Since this thread is all over the place, I'll ask a question I've been wondering about. There has been a lot of talk about how classy the U.S. players have been with the bad calls and how unclassy Italian and Spanish players have been. My question is: how does Spanish and Italian player behavior compare to the '72 U.S. Olympic Basketball team that to this day refuses to accept their silver medals. There was a definite bad call in that game, but the last play of the game - we blew it - should have defended better. Just wondering if people view the tantrum, etc. by the U.S. players as unclassy or justified.
I also want to point out that this conspiracy against the US goes back to the 94 WC when John Harkes was forced to miss the US-Brazil game due to picking up two yellow cards in the group stage. His second yellow card - Not backing up 10 yards on a free kick quickly enough to suit the referee.
Not really, though I don't blame the Spanish either as the reffing in that game was incompetent bordering on corrupt. The Italian game was a different matter as the ref made on bad call after doing a pretty good job throughout.
You're pretty dramatically understating what happened. A corollary would be if the Italy-SoKo game had gone to PKs, and then, when Italy had had 10 players shoot, they went back to the first player, and the player nailed it. There was a retake, and the player nailed the PK again. But then the CR consulted with some FIFA bureaucrat and said that SoKo could choose an Italian player for the 11th PK, and then the PK was missed. (Or something else ludicrous and contrary to the rules. Sorry I couldn't think of a better example.) Not only was Italy forced to make it 3 times for it to count, but the last (missed) PK was taken in a manner contrary to FIFA rules. The US-USSR game didn't end on a garden variety bad call. The clowns broke their own rules, and not because of a bang-bang judgment either. It was a considered, deliberate decision.
Well, I only half watched the documentary on HBO on this, but I could have sworn that the conclusion was that there was one really bad call with time management, but other decisions were debatable. Many of the players were up in arms about the last play saying they were mugged on the inbound pass, etc., but replays make it look like a legitimate play.
When you say "bad call," that's like a referee missing a block/charge call. Remember the UNC-Michigan game, when Chris Webber called the timeout they didn't have? Suppose that the referee gave the timeout, and called the technical, but then in the confusion, some NCAA poobah came out and stated that it was all a do-over, and Michigan should have the ball where Webber called the fatal TO. It was a misapplication of the rules. OK, there was other crap going on, like the Soviets seemingly intentionally injuring an American, and stuff. And this or that bad call. All that crap was nothing out of the ordinary. What was out of the ordinary and beyond a "bad call" was the misapplication of rules regarding timeouts.
1972 Olympics vs. 2002 World Cup "This trial is a travesty. It's a travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham." - Fielding Mellish I promised myself I’d avoid this thread… but Dark_Knight adds an interesting twist. Personally, I don’t see the correlation between the 2002 WC and the 1972 Olympic basketball incident, which as much about politics as it was inept referring. After the game the Americans filed a protest, which is their right under Olympic rules. During the inquiry both the referee and timekeeper testified on behalf of the Americans and admitted they had erred, but incredulously a 5 man jury sided with the Russians in a 3-2 vote. Not surprisingly, the majority votes came from 3 communist judges. Accepting the silver would have validated this travesty.
Re: 1972 Olympics vs. 2002 World Cup Anything to break up that infinite loop we had going there... The question is - shouldn't the Americans have refused to play the final play? Couldn't you argue that because they played the last play they agreed to whatever outcome came out of it? Maybe they played the final play because they never thought that they would lose, but once they did it seems like they should accept the consequences.
Re: Re: 1972 Olympics vs. 2002 World Cup I got a chance to review the tape of that game this morning, and it's kinda grainy because of the B&W, but I swear that's Hugh Dallas playing off guard for the Soviets.
Re: Re: 1972 Olympics vs. 2002 World Cup Actually, they replayed final 3 seconds 3 times! Basketball officials always seem to be resetting the clock, so I don’t see how they could simply have walked off the court. For me, the crux of the issue is why were the Russians given a third attempt to win the game?
Re: Re: 1972 Olympics vs. 2002 World Cup That's asking quite a bit of a group of college basketball players caught in the glare of the Olympic spotlight.