On Jun 26, 2006, at 5:37 PM, Jerry Wolper wrote:
How is this different than hockey or basketball (or throwing a flag in American football)?
Take basketball as an example. You are behind by 3 with 10 seconds left, and the other team has the ball. So of course you foul them, and the ref blows his whistle and stops the clock. The net effect of the foul is rewarding the team committing the foul. This is the opposite of officiating in soccer, which requires that you assess the context, and if the fouled team would be disadvantaged by stopping play, you let them play on.
American football has probably the worst example of trifling calls: the "false start". For those of you not familiar with it, there is a requirement that all offensive linemen remain absolutely motionless once they take their 'set' position. If they move even the tiniest bit, whistles blow and flags go flying, even though nothing actually happened, and the team is penalized 5 yards. If American football had the same spirit as soccer, the ref would notice the move, and then account for that if a defensive lineman jumped too early, and allow play to continue. The lack of a whistle for offside would be the punishment, and play would not be stopped for the refs to make their big show of calling a foul.
It sounds from another part of your post like FIFA is (unsuccessfully) trying to achieve the same sort of consistency that the American leagues strive for with varying degrees of success.
They are always trying to identify problems that need to be worked on, and different refs carry out those wishes with varying success. At the levels of the World Cup, you have to know each player and their patterns in order to have a chance of telling if they were really fouled or if they are faking it. The ref in the Portugal- Netherlands game didn't seem to be able to do that, and fell for lots of bad acting by both teams.
Mind you, even though I'm criticizing him, I also recognize that I would do an even worse job were I thrust into that sort of situation. I pride myself on being a good official at the level that I work at: youth travel to adult amateur. I know that I would be out of my league were I to be called to ref a professional match (even if I were fit enough!). The speed at which things happen is simply amazing at those levels, which makes me happy to be successful within my own realm, and be able to criticize those who are much better at this reffing game than I could ever be.
-- Ed Leafe -- http://leafe.com -- http://dabodev.com _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
