only did that spark something in the women, but that also added more time in extra time for Womback to score that goal.
We’ll never know though.
Single, not living happily until the day a Stanley Cup comes my way.
by Henrik_Larsson69 on Jul 11, 2011 8:21 PM EDT reply actions
It was Ericka
the best part was her unbuckling herself before the stretcher even left the field. So, so, classless.
Your First Ever Pinstripe Bowl Champions- The Syracuse Orange
by bigbluethruandthru on Jul 12, 2011 11:22 PM EDT up reply actions
Referee by the Book
This referee called the game exactly as written in the FIFA laws. She even frequently made the players back up on free kicks to the spot of the foul. Beuhler did have a handful of jersey so, pk was correct (by the book). It denied a clear goal scoring opportunity and she was last defender, so red card is correct (by the book). The yellow for time wasting was correct (by the book).
Kudos to Steve, you cannot logically dislike the officiating of this game AND oppose changes to the rules.
Frankly, I’m liking this officiating more with each passing day. If all games were called like this, there would be a LOT less time wasting and professional fouls.
It’s like the on-again off-again crackdown on dangerous tackles in MLS. If you want to end the tackles, you have to pull cards on plays that have not “traditionally” been cards (I’m looking at you, Nat Borchers).
Yes.
And I recall, in this space, a defense of the referee that had a pen retaken 3 times in a recent Portland v. DCU game. That referee called it by the book too. There can really be no complaints about the referee, just about the rule(s) in these cases, as Steve does here.
In these cases it is also well to ignore most of the commentary when the issue in question happened in a US(M/W)NT game. These things happen in other games too (see my comment on France v. Germany below). But the howls come out when our men/women are involved, and much of the commentary is from folks who either don’t understand the rules or just conveniently disregard them in that instance. Earlier vs. North Korea Julie Foudy was upset that a 3d goal was denied the US because the ‘keeper had possession before the ball was struck. Ian Darke, to his credit, made the point that you don’t have to like the rule, but it is there and the call was proper.
You can dislike
if that ref has shown inconsistency. For example, in her career does she always punish encroachment of less than a yard into the box? If not, why did she do it here? If you defend one person for calling it by the book, you need to excoriate every single other ref who allows incremental encroachment or a keeper taking a hop forward before diving to a side.
Your First Ever Pinstripe Bowl Champions- The Syracuse Orange
by bigbluethruandthru on Jul 12, 2011 11:28 PM EDT up reply actions
Barzilian Heads
Also, this referee unnerved Brazil FAR more than it did the US. The mental focus displayed by The US was impressive.
Isn't that the truth!
Recall that their men’s side had a similar problem in WC 2010. They just lost it against the Netherlands in the quarters. Felipe Melo’s loss of composure in particular was shocking, really. What’s going on with the Brazilians?
Look, the basic problem here
is that soccer has two kinds of penalties: unbelievably harsh ones (red cards and penalties), and ones which are basically a slap on the wrist (yellow cards and free kicks). And there is nothing in between.
it’s as though our criminal justice system offered no choices for a sentencing judge between probation and 25-to-life. Yeah, you’re going to get some screwy-ass results from that system. You think? (Oh, and also any crime committed within 200 yards of a school is an automatic 25-to-life, even if it’s stealing a candy bar from a liquor store.)
There’s something fundamentally wrong when criminal aggravated assault carries a lesser team penalty, in most sports, than Rachel Buehler’s jersey-grab does in soccer.
"We don't want our people to be preoccupied with seminude, crazy men jumping up and down who are chasing an inflated object," said Sheik Mohamed Osman Arus, head of operations for the Hizbul Islam insurgent group.
Free kicks and yellows aren't always just slaps on the wrist
Yellows in a knock-out tournament can make players ineligible for an upcoming game — that can have a big influence on lineup decisions and on how players actually play on the pitch. Or look at what happened to RVP in the Champions League against Barcelona.
I’m sure someone more knowledgeable than me has the stats, but free kicks within, say, 25 yards are dangerous against good teams.
But I agree that Buehler’s foul of Marta led to 2 very harsh outcomes. I think they were within the rules, of course (as was the retake of the PK — yes, the encroachment had no effect on the outcome, but to me that’s a reason for the defender to follow the law and stay out of the penalty area until the ball is struck), but the rules are harsh there.
"And Julio Franco is batting right-handed!" -- Wayne Hagin, A's radio play-by-play, mid-80s
Red cards for DOGSO...
…should only happen if the last defender fouls outside the box on a genuine goal scoring opportunity. The reason is really simple: giving a penalty usually more than redresses the sin; whereas outside the box a free kick is hard to convert.
BTW, we get really exercised when it happens to the US team. But it also happened to France in the France v. Germany game. The France keeper was harshly sent off for basically doing what a keeper is supposed to do: put up a last-ditch defense (she just made a mistake in guessing where the attacker was going). The penalty is more than sufficient to redress the loss of the goal scoring opportunity. Instead, we were forced to wait 5 minutes while a new keeper was readied; another player had to leave the field of dreams because of the substitution; and France had to play a player down the rest of the way, despite the fact that the denied goal scoring opportunity was made good.
by DrWeevil on Jul 12, 2011 9:05 AM EDT reply actions 1 recs
