Midfielders Meghan Rapinoe and Lauren Holiday each received their second yellow card of the Women’s World Cup and have to sit out the China game because of yellow cards. ::: grump ::::
And IMO:
{rant}
Well, the soccer was not all that exciting but the officiating in the USA vs Colombia game tonight, ( USA won 2-0 ) was just plain embarrassing. It would be a real shame if the ref was not made to sit and watch the recording of the game.
What the ref can’t see, they can’t call but to be so biased on stuff that the whole world can see plainly is and the obvious difference between the calls of one side vs the other.
We would hang an under 10 kids game brand new ref for this kind of performance…
Another thing is the praise the players get when they cheat and get away with it. The commentators are telling the kids that cheating is OK. Then when kids get thrown out of a game for doing what the pros & world cup players do, it really messes with their desire to play the game. Plus it gets kids hurt for life when their knees & joints are ruined.
When you get that far up in the soccer world and FIFA, if you are not willing to disregard the laws of the game on their say so, you don’t get very far. A national badge and above, much less a FIFA badge is never going to happen. FIFA corruption is not just about the big money, it is about showing the people two faces that are nothing in common with the game.
Watching really good players is such a joy and the one in a hundred great refs makes it all worth it. I just hate having that black cloud over the game so that fully enjoying the contest is never as good as it should be. { rant over }
Question about the Yellow cards:
What are the chances that Rapinoe and/or Holiday tried to draw a Yellow card now and sit out against China rather than risk sitting out against a better team later, or having to play a little less aggressively to minimize that risk?
I don’t follow Soccer closely enough to know if either or both ladies are more aggressive players and tend to draw more Yellow cards than anyone else on Team USA, but - they’re the only two to have drawn a Yellow card going into Monday’s match, and they’re the only two to draw a Yellow card against Colombia. That seems like a bit of a probability stretch.
Assuming Team USA gets by China, Rapinoe & Holiday are starting fresh with no carryover penalty issues, and if no one draws a Yellow Card against China, the whole team has no issues. Seems like a reasonable strategy for one player, for sure. Not so sure about both. Is this ever done?
It seems unlikely that they’d have done that deliberately. The yellow cards will reset after the next match anyway. The U.S. plays China next in the quarter-final. If they win that game, they go to the semi-final against France or Germany. A yellow card for Rapinoe or Holiday in the quarter-final and they’d have had to sit out the semi-final. However, a yellow card in the semi-final and they still would have been eligible to play in the final.
So, yes, Rapinoe and Holiday will be out for the China game and then back for the semi-final and final (if the team keeps winning). But if that’s what the coach had in mind, it would have been smarter to just not start those two players for the China game. If the U.S. wins without them, great; but if they’re needed as subs late in the game, they’d be available. Getting deliberate yellows, as you suggest, takes away that option.
Getting those yellow cards on purpose is a down side with no up side; everything to lose and nothing to gain.
I couldn’t believe the ref kept falling for the Colombian acting. The difference between this ref and the Australia-Brazil ref couldn’t be more stark – Brazil was diving just as much, but the ref was not having any of it. And, those yellow cards were a joke – there is no way those were yellows. They tackles weren’t especially hard, and it wasn’t like the Colombian player was about to make a break and score or anything. There was one call where the US player had just kicked the ball away, the Colombian player then dives over the US player’s back, and the call goes against the US. How about the Colombian player face down on the turf, holding her mouth like she had been punched. Then the replay shows that nothing got near her face?
I know that soccer fans hate it when US fans suggest changes, but how about this: If a post-game review shows an obvious dive, you miss the next match. If the obvious dive resulted in a card or a goal, you miss two matches? I really hate the diving, and the best thing about the women’s game is that they did a whole lot less of it.
Did you see the PK caused by the foul on Rapinoe? She really did get fouled (IMO), but it looked like she slowed down to allow the Colombians to foul her so US would get the PK.
It certainly felt like the US should have beaten Colombia more decisively than 2-0, given that we’re a better team, and they were playing with their 2nd string goalkeeper, and then we were up a (wo)man and they were playing with their 3rd string goalkeeper.
On the plus side, they basically never had a serious threat to score a goal the entire game. Is great goalkeeping and defense, and tepid offense, enough to win the world cup?
Not against Germany or France, I don’t think. We really were pretty lackluster. Ellis’s coaching has been abysmal - stop trying to force a 4-4-2 when other formations would suit the team far better. And for the love of God, stop starting Abby!
I really really don’t understand the “ref was biased against the US” stuff. The first penalty was close enough to the line that if the ref was actually being biased she could have said it was just outside (not that it mattered one way or the other, thanks Abby) and she called the Colombians for plenty of fouls as well… the US was playing more physical than the Colombians, that’s just how we roll defensively. And Rapinoe’s yellow was not a surprise, I think that was her 5th foul of the first half.
Well, I didn’t say the ref was biased against the US, just that she was duped by all the diving. I don’t think the US dives nearly as much as Colombia (Abby seems to, though), so the way the ref worked, it would just naturally act to Colombia’s advantage.
I didn’t think that Rapinoe did anything card-worthy. Just because she’s been carded in the past doesn’t mean that that particular play was worth a card.
I was kind of happy about that, because I thought the goalie challenge that drew the PK was a solid challenge that shouldn’t have been called. It was simply great goal keeping… also sour grapes since I’m a goalie and I’ve been called for that in the past, grumble grumble
The foul count was 21/12. That’s not plenty given that the Colombians were playing quite physically themselves. The reffing was over-tight and biased. If France or Germany had been on the receiving end of that bias, you’d see FURY on the Continent.
She probably should. You can talk about how you didn’t agree on calls or that refs couldn’t tell dives from actual fouls, but to assert some sort of planned conspiracy or bias (for which I see absolutely no evidence, FWIW) is beyond the pale and goes to the questioning the entirely legitimacy of the tourney - players have been suspended for less.
I recorded the U.S.- Colombia game and watched it last night. I have some more soccer newbie questions.
Why are the noisemakers allowed in the stadium? Throughout the game, someone was blowing some sort of toneless horn. It was so loud, I had trouble hearing the commentary. It was so annoying that I finally turned the TV volume down to nearly mute. Is this common in soccer? If I were sitting anywhere near that person in the stadium, whatever was the source of that noise would be prosecution Exhibit A in my assault trial. I’ve been to other sporting events where they explicitly state that air horns and other mechanical noisemakers will earn you the right to be escorted out of the stadium.
I noticed some inconsistencies in the amount of contact required to earn a foul call. I didn’t think is was biased for one team or the other, but I couldn’t help but think of the recent FIFA scandals. Has there even been a hint that the corruption and bribery extended down to the level of the officials and influencing the outcome of a game?
Nah, she targeted the ball, not the player. It was her momentum from the slide, combined with the USA player who didn’t at all try to lift her plant foot and conveniently lingered on the ground to get tripped, that combined to a borderline call/no-call situation. I definitely acknowledge the controversy, I hear the goalie also declawed and circumcised her as well
