Now that the Basketball season is over, all but for the draft, it's time for Basketball fans to find other diversions. In Phila. it's easy since we have the Phillies. But for all Americans this is a chance to root together- the USA against the world in a game that others regard as a religion, but in America only draws athletes not able to play Basketball, Baseball, Football and Hockey. (Various ethnic groups aside)
I don't know how much of you have an interest in Futbol, so I'm not going to start a discussion unless anyone cares. I got into Futbol, years ago when I lived in the UK. It takes a little getting used to the rules, which seem very unrefined in comparison the our professional sports.
If you don't care then in this case ignorance is bliss. Since the US team almost made world cup history today, and was denied by an inexplicable call from the referee. The Americans were playing a match against Slovenia, going in heavily favored. But Slovenia, is a technically sound team and while not as athletically gifted still knew how to play the game the right way.
By halftime the score was 2-0 in favor of Slovenia. That's normally a game over score, teams just don't come back down 2-0. If you watch Hockey, you understand the strategy, just keep control of the ball and play keep away. If you don't try to score, but keep passing the ball around you can sit on a lead in Futbol.
Here you have to give credit to the US which came out like a team possessed. Their star, Landon Donovan started with a quick goal a few minutes into the 2nd half and the complexion of the game changed. You could see the momentum shift, and while Slovenia tried to stay with them as the game went on the Americans got more and more chances.
With a mere 8 minutes left Mike Bradley put in another goal to tie the score, and the pressure ramped up even more.
The Slovenians were getting a little rough at the end, desperate to hang on for a tie, and hoping for a counterattack to win. One of them tripped up one of our strikers just outside the box, and we were awarded a free kick. The play that will be talked out for weeks is a black mark on FIFA and the World Cup, occurred next as the US made a great play and put the ball into the goal. The referee waived off the goal, but DID NOT MAKE A CALL.
Remember how I said Futbol has it's quirks, well, this is one of them. The ref didn't have to explain his decision or why he disallowed the goal. So one of the greatest comebacks in World Cup football, was denied just as that no-hitter was taken away by an ump last week. But there at least fans knew the ump thought the guy was safe. Here we have no idea why the goal was disallowed! No explanation by the ref, and nothing that anyone any commentator anywhere could see on the video to justify the call.
The only explanation I can come up with is that the ref, from Mali, just didn't like Americans. This will probably be the last match he ever refs on a world stage, but the damage is done. You have a sport where they get together every 4 years to see who's the best in the world. Players and Coaches make their living doing this, the best of the best, and then they get a ref from a country without a World Cup team and he gets to rip off the US, because that's more important to him than his integrity as an official.
So you can watch and enjoy the World Cup, but understand that there's a lot of irrational thinking out there in the world and although they try to make it fair there's always a couple of twerps to screw it up!
