I'm not going to bother correcting all your misconceptions. Just understand that you have no earthly idea what you're talking about. Most everything you wrote is wrong. What wasn't wrong was speculation. I'm not trying to slam you personally, but I have to correct what you wrote. I suggest you read Law 12 of the Laws of the Game. You can find them at: http://www.fifa.com/refs/laws_E.html You will need to have Acrobat Reader installed. After that, pick up a book on soccer refereeing from your local library. Or do a websearch on "handball and soccer".
All the law says is "handles the ball deliberately". So then it is up to the ref what "deliberately" means. Presumably Dallas has a very tight definition of what that means. Another interesting "handball" decision was made in Rangers' next match against Aberdeen yesterday. It was a pretty similar situation to the Germany/USA one, except the ball clearly didn't (!) hit the player's arm. The referee in this case was John Underhill.
I was wondering about this, too. How this puppy grew to be 130 posts long is incredibly surprising. I wonder if we'll have a semi-official "Hugh Dallas Match Report" thread as a result of all this interest. But if one or two fans learn what the law actually says about this rule, then it might be worth it.
It's the slow season - not much to talk about right now. Believe me, I've been resisting the urge to do all sorts of stuff to this thread. The problem is - there still seems to be a lot of disagreement about what the right call should have been. I know more about what the law says - but I still don't agree with many of the referees who support Dallas' decision. I don't think you can have your arm away from your body and say it wasn't intentional.
I hate to agree with anyone self-identified as Chowderhead, but this is truth. Dallas was patronizing toward the US team throughout the game. Poor ref who lied about seeing the play and then made up a CYA afterwards. At best. The number of posts shows this is still a sore point for US fans. I guess that is part of being a fan.
The German defender had his arm extended, blocking part of the goal. That was deliberate. It does not matter whether he moved his hand at the last second to block the ball. If you believe this was not a handball than defenders should always extend their arms, like American football players trying to block a field goal. Of course they don't because if the ball touches their outstretched hand it's a handball. When players form a wall or jump in an attempt to block a free kick they keep their arms rigidly to their side to avoid handball calls. They would love to put their arms out, German-style, but they are asking for a PK if the balls touches their frozen hand or arm. It is too bad Mario Kempes has joined the howlers who insult and ignore the arguments. It is easy to launch cheap shots like the Art Bell show. Mario's screen name comes from the Argentine player on the 1978 World Cup. London's Financial Times, and other respected newspapers, reported that Argentina got to the World Cup final that year by bribing Peru, via loan abatement and grain shipments, to throw a game to Argentina by at least 5 goals. This guy picks a screen name of a guy who won the World Cup because someone rigged an elimination round game and then he turns around and insults people who are concerned about systemic corruption and rigging of games. Irony is sweet. If people had complained more about prior scandals we may have had fair treatment at this World Cup. My opinions.
This is how bad it has gotten. How many teams qualified for the 2002 World Cup with help from rigged games? Perhaps 5 or 6, but the list keeps growing. Last November, United offered trips to Mexico for only 15,000 frequent flyer miles. I toyed with the idea of burning the miles before the airline died, and trying to get a ticket to the Mexico-Honduras, WCQ. I waited until the ref was announced because I didn't want to take another long trip to watch a rigged soccer game. They finally announced Carlos Batres of Guatemala, the man who reffed the U.S. loss to Costa Rica 2-0 last September. He is a fantastic ref. I figured the game would be on the level, so I went. Batres reffed a superb game but Honduras looked flat. I figured it might be the altitutude. Now the congress of Honduras is holding hearings about allegations that some of the Catracho players took bribes from a big Mexican company to throw the game. In the World Cup itself it is pretty hard to get teams, even corrupt teams, to throw a game, so it has to be done with the ref. Just my opinions.
Oh, that's rich. I can just imagine the entire German team running around with their hands outstretched. "Herr Klose! Ich kann fliegen!" In my opinion - this was just a bad call, not an indicator of FIFA, or anyone else for that matter's bias against U.S. soccer. While the subject of Mr. Dallas' patronizing attitude towards the members of the USMNT and his attempts to make himself the center of attention have been beaten to death, I don't think that is indicitave of his possible bias towards the German team. And who would want to root for Germany over anybody, anyway? Mr. Flannigan - I understand that you were over in Korea for the Cup. (As you can see, I'm somewhat new to BigSoccer.) How was it? I'm hoping to attend Deutschland 2006, but the cost ($5k? for three weeks) is something of an obstacle, especially when you consider my financial situation, being a student in college. Thanks!
Aidaen - Check out the Fans and Travel section of the US forums. There used to be a thread discussing the cost of Germany (may have been deleted in the crash). Korea was well under $3000 for me. As for how it was, if you go once, you'll vow never to miss another one.
Tom, could you tell mw who is going to win the next World Cup since the bribes must already be in place?? I am expecting an Asian or African winner to share the wealth and keep the US from getting any momentum going.
GODC. That was the first post you have directed towards me in months that was not an insult. I don't know who will win the next World Cup. It is too early to tell. Germany, playing at home, will be hard to beat. Holland may also win it. I doubt if any team from Asia will even advance out of the first round. UEFA teams usually win in Europe.
Aidean, I think you can do the trip to Germany for around $2000, only for the first 3 games. Remember, we have to qualify for the World Cup and that weill not be easy.
Thank God we can monitor WC refs during league play now. At least we have something to talk about now. When is the next friendly? Please, we need a game.
It's not as though bribes are unknown in WC history. After Thomas brought that up, I did a search on yahoo for 'world cup bribe' and the stories go on for pages. I did a similar search on 'NFL football'. No results except I did see one that talked about FIFA and the radical attempts that they went through in 1999 to prevent bribes. an excerpt: In March, a French court case revealed that Bordeaux had operated a £5million slush fund during the Eighties to help smooth their path in Europe. Not only were the services of the best ladies of the night Paris could provide secured for a nightly fee of £2,000 but three German officials received £35,000 between them before a UEFA Cup tie with Napoli in 1988. Real Madrid, the court was told, "always offeredî Rolexes to referees and linesmen. Who's to say it didn't happen this time? There were a couple of HIGHLY suspect calls.
After watching, I've vowed not to miss this next one. With the younger guys coming of age, and more and more guys playing in higher quality leagues, the potential for us to do something in WC2006 is big. Very, very true - but I want to take a very optimistic approach to this. Of course, that optimistic approach most likely will be the death of my pocketbook, but oh well. Another thing - WC qualifying is going to be bloody when we face Mexico. Just a hunch.
There have been so many scandals in the soccer world about rigged and thrown games, you would need an encyclopedia to hold them all. In April, Italy banned Pierluigi Collina whom FIFA calls the world's greatest referee, from reffing important games in Italy because of some very odd calls that decided games. China had the "black whistle" scandal at the same time, where the price of bribing a ref was practically listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange. It is literally an endless list. Maybe Korea is the smart one after all. Get the Cup. Put absolutely no effort into promoting games other than the games Korea plays in. Sell out 4 or 5 out of the 32 games. Meanwhile FIFA has already spent or stolen the money expected from 32 sellouts. You have leverage. If they rig games so you stay in the tournament you sell those high-priced games out as well as getting a little more buzz for other games. FIFA, desperate for money, takes care of the Korean team all the way to the semis. Sure it looks bad and half the world thinks it was fixed, but it is a risk worth taking. Korea, which had never even won a single game in the World Cup, wins game after game with the refs on their side. Henry James wrote that Americans were the great innocents. He was right. You can be sure fans in Portugal, Spain and Italy aren't defending FIFA and ridiculing critics with Art Bell cracks. Just my opinions
Art Bell, soccer fan Don't dis Art Bell, who would no doubt help us uncover any alleged FIFA conspiracy: " I have always loved sports, football in the fall, baseball in the spring, the Olympics every four years and most recently, soccer." http://www.artbell.com/superbowl.html
I'm not even going to get into your other false accusations because it seems that, after reading this thread, you consistently avoid responding to people who question your alleged conspiracies. However, this comment is so blatantly wrong, and such an affront to Collina, that it demands correcting. Collina was removed from calling important matches because, quite frankly, he has integrity and was not intimidated by the forces that be in Italian soccer. Over the course of the past few years, Collina has made some calls that has upset the brass of the top clubs (most notably Juventus). Not one of these calls, if you saw them, were "very odd". For you to claim they were 'odd', I hope that you saw them, and are just not throwing around second- or third-hand speculation. The calls were right, they just happened to not be what the bosses with the top clubs wanted. And, since you seem to like to delve into the dark underworld of backroom dealings in international soccer, you know that the top clubs' brass controls everything in Italian soccer. They even control whether or not Collina--world-renowned as the best referee on the planet--gets a certain Serie A league match or not.
I quite rightly concluded my previous post with the statement, that this is what I THINK to be the case, so I do not see how you can rip me for speculation. Second, while it is quite obvious what the wording of the FIFA rules are (deliberate handball), it is not as obvious to determine how to come about the decision as to what is a deliberate handball. I tried to explain how I, as a ref and a player and a fan, perceive handballs in general and that specific handball. That is the method I use to determine what is and what is not deliberate. You can preach on what you believe to be misconceptions, but the truth of the matter is this, the game is directed by one man's perceptions of events with the rulebook as a guideline to hopefully base those perceptions in fact. Perhaps you, like many people, fall into the trap of reading the rule for what it is without trying to understand that a lot is left to be undecided. My logic may be flawed, but at least I drove at some sort of answer for the reason that the call was not made. Speculation is all that any of us, including you and Massref, etc. are doing anyway because we know neither what was in the head of Hugh Dallas nor Torsten Frings.
It was one bad call… why blow it up into a grandiose conspiracy? Every match contains calls that unjustly go against a team. Adversity is part of the game. The key is to overcome. We had chances, but we didn’t capitalize. End of story. And thankfully the team didn’t make a big issue of this incident. While the Italians and Spaniards were rightfully upset, their post tournament sniveling has the rest of the World ridiculing them. I’d rather not be painted with the same brush.
To MassRef: Good post. I cannot answer every post here. I do not have time. Furthermore, a few moderators and others just hurl insults and I do not engage in that kind of flame war. If they are civil I try to respond. I think Collina is fine ref and I never said he was rigging matches. I said he was accused of it. He was probably falsely accused. You know quite a bit about reffing. What did you think of Uli Schmeier's work in the US-Korea game, Mr. Dallas, Mr. Moreno, and the Arab ref in the Spain-Korea game? One bad call???? Forget the handball. Put that aside. How about the dive that led to the German goal, the cards that led to the 3 suspensions, lopping time off injury time, the endless free kicks after more dives. Dallas acted hostile to the U.S. He smiled at Kahn after the U.S. scored and yelled at the Americans. Pele and Beckenbauer all blasted Dallas, if not by name then by clear implication. Platini did not name him but it was clear he was talking about the U.S.-Germany game. Beckenbauer and Platini have a chance to lead FIFA. If they say the ref was terrible you can be pretty sure that the ref was terrible. Just my opinions.