Interesting WC, wasn't it? Congrats to Spain who won it but also to the great moments of the World Cup. The US and the dramatic matches against Slovenia, Algeria and Ghana. To Uruguay for being the surprise team (and for scoring some of the most beautiful goals)and to Ghana for playing the best and most exciting, unscripted match against Uruguay in the quarter finals.
As for the officiating, well, there was a lot to point out. Good and bad. Let's start off with the good. The final: I know most people think that the reds should have come out earlier for the Dutch, but I disagree. I think Mr. Webb did his best to control the match without losing anyone. Should have the chest high challenge been greeted with a red instead of a yellow? Perhaps, but it was early enough to merit a yellow. If that challenge comes with 5 minutes left to play, sure, send him off, but with 70 or so, not so sure in such a high profile match (the highest, actually).
Other good things I liked, the carding early. I really thought that the teams were not expecting it (just like they were not expecting the ball to behave like a beach ball). Uruguay's Lodeiro was carded twice in a span of 10 minutes for two challenges in the first match against France, Germany's Klose was carded twice against Serbia, the second one was for a relatively tame tackle but from behind. After the first couple of matches, the players got it. The negative side to this was the inconsistency between the refs could have been curtailed. Still, it allowed the real game changers (Xabi, Iniesta, Forlan, Messi -sorta- and others) to do what they did best, make the matches entertaining.
The bad was really bad, especially that weekend where they messed up the bracket entirely with the Argentina-Mexico screw-up and the Germany-England mess. First Larrionda's crew fails to award the tying goal to England and then Rosetti's crew awards a goal when Tevez was clearly offside. So my take on this is as follows:
Of the two miscues, the worst is the one with Argentina and Mexico, because offside is the NUMBER ONE priority of the AR. Yes, it was a quick play, but he was a couple of feet offside. I cut the AR in the England match a little (very little) bit of slack because he was where he is trained to be, with the second to last defender. He was a good 12-15 feet off of the goal line and the shot was fast so that he did not get a good glimpse of that is basically a referee blind spot, kind of like the problem with France and Ireland and Mr. Henry's handling, it happened in the center's corner with many people in between the center and the infraction.
So how to fix this? Simple, you have a 4th and 5th official in these types of matches and there is technology available to everyone but the center and the ARs. Well, in the case of the England/Germany match, keep playing and allow the 4th/5th officials to review the play (allow some 30 seconds or so) and the right call would have been made. If there are any infractions/yellow/red cards that occur between the time the goal is being reviewed and the time it is officially a goal, they stand, but so does the goal. It is more important to get it right than to ensure game flow. So allow the game to flow until a decision has been made. Again, it should not take more than 30 seconds to see something like that. Especially at the World Cup or other large event where there are 20 camera angles.
FIFA does not want this because that would mean sacrificing game flow, but it is simple, it is already implemented in these high level matches as the cameras are already there and does not require chip-in-ball technology or the addition of any extra ARs for goal line decisions.
So the naysayers would argue what happens in the case of a goal being scored in the 30 seconds that it takes to make the decision. If it is by the team that scored already but their goal was not counted and was being reviewed, count one of them, the first if it was indeed a goal and if not the second. If in the 30 seconds it takes the other team scores, well, we have a problem. I would hope decisions can be made prior to that happening but that would be something that needs to be addressed. Frankly, it might happen once or twice in the whole history of World Cups. To me, the goal should stand as well and kick off to the team that got scored on second.
Finally, the last thing I want to address is the diving. Do an after the match suspension of the floppers. Ronaldo, the Ivory Coast player that bumped into Kaka, Joan Capdevilla and the entire Italian team (or at least, this guy: http://www.caughtoffside.com/2010/06/15/the-worst-dive-of-the-2010-world-cup-video/) should be suspended after the fact for one match, since they dove and no one did anything to them. Second time, 2 matches, then 4. Eventually, the diving will stop.
Hope to hear your comments and I am looking forward to getting back into the saddle for this coming season.
