Just Anger?

Every proud fan of the American national soccer team, and truly every person I have spoken to about the World Cup, calls the decision made by the Malian referee towards the end of the last USA group stage game against Slovenia to be a fluke. Some people go as far as to claim that the decision to annul the goal was terrible, horrible, “the worst ever seen”, shit, garbage, etc. The list really goes on forever. Even the English announcers on ESPN call the decision wrong. I agree.

However, as any self-respecting soccer fan knows: soccer is masochistic and subjective. Fans suffer for 90 minutes, and well 50% of them are generally frustrated beyond belief at the end. Many times the best teams, or shall I say the teams that play best, lose. This is extremely common. My personal example is Barcelona’s home game against Inter-Milan during this year’s Champion’s League semi-finals. Barca outplayed Inter, but lost the series on aggregate scoring. I almost jumped in front a bus that day.

Knowing how emotionally painful soccer is, we must add that perhaps Americans are too parochial for soccer (Parochial Americans). I’m not so sure about that argument. As I think each culture is set in their own ways for various reasons. I generally don’t buy the anti-soccer arguments of most Americans, but I do at least understand their arguments against it. Specifically, I empathize for their frustrations with referees and decisions. No black and white, no screen replay, no bird in the sky technology, no public-pandering corporate apologies, and least of all no congressional investigations into sports. (Jajaja, the last two were just for kicks.)

At this point I do something rather controversial. I only am doing this after reading this post (Defense of Ref). If you check out the camera angles you’ll notice that there was grabbing, BUT from both teams. Sure, the Slovenians were being more aggressive, and they surely did foul American players. But I think the difference between Coulibaly and me is what spirit of soccer we take. I always take the side of forwards, and give the offside advantage and foul advantage to strikers. This is in part due to the style of soccer I enjoy, and in part to foster a more exciting game (Dunga may gasp at this opinion!). Coulibaly perhaps takes the other side, he prefers to err cautiously. Just imagine what the Slovenians would have said if their side lost due to a foul not being called in the box!

I think the USA should have been given that goal, and if anything, perhaps even a penalty. But, he isn’t some horrible ref, or an evil person dropped in that game by FIFA to sabotage the American chances of getting far in the World Cup. They would love to have the American market open to soccer!! Really! And they’re only going to get it if the Americans win! (You know how Americans will only watch it if we’re alive in the tournament.) So maybe he made a call that errs on the side of caution, and even a bad one. But soccer is subjective. And let’s not forget: The USA played like shit for the first 45 minutes. We wouldn’t even be discussing this if we would have defended and scored during the first half!