I've seen a lot of bad calls from a lot of bad refs, but the US vs. Italy game yesterday was a disgrace to the sport. I have never seen such a spectacularly incompetent ref. He gave out three red cards in the match. One was legitimate, a violent foul by an Italian player, which literally spilled blood. Then, for what can only be out of some kind of idea to make up for it, he gave a red card to an American player for what was at worst a yellow card, and at best a simple warning. To make matters even worse, he gave another red card (by way of second yellow) to an American player close to the start of the second half for a late tackle. This was again another case where a warning would have been more consistent.
mp3 crazy forgWhat infuriates me and I'm sure many other soccer fans, is that three red cards in a game should never happen, especially for such controversial reasons as the last two. All it does is increase the tension on the field, leading to more potentially violent situations, and it also makes a lot of players very wary. Simply put, it puts everyone at risk, and ruins the game. The last thing any ref should want is retaliation.
Apparently the ref has been suspended before for inconsistent calls, disqualifying him from refereeing in 2002. I think that if you're suspended once from officiating the World Cup, you should never be hired again. Maybe FIFA will learn something from this, but the damage is done.
Despite the truly disgraceful match, the USA vs. Italy game ended in a tie. This isn't the end of our chances to move on to the second round, but hardly ideal. We will still need to beat Ghana. Then, if Italy does not beat the Czech Republic, our only hope to continue is by goal differential, and that means scoring at least 5 goals more than Ghana does in our final Round One match.
Anyway, grats to Ghana for beating the Czech Republic. It certainly makes things a little easier on us, but we're still very much in trouble.
See ya.
Posted by mrxak at June 18, 2006 12:00 AM