What is the purpose of sports if the players of a particular sport disgrace the sport and turn the sport into a mockery of macabre theater? Getting injured in games is a sad part of sport. No one wants to see injuries, and when we do, we pause. We hope the player is okay; we make sure the injured player gets medical attention immediately. In soccer, where the clock runs continuously and there is added injury time, injuries directly influence the length of the game. Today, Brazil tried to manipulate the rules and destroy the honor and integrity of the sport when Erika of Brazil faked an injury, wasted over four minutes of game time (not to mention the time of millions of viewers), and then hopped up moments later and sprinted, showing us that she was not injured in the first place. Some people believe the player got her due when given a yellow card. But what force does a yellow card have with moments left in a game? Very little. The only way FIFA can appropriately respond to injury faking in order to milk a clock is to force all injured players off the field. Once off the field, they are not allowed to return for at least five minutes. Substitutes are allowed immediately (if the player really is injured). Most importantly, FIFA needs to have an injury clock. This would be an official clock that would start whenever play is suspended for an injury. But to prevent injuries from being faked, double the amount of time taken off the clock for an injury would be added to injury time. Cheating should never be allowed to benefit a team. Even though America prevailed today, Brazil benefited from cheating the clock. America very well may not have scored a goal as a result of Brazil's fake injury wasting the clock (4+ minutes wasted by the fake injury while less than 3 minutes of added time were given).
Every team does it to kill time. Erika went a bit overboard, and picked the wrong time, should have played a cramp.
Soccer is supposedly a sport that emphasizes the "spirit of the game." If true, cheating should not be allowed to benefit the offending team. If all teams do it, that means action should be taken immediately.
Here you go please tell me where in this you can interpret that she should have gotten a red card http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/affederation/generic/81/42/36/lawsofthegame_2010_11_e.pdf I'll even help you out sending-off offences are on page 35
Wholeheartedly agree. It was so blatant, it was a shame. Should have gotten the red. But of course the old folks at FIFA are too busy counting their bribery money
Like I said in my first post, FIFA needs to change its rules so that cheating does not benefit the cheating team. Even a red card in that situation does not bring justice to the situation. So the Brazilian player wastes nearly five minutes and gets a red card with only a couple of minutes left in the game. How is that fair? It's not. The way to bring justice to this situation is to create rules that prevent fake injuries for the purpose of wasting time. Keeping track of injury time at the last 10 or 15 minutes of a game, and doubling that injury time, would prevent fake injuries. The NFL had a similar problems years ago. What did they do? All injuries in the last few minutes of a half require at least a ten second run down of the clock. What happened? Fake injuries for the purpose of wasting time disappeared. Soccer needs to respond with similar effectiveness.
No instead what it did was add time which allowed time for Abby to score so I think the rules are just fine. Your arguement is a bit weak bro or do you lack the understanding of what extra time is for? Also then does the US tactic of going to the corner and sitting on the ball there count as cheating because it's a time wasting tactic? Also is this the first game you've ever watched because the whole rolling in pain thing is quite common as well as taking your sweet time coming off in a substitution is quite common for many years and the refs understand this which is why they add on time. Just curious. Also you even say that a red card would get that time back so why even bother with it.
Although I have heard countless times that the women's game is a purer form of the sport, unfortunately every sport will see players pushing the rules to the limit. It's up the the referee to keep the cheating equal on both sides. I don't think she did in this case, but that's probably because I'm a homer.
How didn't she? She gave calls to Abby when she went down a bit easy and added on time when Erika faked her injury that allowed the US to score. Overall it worked out pretty well in our favor.
There was no justice in the fake injury. Get a stop clock. Watch the fake injury. That fake injury takes off 4:38 from the clock. The referee only gave 3 minutes of extra time. If the referee had given 5 minutes of extra time, that would have been fair, though, Brazil would not have been punished for cheating. That America scored 2 minutes into extra time misses the point entirely. This is about preserving the integrity of the sport, which was attacked by the Brazilians.
OK, let's look at a different way, Brazil has several better players and overall better ball skills, but the USA is able to play the team game better. IOW, I think the better team won and the the officiating was more or less equal. You may have missed my point a little bit. All teams try to play the ref, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't and sometimes it comes out even. We won, we're on to the semis, the sun is shining, the birds are singing and all is right with the world, until Wednesday when the referees are against us again.
Dumb, emotionally charged post. No where in the rule that says a red for time-wasting. It is a strategy employed by every player on every team when they are tired or pushed. The US does it as much as anyone else. The one person who should have seen red is Lloyd. Her deliberate hand ball clearly warranted a second yellow, thus a red. This is actually the only clearly egregious miss by the ref in the entire match.
I have zero emotion. If you read the post, the point is justice was not done. And in order for justice to be, FIFA needs to change its rules regarding fake injuries and time wasting. The red card title was simply a way to get your attention.
Naw I understood your post maybe you weren't quite as clear as you maybe intended but your point stated that the ref's job was to balance out the cheating and that you didn't think she did and allowed the Brazilians to cheat more than the US. I was pointing out all the parts where we broke the rules and she let it slide as well as how she adjusted the rules to balance out the cheating which allowed us time to score so in this case it is where it comes out even. I agree we won lets move on the Wednesday (I'm not going to agree with you on the referees are again us part because that's a bit pathetic, not calling you pathetic just the mindset that the referees are against us thing or that we got hosed by the refs it's how losers think).
So much of this could be resolved if Fifa adopted a simple rule. Your butt hits the stretcher and your done. You have to leave. If you are so injured that they have to bring it out...you shouldn't be playing. The minute they strapped her backside down she should have been out of the game. I think with the adoption of that simple rule, the number of people requesting the stretcher and the on/off field antics will drop off exponentially.
FIFA just has to adopt a rule similar to the NFL. Any injury in the last 10 mins of the 2nd half of regulation or the last 5 mins of OT, the injury minutes will be put back on the clock or just stop the clock. In that case, Erika wouldn't have bothered, and maybe Brasil would have won. Seems like it backfired.
It really did. The game was theirs to lose and they did it. Would love to hear reaction from Team Brasil about what went down.
Humm that's an idea, I wonder what we could call it...Hey how about we call it "injury time"! Oh...Shoot...wait a second... So with the stop the clock idea do we only stop for injuries or do subs get the clock stopped such as with the college game or do we extend it to everytime that the ball goes out of bounds too? This is a serious question (my comment above was sarcasm) because those are also tactics that teams use to waste time that players have gotten yellow cards for with wasting time (just look at the first quarterfinal England's GK got a yellow for time wasting when the ball went out, don't work out well for her either). What FIFA has in place now works but what needs to happen more is what the ref did today and give out the yellows for the really obvious ones and that will help to decrease it from happening (FIFA has not been consistant on either the men's or women's side of this so you can't really argue that there needs to be different rules but more that they just need to enforce their current rules). The whole point of soccer/football is that it is free flowing so if the clock has to stop and start on the ref (which is what it would turn into like it is with football and basketball) that will kill that. Also for the football comment the defenses do use timewasting tactics such as delaying getting the ball to the ref or getting in the way to delay setting the ball so that the offense can snap it (these are both quite common in football especially at the pro level).
So what if the team is losing and they fall with an injury? Do you double the time they went down as well? Giving them more time to tie. What if the teams are tied? I agree it sucks but unless you you've came here and posted every time the USWNT has wasted time as well and called them cheaters then I'd say you're a bit biased. All teams dive, fake injuries, fake cramps, walk when being subbed, hold the ball in the corner, tale their sweet time to take a corner, free kick, goal kick, punt. It's part of the game. A bad part of the game, but still part of the game.
Boy, let's see. Writhing around on the ground does nothing more than defer playing the rest of teh game. There is no advantage to it at all if the ref stops the clock. Now, maybe you might take issue with the amount of time added. I didnt pull out a stop watch to compare, but three minutes is roughly right. Mabye, you are right, she should have added a little more and we could hhave seen if Brazil could have won in the added bit in taking their corner they didn't get.
Insulting gestures. Her getting up off of that stretcher after her "injury" was an insult to everyone watching that game.
I just got in a new shipment of smiley faces, which I will now use. The last comment was meant to be ironic.