I posted this in the US Men's forum, but it's also very pertinent here... On the play that led to the penalty and Gibbs being sent off for the handball, the player who shot the ball was offside when he received the pass from Kaka. I dont remember the player's name. But Keller was off his line and Gibbs was the only US player between him and the endline. That's disgraceful refereeing by the AR on the far side. Disgraceful. How can a ref get to that high of level without the wherewithal to recognize that call? Even I, in the middle of translating the Galavision commentary for my dad (a separate topic, but man can we get English language announcers like that?), we both noticed it. Kind of looked at each other and said "Wasn't Diego was offside when that ball was played?" Ugh.
The only other thing was if everyone was behind the ball when it was played and on the subsequent replays you could not tell. I would really like to see the replay of the goal to see if that was the case. If not you are right there was only gGibbs back when the ball was played and therefore it was offside.
Being enough of a soccer dork to have taped the match, and not caring if I'm late for work, a crappy bigsoccer style diagram..... Goal Gibbs Diego Keller Some Other Brazilian guy Kaka Kaka pokes the ball away from Keller, straight to Diego. Diego is behind Keller, and has only Gibbs between him and the goal. The other Brazilian guy (the replay gave us a tough angle of him) looked to be even with Keller, so a ball to him would have been onside, but Diego clearly just had Gibbs between him and the goal. I know that 99.8% of the time, all it takes is one "defender," because the goalkeeper is generally behind the defender, but man, I'd like to think that a FIFA level AR would catch that. I mean, Diego was a good couple yards offside... I'm not saying this cost the US the game, as Brazil was the better team and the US was so gassed that they would have likely scored anyway in extra time, but that was certainly an adventure with AR2 on the far side.
obviously offside, but this is CONCACAF where the ARs were from Bahamas and Panama, yep, they get matches like US vs Brazil all the time. Lots of experience with games like that in Bahamas.
I was wondering about that as well, but I was tired and only caught that on the last replay. I wondered how that could possibly be onside. I'm certain the US would have lost that game anyway, but if my fuzzy memory and the post above are accurate then a Fifa AR can't miss that.
I believe the AR was the Panamanian. He was also involved in earlier was it a goal or offside that could have given Brasil a 1-0 lead. That looked like a legit goal, though Bocanegra I believe was held in the box. The restart however was for an IDFK not a DFK. Overall, Batres did another outstanding job of managing a very emotional and dynamic match. He is very fair and the players are giving him a lot of respect and there is a comfort level that has developed similar to that that occurs with Collina. Batres issed the cards correctly and diffused a lot of difficult situations. I was surprised he did not immediately send Gibbs off on the handball. I think he changed his mind on what was an obvious DOGSO on Gibbs based on the Brasilians players pleadings. A great match.
I got the impression that the crew was intimidated because it was Brazil. In particular, the diving was horrible. (I only saw the game from the 50th minute or so.) Kaka had a card, and dove blatantly in the box; he should have been gone. I understand that the Canaries got a card or two for diving. IMO the referee was afraid to give out more, and I can understand that. But it's still wrong.
Yes, the game ended on that sequence, but who are we kidding, our guys were completely gassed. Brazil had all the momentum and was coming forward like gangbusters. Maybe if Keller stands on his head we get to penalties, but I doubt that. Either way, still a godawful call.
Where was the AR?? No the offside is reset each time a Brazilian player touches the ball. When the ball was played forward after keller lost it that brazilian touch had two brazilian players in an offside position and for the AR to miss that I can only assume he fell or was not in line with the secondlast defender in this case keller. It was a game changing missed call and the human factor while interesting and part of the game sure is likely to rub the USA players a bit raw when they see the replay. It goes to show why the players must score when opportunities knocked earlier to factor out the occassional missed call against them.
The common misperception is that you need only one defender even or behind (closer to the endline than) the attacking player to keep the attacking player onside, because 99.8% of the time, the goalkeeper is also behind the attacking player. However, in this instance, the attacking player was behind Keller, meaning Gibbs was the lone defender between him and the endline. Such a situation doesn't occur often, but when it does, the AR has to be able to recognize, and definitely better be able to recognize if he's officiating in such a high level match.
When my oldest was a first year referee, he was refereeing at a tournament doing a U12 match. This type of goal mouth scramble occurred and when a goal was scored, he raised his flag signalling offside. The referee jogged over and asked what he was flagging. He said offside. The referee said, there was a guy standing on the post, how could it be offside. My son replied that the keeper was 3-4 yards off his line and that the guy who scored was in behind him. The referee told him good call and disallowed the goal. If a 14 yr old kid can pick this up -- it disturbs me that an international referee would miss something like this. BTW, ever since this happened with my son (and I was standing right behind him when it happened and was a first year referee myself), whenever I have young referees acting as ARs for me, I remind them of this situation when the GK can become the 2nd last defender.
a pic from the game Hey.. I took a cool picture from the game... http://community.webshots.com/photo/74869290/84425808LVFxsV Enjoy!