I will repeat my explanation. I have stated this many times but there are new posters here so I will give it another try. There are factions in FIFA, and there is certainly a faction that wants the US to qualify for the World Cup. It means more money in the pot. The same faction prevailed, over much opposition, the second time the U.S. tried to host the World Cup. The first time we tried this faction was not powerful enough to prevail. The second time we barely got the Cup. These people do not pick the referees or mete out discipline. Codesal and Texiera, among others, handle referee assignments. A guy like Texiera has enough clout to keep Blatter from interfering too much, not that Blatter would call for more honest refs if he hads that power. I hope you are familiar with the career of Ricardo Texeira. I don't know if it is him but some people in these committees hate the U.S. and that is why we keep getting people like Rodolfo Sibrianto as a ref. Damage control by FIFA kicked in after the widespread perception worldwide than many games, including 2 or 3 of the quarterfinal games, were rigged. That's why you had Blatter calling for good referees for the semis. Hardly anyone outside of this discussioon really thought the refs preceding that stage had been decent. Keep in mind that FIFA banned instant replays on World Cup scoreboards only a day or two after the US-Korea game, when the whole stadium could see that the foul leading to Korea's only goal was an outrageous call. The U.S. had 10 shots in that game, 5 on goal, and NOT A SINGLE CORNER KICK. I have watched soccer my whole life and I cannot remember a game where a team received no corner kicks. Chowderhead correctly provides a partial list of the outrageous calls we got in past WCQs, and it got worse in the Cup, as I predicted. We qualified for the World Cup and we advanced in spite of biased refs. It makes it a lot harder but it is possible. I admire the Italians. As a nation they have called the FIFA refereeng system what it deserves to be called. A few knee-jerk people will always defend the status quo with the same tired insults about conspiracy theories. It provides the public relations cover FIFA desperately needs at this point. The "foul" that lead to Germany's only goal was due to an outrageous dive, something Luis Hernandez would try. Hey, it worked. Cheating works when you have a ref dedicated to the German cause. In all my years of watching soccer I have never seen a card given for delay while the wall is being set. Every time a German sneezed they got a free kick and Dallas handed out 2 cards for delay forming the wall. Such calls mean that the U.S., the team that did not dive or hack its way through the tournament, has 3 players suspended for the first game of the Confederations Cup. A new prediction. We will get screwed by the refs in WCQs in 2004 and 2005 unless one of two things happens: A change in the factions in FIFA, or a concerted outcry, like in Italy, against the unfair treatement. You better believe Italy will get a good ref in the next important game. Just my opinions.
I thought the referees in the last World Cup did a pretty good job on the whole. The main problem was with the assistant referees (linesman) and offside calls. Italy got screwed against Korea with the Tomassi offside, no question, but we don't know if it would have led to a goal. I doubt it. Other than that, Italy has no other valid complaints. The calls in the Croatia game were debateable at best, and I agreed with each of them. Vieri fails to put away an easy chance in front of goal. That's why Italy lost against Korea. In the Spain-Korea game, the assistant referee was in a perfect position to make the call on the "out of bounds". There's no question that the ball was in bounds on the kick. After it left the Spanish player's foot, I thought the ball stayed in. However, watching the play from another angle, I thought it was very possible that the ball did go out and come back in, and the linesman was in a perfect position to see it. So I think the call is debateable at best. No one can say for sure if the ball went out. Only the linesman really knows, and he was watching it closely right on the end line. In the US-Germany game, it looked like the first Donovan offside call was wrong. There are other examples, but the point is that it was mostly a problem with assistant referees, not the center referees. And I think it was a case of incompetence and human error, and not corruption. I would like someone to come forward with proof when making allegations of corruption. Otherwise, it is better to be quiet.
Better to be quiet? FIFA likes it that way. The fans all over the world sure weren't quiet when they saw one outrageous call after another. An incompetent ref would blow calls both ways. No one has pointed out a bad call by Uli Schmeir or Dallas that helped the U.S. All of the bad calls helped the opposition. You are never going to get one of these guys to confess anymore than a corrupt US President will ADMIT to wrongdoing. But people paying attetnion sure knows what is going on. FIFA is facing a crisis in confidence and would not have made the extraordinary announcement conceding that the refs were bad unless it had to. My opinions.
Oliver Stone Sydrome The persistent grumbling about Hugh Dallas’ hidden agenda piqued my interest, so I re-watched the USA-Germany match. To be honest, other than the handball no call and the Jermies v. Reyna yellow card incident, Mr. Dallas did a good job in this match. Such a good job that using this match as evidence of bias and favoritism becomes laughable.
Re: Oliver Stone Sydrome Agreed for the sake of argumentation. But did you not notice the schoolmaster approach he took to the Yanks? Were you not just a bit offended by that? He's competent. He's honest. But he came to the field with the haughty presupposition that the Yanks needed an education. Then he blew a call. But that's another matter.
The crux of the matter.... Every nation can produce an extensive list of past grievances, so such a list hardly represents a conspiracy. I’m not defending poor refereeing, but it’s a fact of life. Rather than expounding conspiracy theories, perhaps you should be attacking FIFA’s system of referee assignments. The WC deserves the best referees, but FIFA’s allocation scheme insures most of the Worlds best refs will be watching the tournament on TV. I’d remove the stipulation that each region be represented by the same # of refs as it is allocated WC slots. I’d also remove the restriction that a nation can only send one referee to the tournament. The fact is, most of the referees and referee’s assistance aren’t qualified to be working this tournament, and as a result, poor refereeing always plagues the World Cup.
Re: Re: Oliver Stone Sydrome I didn’t see it (a condescending attitude), but to be honest, it wasn’t what I was looking for. Can you cite some examples?
Watch Ireland V Belguim in 1982 for the most bias referee of all time, and I'm not complaining that Fifa is against us. An Anti American agent is frankly bull, they'd LOVE to see a succesful team USA, that's why it was held there in the first place in 1994. All they care about is money, and succesful team USA = Money.
Re: Re: Re: Oliver Stone Sydrome ANY and EVERY time he talked to Greg Berhalter...you would've thought he screwed his daughter (maybe that is the real reason)
Defenders of FIFA have not addressed the dive that led to the German goal, the outrageous cards on setting the wall, the three suspensions that the US carries into the next tournament, the fact that he cut injury time way short while Germany was on life support. Kahn collapsed in a heap at the end of the game. Dallas was known as a ref that hated the US and always seemed to give Reyna a hard time in the Scottish League. Having Hugh Dallas lecture you about soccer it like having a prostitute lecture you about love. We shared a taxi back to Kyongju after the game with two Australian-Indians, one who was enrolling at Columbia University and were cheering for Germany at the game. They brought it up. The father said that the ref handed the game to Germany and gave me a point by point critique. He went wild on the endless free kick opportunities rather than than whether the ball crossed the line or there was a handball. He wanted the U.S. to lose but he did not want to come all the way to Korea to watch a rigged match. The two men were going to Daejeon the next day for the Spain-Korea game, which was also rigged in my opinion. I think most fans around the world who watched the two games I have discussed thought the fix was in. I agree with our Irish friend that the 1982 Ireland Belgium game had a bad ref. I agree with one of my critics that the refs IN GENERAL at the World Cup were very good. Remember my April 2002 prediction here, that the refs would be biased to help Korea and hurt the US. That prediction was absolutely true. Other games were not perfect but generally had fine refs. Just my opinions.
Refereeing at the highest level is a very difficult job. So difficult that I'd wager most people couldn't handle it. The speed of play is incredible, and there is all kinds of gamesmanship going on that it's hard to be clear what's going on sometimes. Having said that, FIFA needs to improve the refereeing, and more specificially, improve the quality of the assistant refereeing. They have said this publicly, and are working on a plan to do just that. There are always bad calls at every World Cup. The faster the game gets, the more bad calls. And the game is faster now than at any time before. Adjustments are being made. Two center referees are being tried in some places, and they are going the way of selecting whole refereeing crews from the same country rather than assembling crews piecemeal from many different countries. I think this will improve things tremendously. My point about corruption was simple. It is very unfair and unscientific to raise cries of corruption without any sort of evidence. If someone were to say, "Thomas Flannigan plays with little boys" and does not provide any evidence, then three things have/will occur: (1) Your character has been assasinated without due cause, and your accuser shows no interest in getting at the truth. (2) You are presumed guilty by a lot of people and are ostracized, your reputation ruined. (3) You are asked by the Catholic Church if you are free to work on Sundays. *wink*
Slash/ED, please don't judge us by Flannigan. He's a paranoid crazy man. Yeah, there was something about the way he described it that was at odds with what happened. I think he didn't see it, and pretended he had. I could at least have some respect for him if he'd have said that.
Arguing tactics and player selection after the Cup is great. That's something we can learn from and correct for the next time. As for the ref issues. I remember watching Mexico and Italy cry after their losses. I remember the US team shaking German players hands. Proudly waving the flag and applauding the crowd. I remember them holding their heads high with the realization that those are the breaks, and sometimes they don't go your way. Do I think the Germans dived more than a little? Do I think the handball was a questionable call? Some of the yellows? Yeah, I sure do. That doesn't mean we have to dwell on those things. Look back over the Cup; tell me there aren't better images and moments to dwell on. JMac
So "justice" is that we beat Mexico 2-1 anyway instead of 2-0, and lose 1-0 to Germany? With both calls made we might have been in the semi's at least. As for the Germany match, the worst, most inexcuseable, rediculous, mind-numbing, pathetic and criminal call was the offsides on Donovan that would have put him 1v1 vs. Kahn in the middle of the box. Unlike his other chances which were at severe angles, or with defensive pressure to one side, he would have had Kahn at his mercy. It was simply one of the worst calls of the cup.
These are examples of CONCACAF bias, not FIFA bias. Maczebus, I have to defend US fans a bit. Not Thomas, who is a crazy lunatic (that's not a personal attack, I can use the "truth" defense.) But CONCACAF screws the USMNT and MLS teams in ways you would not believe. In case, in a club competition, the regular refs couldn't get to a match in Mexico. IIRC, visa problems So the club provided local refs. Several PKs and cards later, the Mexican club had a huge win. It's easy for our fans to translate the accurate perception of bias (in CONCACAF) to an inaccurate perception of bias in the World Cup. I also would point to Dallas' attitude toward our players that game. And also his rewarding the German players for diving. My opinion is that he was familiar with/predisposed toward the German players. But that would have been true if the German opponents had been Senegal or Mexico or SoKo.
Re: Re: Hugh Dallas sends off player for u know what Watch any Italy match in the world cup and you'll see alot worst offside decisions made, and you can't possibley say that if Mexico had of scored from the penalty that they definitely wouldn't have scored again, you and I both know football doesn't work like that. Also, watch Ireland V Germany, they dived all over the place there too and kept getting decisions, I'm not calling for Fifa to be disbanded over it though.
Re: Re: Hugh Dallas sends off player for u know what Well, to be fair, our 2nd goal is the kind of goal that usually is given up by a team that's trailing and pushing for a goal. That was a classic counterattacking goal. Of course, so was our first goal.
You know my favorite thing about this Web site? People being able to apply the lessons of their real life to what they post about.
JMHO Defenders of FIFA? WTF? Thomas, your arguments point to tactics, not conspiracies. Without a doubt, the Germans are floppers, and Klose (or Neuville or whomever?) took a dive to set up their goal, but that hardly implicates FIFA. Germany’s strength is set plays, so they’re apt to fall whenever given the slightest nudge in order to earn free kicks. Not an admirable strategy, but sadly “gamesmanship” has become part of the game. As far as the cards... to be honest, our defensive tactics warranted them. We held, fouled and hacked to prevent German counterattacks and to break up their midfield. The strategy that was very effective, but meant we were going to pick up numerous cards. Rant and rave all you like… but this was a fairly contested match. Hugh Dallas may have been patronizing, but he was also even handed. JMHO!
Sadly, and the World Cup proved it, Hugh Dallas is one of that sad cadre of "it's really all about me" referees that are a blight on the game.
Please allow me to clarify my own views. I don't see an institutionalized FIFA bias. FIFA probably loves us. But, as someone has mentioned, I do see an anti-US bias on the part of individuals from Concacaf. Beyond that, I find certain UEFA and CONMEBOL officials to be rather professorial towards our players. I'm not complaining about Dallas' interpretation of the goal line handball. I was incensed by his headmaster-with-a-ruler attitude towards our boys. Was it Lewis who was fouled and then asked to shake hands with the perp? We went down fighting and took the loss like sportsmen. But I will say that there was a major difference between the O'Brien handball and the Berhalter chance. The O'Brien handball was not seen as a handball and, as such, was never a judgement call or interpretation. Therefore we were not benificiaries of lenient officating (remember that we somehow ended up with as many yellows as Mexico, incredible as that seemed). The goal line handball was seen. Don't give me the justice crap either.