Yeah, I wasn’t really so up in arms about this call. Although I think he was clearly onside with the benefit of replay, depending on the linesman’s positioning and angle of view on the play, it was close enough that I could see an honestly mistaken offside call. (I myself thought there was a chance he was offside as I watched the play unfold live.) That said, both ESPN commentators seemed to view this as a clear black-and-white blown call, so what do I know?
What pissed me off was the US’s inability to find the back of the net. If the US didn’t go through, it wasn’t for lack of opportunities. Even on the eventual goal, I was waiting for that shot to be completely muffed by the Americans. Thankfully, it wasn’t.
I think, for me, the most relevant point made by the commentators was not just that the guy was onside, but that the officials should, in very close sitautions like that, give the benefit of the doubt to the attacking team.
Like you, when i first saw it on full-speed live action, i wasn’t sure whether or not he was onside. But in a case like that, where i can’t make a definitive call of offside, the flag should stay down, IMO.
I agree with you – I just didn’t find this the anywhere near as egregious a call as the one against Slovenia. This one is at least I could see being a very honest judgment call that the official just got a little bit off.
FWIW, I’ve now seen a replay from an overhead angle and agree that it looks to me like the US player’s left leg was maybe offside, but not the rest of him. I don’t think that counts, so I now think that the goal should have stood.
But it’s nowhere near as bad as that outrageous disallowed goal against Slovenia. All teams have had valid goals disallowed for offside, it’s just the nature of the offside rule. From time to time people propose alternatives to the offside rule, but they all have their flaws. Hard cases make bad law, as they say - that is, don’t rush to change the laws just because of some unfortunate extreme cases.
Believe me, if anyone, anyone’s side was sent home because of a goal disallowed on a call that was close enough to not be proven to be right, the would not simply say “happens all the time, oh well, we’ll get 'em in '14”
And just because some people are crying conspiracy, doesn’t mean bitching about refs must = crying conspiracy. Come on. A small % of vocal people always think everything is a conspiracy.
Not surprising since the game was on during the normal working day - I bet there were thousands of people watching it from work with an excel spreadsheet at the ready to cover it up if the boss came wandering in.
I watched the game and felt England played slightly better than the US in that first game. The stats from the game also favor England, but not by much. However, the US offense just seemed crisper and cleaner than England’s, although England’s defense was better (with the exception of the keeper). But I think the US was better when you analyze all 3 games played. Far better.
A ref very bad, terrible, mistake is when the ref makes a wrong call against some other team.
A ref “distraction” or “error” is when the ref makes a wrong call that favours your team.
A crime against humanity is [del]what Codesal did in 1990…[/del] errr, when the ref makes a wrong call against your team.
No, I know – it happened to my team in the 1998 World Cup, after all, at a later stage than this, when Sol Campbell’s goal was disallowed for… well for something or other. Some foul that the referee saw, apparently. We bitched about it mightily for a few days, then moved on. In comparison, debatable offside decisions like the one that went against the US today are very small potatoes. Even if it had knocked you out, it was debatable, not obviously wrong.
It gets very tedious when any set of myoptic fans bangs on and on about bad decisions. A good example from the last world cup was a disallowed goal that knocked England out. A tabloid newspaper had the great idea of printing the Swiss ref’s address, leading to the ref receiving death threats from England fans. Disgusting. It wasn’t even that bad a decision, and it ignores the fact that England simply didn’t play well enough to deserve a win.
On the disallowed goal in the USA game, you can’t expect such marginal decisions to always go your team’s way. If the USA had been knocked out today, the main reason would have been the chances you missed, not the offside flag.
How would that help? That would just lead to more goals being given when the attacker gained an unfair advantage. The linesman has to use his best judgement.
If you want to complain about bad decisions, fine. If you want to talk about ways to prevent them having such an impact in the future (instant replay, whatever), fine. No-one likes seeing the wrong team win on a bad call. I don’t even like seeing my own team win on a bad call, in any sport, because you sort of feel like the victory wasn’t properly earned.
But all this whining and implying (and sometimes outright saying) that everyone hates America and are just trying to eliminate the US team from the World Cup is pretty stupid and petulant. Also, while it doesn’t change the fact that they were bad calls, in the end the US didn’t even end up suffering for the bad calls. They won their division, which is the absolute best possible situation to be in after the Group round. If they had been eliminated by bad calls, some more moaning might be understandable, but they weren’t, so people need to get over it already.
The continued whining, in this very thread. Complaints like “Looking back, I’m surprised the ref didn’t call the goal back for offsides. There was a US player in the goal, after all” and “There was no offsides on the early (non) goal, so it wouldn’t have been that much of a stretch to make shit up on that one too.”
