Cynically, yes they will. It's all about the money, honey. Turning on the U$A [advertising market] to soccer is a long-term goal of FIFA['s corporate sponsors]. Alienating US fans by outrageously crappy officiating decisions against the US is NOT what they want to see. They won't screw with the integrity of the game to the extent of overturning the decision, but I believe you can expect some severe tut-tutting to emanate from on high.
The overturned goal was a judgment call, and a bad one. But ultimately, one moment in this match defined the referee's ability. When the US was given the free kick on the edge of the 18, the wall was set at 7 yards. It was not even close to 10 yards. Dononvan has the ball set just under a yard outside the 18, and the wall is maybe one yard inside the spot. If you can't get 10 yards at a World Cup game, you should not be officiating a World Cup game. Period. Donovan played a short ball, the US got a nice opportunity off it it. But the direct shot on goal was never an option with the wall at 7 yards (and I may be being generous by calling it 7).
Outraged! Game got completely away from the ref. On Edu's goal, he seems to call a foul on Bocanegra (who's losing a wrestling contest), while Michael B. is being bear-hugged and Edu manages miraculously to break free and put it in the net. Don't call minor fouls on the attacking side when more serious fouls are being committed by the defending side AND all of the fouls are actually irrelevant to the goal. FIFA needs to review the game.
Don't forget the cane! Good luck to referees who are going to Regionals and Nationals this summer. Maybe there was some egregious breach of the laws on a US player's part that the referee caught. This could be a situation very much like the one Esse Baarmast was in in 1998. Granted, if this did happen and it was enough to offset the foul on Bradley; there probably should have been a card involved.
Bradley was in a bear hug. You can't be offsides when the defender has his arms wrapped around you, can you?
Well you can be in an offside position (i.e. your legs) but generally refs will call a foul there before an infringement of Law 11 occurs.
As some of the other people have stated being a referee i am so embarassed by the calls of the ref. Also as a US fan i am just enraged. It is just a shame that the intensity and the great play of the second half will go unnoticed due to phantom and ghost calls.
I will have to rewatch the game but after my live viewing I would be shocked if the referee is not sent home. I knew it was going to be an atrociously officiated game right after the Dempsey no card 15 seconds into the match. Dempsey's challenge warranted at least a yellow and a red card would have been a dubious yet still allowable result. It was quite clear that the referee lost his composure very earlier and hence lost control of the match. The handball call was absurd it clearly idnciated that the referee either had vision problems or was in such a poor position which would then raise the question as to how he could be qualified as a FIFA official. I also recall Dempsey being tackled inside the box which should have been a PK. I will review the game in full this evening and provide a full review.
What happens now? Does FIFA review each game and decide a ref's further envolvment? Is there a possiblility of (I can't think of a better word) punishment?
Not sure if this is the place to discuss it, but what are the chances that Findley's yellow card gets rescinded? I don't agree that it was even an offense in the first place, but say it was - I didn't see any intention or evidence of unsporting behavior, and therefore no reason for a yellow card. I can understand the yellow card against Serbia in the Serbia - Ghana match earlier in tourney, and the yellow card for handling given in against one of the teams in the Serbia - Germany game earlier today (no more detail so hopefully not too much of a spoiler!) - but I really just didn't see it here.
So I saw 4 egregiously bad calls and 1 wrong but important call. Call 1: No card for Dempsey. Should have been yellow, imho. Call 2: Findley yellow. Not just the yellow, but a certain US goal if the whistle doesn't blow (the only reason the ball doesn't get kicked in the net is because of the whistle). Call 3: The onside call for Slovenia's second goal. I think that was really close, but isn't his head offsides? I don't think this call was egregious, and it's on the AR anyway. Call 4: No penalty for pulling down Dempsey in the box. Call 5: Foul called the wrong way/foul called on free kick by the US (would have been goal/no penalty if the US played advantage). Could've been 5-1 USA, really.
All referees are inspected, reviewed and assessed on every match by a technical panel who both watch the game and review footage afterwards. These assessments are provided to the Referees Committee and are used for performance evaluation and determination of future appointments. Most referees receive two matches in the group stage, and then the Committee selects the best referees to stay on after the group stages for the knockout rounds (usually half/two thirds of the contingent). This referee will obviously not be part of that. Referees who have had bad games first up are usually allotted non-critical matches in the final round, or sometimes may not receive a second match at all. FIFA does not publically censure, suspend or fine referees - IMO as it shouldn't; when everybody wants your blood somebody needs to have your back. That said, refereeing at the professional level is very cutthroat, and to have a particularly bad game can effectively end your career. You simply receive a quiet word and you cease being given appointments. Look at Graham Poll and the three card fiasco in CRO-AUS 2006. Prior to that game he was arguably one of the top three referees in the world and a favourite to be awarded the World Cup Final. Afterwards, he never refereed another international match again.
I think this is the most plausible explanation. If the AR lifted his flag and that's why he called it, the CR already had in his mind that he was going to negate it with a bogus foul call on the US (in pro soccer, they obviously don't overrule their AR's on these types of plays). If the ref had to point out which player it was called on, I don't think he could. They interviewed Bob Bradley after the game and he still didn't know what the call was for.
i think that when you look at issues of judgment, you have decisions that are interpretations, and you have errors. this referee seems to have made errors that cannot be explained away. the yellow "handling" by findley, which of course means he will not play the next game, is pure fiction, and the view of the play is essentially unobstructed in every direction. his arms are down, and the ball clearly hits his head. this makes me think of two possibilities. 1: the referee has vision issues, either in acuity or visual field. 2: his bias in what he expects to see is so strong that he convinces himself to see what he hasn't. either way, he is impaired. i am guessing the second is the case, since these refs surely go fairly detailed physical screening. when one considers the mali ref's performance in this light, the rest of his behavior and game management becomes easier to explain. the referee's bias might not even be at a conscious level, and i'd bet that he will argue to the death that he saw findley's hand touch the ball. so, on the free kick, he sees what he is ready to see, and so no goal and free kick going out. perhaps psychologic testing as well as physical testing is in order.
I think the Coulibaly was too inexperienced for this game. That's my analysis. The ref assignment for this game was inappropriate and sadly it ruined and decided and otherwise great game. When you call fouls on attackers, when they haven't happened, because defenders are grabbing and wrestling, it's often done to save yourself from having to call a PK because of a foul by a defender that isn't a trip. Handballs and trips are the only fouls referees seem to "like" to give PKs for, so whistling the attackers when they're actually victims of the foul is sadly common. And I think that's done out of fear....simply wimping out of making the hard call later because there seems a stigma to having PKs awarded in any match. And this ref may have looked calm, but he called the match from a position of fear throughout. And if you can't bring enough confidence to your performance to not do that (and Coulibaly called fouls on attackers to bail out defenders more than once--it's just we're focused on the one time where a perfectly good goal was called back) then you're not good enough or experienced enough to call a match such as this. Also his mistakes are eerily reminiscent of Hugh Dallas calling the USA match in 02.....assuming every time a big German player fell over they must have been fouled. Coulibaly sort of got over that a little in a second half, thankfully, which frustrated Slovenia because they couldn't rely on flopping to get them free kicks. But even so, the first half was such a deja vu. The Findley yellow was, of course, ridiculous. It was a bad as Palacios in Honduras match getting a persistent infringement yellow when a different player altogether had done the foul.
So I've insisted on this in all the threads I've posted in so far but here I go again: In the late 80s/early 90s these calls were very common in the Brazilian league. They even earned an ironic name "perigo de gol" which translates to "goalscoring danger" meaning that refs would whistle whenever there were a lot of players in the box and there was the danger that the ball might go in off of someone. Instead of letting things play out the referee would usually blow the whistle as soon as the ball was kicked and point to a foul by the offense in the box. While I hate the theatrics of a ref pausing things to go tell players in the box to stop pushing and shoving, I think that's infinitely better than not doing anything and instead whistling for a nothing foul when other guys are bearhugging player. So has this "perigo de gol" kind of thing been identified and dealt with at any time? I have to admit I don't remember a ref as systematic about those calls since the 90s in Brazil. Either way I think you have to chalk it up to inexperience and an unwillingness to let plays happen that make require tough calls.
First, tired of people saying second goal was offside. AR if he was in doubt should keep the flag down and that is what he did or was convinced play was onside. Either way that is correct. Too close of a call to put flag up. Second, yellow on Findley is poor decision. Finally, referee runs into the area to disallow the potential winning goal from USA with his arm raised which seems to indicate offside. If offisde was the call it was on the first player running in and he was not involved in the area where the ball dropped. There is no foul there. Tough to take whether offside or foul was called.