Women's Soccer

[wildone]

So I may be biased here, since this is getting major airtime in Canada and a bit in the US. Not sure about Europe and the rest of the world.

 

To set the stage, we have the USA Women's Soccer Team who are the favourites to win the gold. Next you have the Canadian Women's Soccer Team who were not even expected to qualify for the games.

 

Early rounds finds the US easily moving on. Even from the US goalie's own words that she has been 'unchallenged' so far. Hope Solo has made some other inflammatory comments that the rest of the world looks on and mumbles the words 'ugly American' under their breath (I do find it ironic that only the American's are subject to this stereotype, the rest of the world's athletes have a fair share of bravado that is 'ugly' as well). Solo even gets in a Twitter war with former US soccer star Brandi Chastain

 

So we move onto the Women's quarter finals which is between Canada and the US. The US is heavily favoured in this contest. The Canadian coach thinks it will be a close match due to both teams playing a 'physical' style of soccer.

 

The game came and the battle ensued. Canada scored 3 goals against the 'unchallenged' US goalie, all by the same person, Christine Sinclair. Where the controversy comes in, is not in the comments before the game, but the actions of the referee from Norway, Christiana Pedersen.

 

Canada was ahead 3-2 late in the game. Abby Wambach admits to the world later that she counts out loud every time that the Canadian goalie has the ball, near the ref, to influence her to make a oft not use penalty of delay of game. Well the ref bites, and issues the penalty in the 80th minute of the game.

 

So a free kick is issued and the ref in turns calls a Canadian player for a hand ball on the kick. Ironically the ref ignored a more blatant hand ball the US did earlier in the game when they were down. Then she awards Wambach a penalty kick which she scores and ties the game.

 

Yes the US went on to win the game in extra time. No, Canada did not have the offence or defence that they did in regular time and based on the extra time did not deserve to win.

 

The question comes to light in looking at the regular time.

 

After the game Sinclair and other players are overly critical of the Norwegian ref. Sinclair is quoted as saying '"We feel like we didn't lose, We feel like it was taken from us. It's a shame in a game like that, which is so important that the ref decided the result before the game started."

 

Now this is where FIFA usually steps in and is quick and decisive in public criticism of the ref. Interestingly enough, FIFA will not sanction the Canadian players, coach or team as they do not have enough to base a decision on so will wait till after the Olympics to decide if sanctions need to happen.

 

Hmmm, could this be FIFA actually agreeing with the Canadian Team about the officiating? Personally if Canada deserves sanctions for speaking out against the officiating, which I believe they 100% do, then just do it.

 

After the game this is released, ""We made her look good," Solo said. "We didn't win those air battles."

 

I do want to give kudos to Solo though for her tweet today, "Ive said it all along...Sinclair could be the best player in the world. My hat goes off to her and the Canadian team."

 

A happy ending...... I guess

 

I don't begrudge the US for winning, they played the full game and took advantage of every opportunity presented to them. Canada did not do that as they had the same opportunity with extra time.

 

What I do begrudge is the optics of the officiating where it seems like even FIFA doesn't want to express their usual opinion of we stand 100% behind our ref's decision.

 

Like I said, maybe this can be written off as Canada upset over the loss and not being sportsmanlike over the loss.

 

So my question, does Canada have a right to be disappointed?

 

Please do not make this into a US versus Canada, Europe, or any other country of the world. I want to discuss the officiating and the game, not our impressions of the US.

[Bumblebee]

I don't like soccer nor do I follow anything about it.. But Iike watching women's soccer cause the women are quite hot

[NotNoNever]

I'm afraid I couldn't really understand your post.

 

At any rate, this is an Olympic competition. It has nothing to do with FIFA from a sanctions point of view. And anybody expecting any level of sensibility out of FIFA or soccer players is living in hope of alchemy.

 

I can't really understand why soccer is in the Olympics, anyway. It is one of the least noble sports on the planet. Although, women's soccer is a little better than the men's game.

 

And the biggest problem with the men's game is that half of them think each game is a training period for Tom Daley's sport.

Edited August 9, 2012 by NotNoNever

[Zombie]

Commiserations wildone This was mentioned in the UK press http://www.guardian....l/rss (Football)

 

Refs make wrong decisions all the time in team sports. Soccer / football and rugby are rife with them. The Old Men of FIFA had to be dragged kicking and screaming into agreeing goal line line technology only because so many major matches - including internationals - had been thrown by wrong ref decisions proved to be so by HD TV slo-mo playback. As for appeals at London 2012, its interesting that when Japan's gymnastics team appealed against the judge's decision last week to place them 4th (no medal) and Britan 2nd (silver) the judges immediately agreed to go into a huddle, replay the TV tapes, agree they had made a mistake and then change their decision and award Japan 2nd (silver) and Britain 3rd (bronze). I'm glad this happened - Japan deserved silver

 

There'll always be scope for error / subjectivity / bias ... until the robots take over

 

[Andy78]

This is just another problem that occurs in sports where these days we have the technology to allow for video replays, and in some sports (such as cricket) an umpire/referees decision can be appealed against and videotapes and technology consulted to ensure the correct call has been made. But these technologies and appeals processes need to be made available in every sport.

 

It seems to me that the American player was perhaps a little quick in calling for the time penalty, as you said in your post "Abby Wambach admits to the world later that she counts out loud every time that the Canadian goalie has the ball, near the ref, to influence her to make a oft not use penalty of delay of game". She was clearly determined to use this rule to her advantage come what may.

 

Usually, referees grant some leeway with these time regulations if the game is not obviously being delayed. There is a similar time penalty in cricket, and it is even less often called for - only twice in professional competition in the past hundred years and upheld never.

 

Perhaps Canada were just unlucky to get a by the book ref

Edited August 9, 2012 by andy021278

[PrivateTim]

So I may be biased here, since this is getting major airtime in Canada and a bit in the US. Not sure about Europe and the rest of the world.

 

I'm afraid I couldn't really understand your post.

 

At any rate, this is an Olympic competition. It has nothing to do with FIFA from a sanctions point of view. And anybody expecting any level of sensibility out of FIFA or soccer players is living in hope of alchemy.

 

The officiating was atrocious and Canada got the best of it.

 

With the score 1-1 with 56 minutes gone, Canadian player Melissa Tancredi deliberately stomped on the head of Carli Lloyd as she lay on the turf. That is an automatic Red Card and Canada should have played a man down for about 34 minutes. Tancredi also would not be playing today. FIFA should also still sanction her.

 

 

To NotNoNever, FIFA has everything to do with the tournament. The "Olympics" don't stage any contests, the world sports organizations do, FIFA runs soccer, FINA runs water polo, swimming, diving etc, FILA runs wrestling, FIVB runs volleyball and so on.

[NotNoNever]

I really can't see how Canada playing one man down would have changed anything.

[PrivateTim]

I really can't see how Canada playing one man down would have changed anything.

 

Really? So you think Canada would have scored two more goals down one person? I know you are from Wales, but surely you must understand something about football.

[NotNoNever]

Ah, well, now you've changed your terms. You were talking about men, now about persons. It's a woman's game. Losing a non-existent man is hardly likely to have any effect at all.

[wildone]

Tim, so one call against Canada isn't missed. Couldn't any objective look at that found Lloyd fell down as Tancredi tried to slow down and her foot hit her head as she fell.

 

I don't see any change of direction, I don't see any kicking motion, I just see a collision between the two.

 

But oh well, I guess we cheer for our own teams, don't we?

[Zombie]

With the score 1-1 with 56 minutes gone, Canadian player Melissa Tancredi deliberately stomped on the head of Carli Lloyd as she lay on the turf. That is an automatic Red Card and Canada should have played a man down for about 34 minutes. FIVB runs volleyball and so on.

 

If you're going to include video evidence you might make the effort to find a decent quality clip that actually shows what happened instead of this shaky footage that seems to have been shot by an out of focus 1980s camcorder vaguely pointing in the direction of a dodgy laptop computer with a dead sound card

[PrivateTim]

If you're going to include video evidence you might make the effort to find a decent quality clip that actually shows what happened instead of this shaky footage that seems to have been shot by an out of focus 1980s camcorder vaguely pointing in the direction of a dodgy laptop computer with a dead sound card

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3ggsT2HWkc

[Zombie]

OK, thanks for that. It does appear to be deliberate but if this is so clear cut I'm surprised there's not been a request for sanctions against Tancredi - there would have been several HD cameras taking footage from different angles. And if Carli Lloyd was hurt by this that she hasn't made a formal complaint.

 

(see Deeply Disturbing for more stomping action)

Edited August 10, 2012 by Zombie