Just tuned in at kick-off time to see grounds crew trying to fix a mis-measured penalty area. Reminds me of something that happened many, many years ago in my home town. In spring the lines were put in under the supervision of the home town club. Now, keep in mind in these days Law 1 was called Law I, and in the IB decisions was a list of imperial/metric conversions, for every measurement that appeared anywhere else in the laws. And that included Law IV which in the old days had very detailed rules on the suitability of cleats with maximum measures and so on. So, the list of conversions in the table in Law I was pretty long. Too long, apparently, for the local home town club. They got fixated on the conversion right in the middle, which said (something like): 1 yard = 1 metre Which as any referee would have understood to mean "wherever 1 yard is specified, 1 metre is OK." That would have included two things: the corner arc and the distance from which the optional centre line flag had to be from the touch line. The local club (or perhaps one guy on the local club executive) decided that 1 yard = 1 metre could be scaled up. So they dutifully had 18 metre penalty areas, 12 metre penalty marks, 10 meter circles, and so on. I was a somewhat new referee at the time but I decided to call up the guy responsible to tell him about the problem. Some of the fields would have high level play on them and should be correct. The others could be correct as the lines wore out. The guy was convinced he was right. Quoted me the Law I "1 yard = 1 metre" line. Oh well.
According to twitter, the referees arrived later than usual to the site because of traffic problems. It's a 60,000 person sellout. I thought most of the painting nowadays was done via laser sightings and markings. Tournament this past weekend did almost 50 fields that way. I arrived at second day to find one goal off by two yards, though. First day refs apparently didn't notice or care?
Now in the 78th minute the announcers are replaying the backpass and discussing it. Edit: Guzman is letting Altidore get away with some pushes, and I'm guessing there isn't much that can be done about whoever is using that green lazer pointer.
Agreed... Looks like a clear foul by Altidore before 2nd goal... And then another blatant shove by Jozy goes uncalled a couple minutes later. How does no one on the crew say anything about the back pass over the mics?
I think they could have possibly said something over the mic's but maybe the referee decided not to take their advice? We may never know.
FWIW I heard that at a clinic for National Instructors it was stated by CONCACAF FIFA instructor that such trickery should be ignored. Several PRO staff and Assessors were at that clinic. QED PH