world cup thread

[Kevin]

The referee is judge, jury and executioner on the field. He can't watch everything, however, so he uses his judgement. If he makes a bad call, such as believing a foul where none was committed, it's just poor luck for the offending team. Arguing with the ref is a fast-track to a red card.

If we included things like video replays, the game would grind to a screeching halt every time a ref has to make a call. Better to keep the game rolling and suffer the occasional mistake.

I'm not disagreeing with the ref's power. I just wanted to know from someone who watches the sport more if the officiating in that game really was as bad as I thought it was. I pointed out the two biggest mistakes, but there were also smaller things, a foul on a high steal where only the ball was touched, a no call on a tackle that was clearly not on the ball, etc. The other games I've seen have not really seen this kind of officiating inconsistency, but perhaps I'm, not savvy enough to see the other things that are missed.

I also would like to know if there are rules for inadvertent whistle in soccer. Most American sports the ref can call back a whistle/flag that they know shouldn't have been called and by throwing them didn't affect play.

As I mentioned the Americans played so poorly in the first half that they should live with the results easily. Had they played like they should have, that call would have taken away their 4th or maybe 5th goal in what was already a drubbing, and oh well.

I'm also not convinced that replay will grind the game to a halt. There are ways to limit the impact. The challenge system that football has, doesn't take that much time. Coaches get 2 challenges a game and if they lose the challenge they lose one of their time outs. So basically it's like using a time out as far as game flow. Of course football doesn't have time outs and the flow of the game is more important but I would think there are a few situations where a limited challenge system could be allowed.

Fans appreciate results where the ref is less of a factor more than they are bothered by breaks in flow or slightly longer games. At least that has almost always been the result in US sports, even with some of the clumsier implementations of replay in college sports. It's not perfect, but I think it's better.

But again, it's easy for me to not be bitter in this case because well you play like crap for a whole half...