The answer to my trivia question for the open thread: what geographic fact makes Uruguay unique among South American Countries, is the fact that it’s the only South American country entirely outside of the tropics. Kudos to Alex and sublime 33 for getting the answer.
So let me get this straight: Mark Van Bommel fouls roughly and thuggishly all game long and only sees a card for kicking the ball away when he – and nearly everyone else – thinks the game’s over?
You have to admire Dirk Kuyt: definitely not the fastest, not the most skilled, but in addition to his work rate he doesn’t flop around and he has a good mind for the game. His perfect cross to Arjen Robben made the difference in the game.
The worst offside call, by the way, was the call that went against Kuyt in the second half.
Psst, Arjen Robben: a moment of your time. You’re a skilled and gifted player. You’re also six feet tall, yet you flop to the ground far more often than much smaller players. You don’t do yourself, your team and the sport any good by doing that. Stop being so damn cynical.
Yes, it was close, but Robin Van Persie was offside on the second goal. His foot was just offside and that does count. The only part than can be in an offside position are the arms. On the other hand, it was very close and not like say, Carlos Tevez’s first goal against Mexico.
Yes, Stekelenburg shares some of the blame for Diego Forlan’s goal (his third from outside the penalty area, by the way), but the amount of space the defenders gave Forlan was a far greater sin in my opinion. If they do that against either Spain’s or Germany’s forwards and/or attacking midfielders, it will be a long night for them on Sunday.
In two of the games in the knockout stage the Dutch have given up a goal in injury time. While they were fortunate to have a two goal lead at both times, that’s not a wise game plan against either Germany or Spain.
While impressed with Giovanni Van Bronckhorst’s goal, I was also impressed with Sulley Muntari’s goal in the Ghana/Uruguay game, Maicon’s in the North Korea game, Carlos Tevez’s second goal against Mexico and Landon Donovan’s goal against Slovenia. if grading on a curve, I’ll give Van Bronckhorst some extra points for being a defender.
Only three fouls committed and only one yellow card for Khailid Boulahrouz? Come on man, you have a reputation to uphold!
KRK
I’m watching the game replay now and just started the second half. Why did the Dutch player (I can’t tell which) duck his head out of the way of Forlan’s shot when it was on its way past him to the back of the net? Just reflex? Bad form to interfere with whatever the keeper might be doing? Worried about making it an own goal? Wouldn’t you want to throw yourself in front of a shot headed dead on for the goal?
Moonbatting Average
FIFA could learn a lot from the instant replay odyssey that we went through in American football (much like baseball is begrudgingly starting to realize). The new system works pretty damn well, and would be easily transportable to soccer. Plus, wouldn’t it be fun to see Maradona reach into the crotch of his pants for a challenge flag and hurl it at the nearest official?
Andy K
Boulahrouz ain’t got nothin’ on Nigel DeJong, who was suspended today for excessive bookings. When DeJong fouls, he ALWAYS fouls hard.
Bill Murray
Arjen Robben was a whiny flopper (and great player) when he played for Groningen at 17 years old. I’m guessing he probably doesn’t care what people think about him.
I still wonder why Forlan couldn’t get it going at ManU
Andy K
As for Van Persie’s non-offsides call: In real time, from however many meters away, that’s gotta be a tough call to make…Sorta like a third base ump making the call on a bang-bang play at first.
Bill Murray
@Andy K: but at least DeJong doesn’t suck. Khalid isn’t trying to hurt or foul, he just has trouble doing anything else. Look at that back pass that nearly ended in a Uruguay goal, that’s more his style
MattR
@Moonbatting Average: Heh. I was actually gonna post how the second Dutch goal was the perfect example of why instant replay for offsides is a waste of time. No matter which way that was called on the field, it was close enough that replay would not overturn it. And I think that would be the case for 90% of the controversial offisdes calls.
Seitz
This may be true, but ya know what? If I’m a Dutch player, and my biggest concern is maintaining a two goal lead in injury time on Sunday, I’m thinking that’s a pretty good problem to have. I’m going to go ahead and take my chances with that.
Calouste
I’m not sure van Persie was offside. Sure, he was marginally ahead of the defender, but if the ball hadn’t deflected of the other defender, he wouldn’t have been “in play”, and if an attacker is not “in play”, they can’t be offside.
So the question is, does a deflection by a defender put an attacker who wasn’t offside in an offside position? Sounds illogical to me. I can’t remember what the exact rules are though.
Andy K
@Seitz:
Injury time goals allowed or not, they’re 6-0-0 in the tournament. Nuff said.
Calouste
While we’re talking about van Bronckhorst’s goal, can we also have a mention for Robben’s header? He had to move back a bit, but still managed to head it down next to the post, the hardest place for a goalie to get in those kind of situations, because they are primed to jump up when the ball is crossed, not dive to the side.
Tancrudo
It’s kind of depressing when the outcome of a game is so dependent on the officiating. This is not a game that was won by good play or team superiority. This is a result that was the gift of the winds of referee whims.
I expected Dutch players, given the team’s history as one of the dirtiest teams in the sport, to hack, foul, and flop, and was not disappointed. With them, that is. The officiating, that’s another story. Van Bommel clearly should have had a red card in this game. He is a disgrace to the sport, and the team presents a bad image for the whole nation.
Calouste
@Tancrudo:
I think you have confused the teams there.
Joseph Nobles
OT, OT, but goddam.
Three little girls in the summer heat give away lemonade. A conservative columnist stops by, gives them a lecture on free-market economy, and then writes a Sun-Times column stating that they are what’s wrong with America. Terry Savage, suffer the little children to give you an effin’ cup of lemonade already. Jesus wept.
That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal (JMN)
There were bad calls that went both ways in this game. Van Persie may have been offside on the goal, but, as Our Esteemed Leader pointed out, Kuyt had a hell of a scoring chance taken away by a more egregious call. Uruguay got a dangerous free kick after a Dutch defender got all ball on a tackle. These things happen. (Van Bommell being a hack I’ll readily concede, though I wouldn’t be so sure to rush to the idea that he would have been red carded; if the ref shows him a yellow early on, he probably plays differently. Who knows what would have happened.)
On thing I think sports fans need to understand is that there really are three states that play can be in, not two. In addition to “legal” and “not legal (or “fair” and “foul”, or “offsides” and “onsides” or an ynumber of others), there is also the state of “maybe legal, maybe not legal”. If a play was so close to being one thing or the other that the best people in the world at telling the difference*, then it could have gone either way. At some point, people have to let go, and find for themselves a state of mind of “It was the wrong call, but these things happen.”
Sneijder’s goal today fits into that category. It was not only close, but there was no advantage gained by being offsides in that instance. Had van Persie been the couple of inches farther back required to be onside, the outcome would almost certainly have been the same. So we have a situation in which the infraction was so small that it both provided no advantage and was beyond the ability of the official to be able to see. This goes double if it’s the case that a linesman is supposed to give the benefit of the doubt to the attacker; how he could have watched that play and not had some doubt that he was offsides is beyond me, given that we’re still having the debate.
None of this is to say that all bad calls are excusable or that we shouldn’t work to improve them. Some calls are so bad that they are evidence of incompetence. (That evidence is refutable, of course, as a look at Jim Joyce’s entire body of work demonstrates.) Those need to be credited against an official.
I loathe instant replay to the bottom of my heart, but there are other things to be done. One thing that seems clear to me from having watched this tournament is that soccer needs a few more officials on the field. Someone at each end whose sole job is to determine whether the ball is in the net would be a good place to start. As for the ref, I’m actually impressed with their overall ability to call a game. That pitch is, what, 110 yards by 60 yards? There is one set of eyes out there to call the fouls over the whole thing. (I am, as yet, unclear just what the assistants are allowed to call.) That they get foul calls as correct as they do is pretty amazing to me.
Beyond that, if there are things that need to be differentiated to a degree beyond the capabilities of human perception, find some other way to do it. Instant replay is a stupid way to do this. Having sat for 10 minutes during the third period of an NCAA championship hockey game waiting for the ref to make a decision on whether a puck was kicked in, and then having him still get it wrong, indicates to me that it doesn’t work. I do, however, think that we need to be heading towards having balls and strikes called electronically; basic physiological research has shown that, even if human beings were capable of making the distinctions necessary, the human eye can not track a baseball at 95 mph the entire way to the plate; the ability to refocus is overwhelmed for about the last fifteen feet. No umpire can call balls and strikes truly well. Our choices are to learn to live with it, or find a non-intrusive way to hand it off to technology.
Which is really the whole point of this entire, ridiculously long, rant.
*Which, in most cases, I think refs are; if a particular call gets botched routinely at the top levels, that tells me not that the refs are are incompetent, but that the distinction they are being asked to draw is too fine for human perception.
SRW1
Maybe ‘the Cannibal’ he has mellowed a bit after the death of his prematurely born daughter Anissa in 2008. Tragedy can do that to you.
Ash Can
@Joseph Nobles: Terry Savage has been a business reporter in Chicago for a long time. It sounds like she’s ready for retirement.
SRW1
@That’s Master of Accountancy to You, Pal (JMN):
As for the ref, I’m actually impressed with their overall ability to call a game. That pitch is, what, 110 yards by 60 yards? There is one set of eyes out there to call the fouls over the whole thing. (I am, as yet, unclear just what the assistants are allowed to call.) That they get foul calls as correct as they do is pretty amazing to me.
The assistants aren’t allowed to call anything, they are only allowed to assist the referee by signaling with their flag. Ref and assistants, plus the Number 4 guy on the side line, are in constant contact through headsets though. There’s an interesting documentary called ‘Referees at work’ about the refereeing at Euro 2008. An online version of that documentary is accessible free of charge on the intertubes.
altus
Van Persie was level. And anyway, refs have been told for at least the last four World Cups that the benefit of the doubt goes to the attacking player in offside calls
Seitz
@That’s Master of Accountancy to You, Pal (JMN):
To this I would add that if your off-side trap is working by merely a couple of millimeters, you’re really just getting by on luck anyway, and the call going “against” you is really no great injustice. It’s not like the the Uruguayan defense did a great job of baiting Van Persie into an off-side position, nor did he take advantage of that position to any great effect.
handsmile
Far too much spleen has been vented and ink (both wet and virtual) split on debating inconsequential technological matters in this World Cup, e.g., the aerodynamic properties of the Jabulani ball; the merits of goal line monitoring systems.
As demonstrated once again in yesterday’s match, the paramount issue should be to ascertain whether state-of-the-art materials science and stealth technology have been incorporated into the design of Mark van Bommel’s boots. Such cutting-edge manufacture would explain the referee’s astonishing inability to detect lunging tackles, flailing kicks to opponent’s body parts, persistent trips and jabs. Players wearing conventional footwear are regularly booked for these and far less aggressive infractions. (Consider as well that van Bommel’s first booking occurred only after the referee noticed the ball skittering away merely from the direction of the Dutchman after a dead ball whistle had been blown.)
Just imagine the revolutionary changes to the sport we love if the trade secrets of the “van Bommel boot” were released to mass production.
Far-fetched, you say? Sun stroke, you say? Do you have a better explanation for the invulnerability of the Dutch midfielder?
On one other topic: Nominations for “Goal of the World Cup” are a delicious exercise for reliving moments of spectacle and wonder. Randinho’s selections above are all superb candidates. My own entry: the 30-meter missile launched by South Africa’s Siphiwe Tshabalala that auspiciously opened scoring in this tournament.
Tancrudo
@Calouste:
You must not have watched Holland vs Portugal in 2006. See any familiar faces?
ThresherK
That pitch is, what, 110 yards by 60 yards?
The “stripes” appeared to be 6 yards each (5 for the four on each side of the midline, making the 10-yard circle), I idly counted 116 yards.
PS What is the actual letter of the law for offsides? American football’s is “any part of the body touches the plane”; they show it and describe it about once every four snaps. But in soccer, what? I like the freezeframe, but what am I looking for?
Randy Paul
@ThresherK: When the ball is delivered to an attacking player from a teammate and he is in the opposite team’s half of the field, no part of his body that may legally make contact with the ball can be ahead of the second to the last defender.