What A Beautiful Game!
by zunguzungu
I watched the USA-Slovenia game this morning and I’m not bothered by Coulibaly’s calling a foul in minute 86 that took back the goal that would have given the USA the victory. In fact, I’m kind of enjoying it. A lot.
But for two different reasons. First, here’s why I’m not that bothered. If you look at the individual play, I’ll grant you it’s a mess; Coulibaly called USA’s Carlos Bocanegra for holding onto Slovene Jejc Pecnik illegally around the time Maurice Edu scored the goal, also around the time half a dozen other players fouled each other as well. As Simon Hayden pointed out, the real problem is that it’s become normal for free kicks to become free-for-alls, as this one did. It’s not like the foul made the goal possible, really, but you know what? It was a foul and he called it. And especially when there are a bunch of fouls like this, the refs tend to give the benefit of the doubt to the kicking team, to minimize the number of goals that come as a result of foul play. It was the sort of call he might — to put it this way — much more easily not have called, but it also was a not completely totally unreasonable call, just sort of bad.
Which is why the real point to make here is that bad calls are a part of the game. For example, when Clint Dempsey threw a high elbow early in the match, Coulibaly didn’t call a thing. And the free kick in the 86th minute should never have happened either; Jozy Altidore needs to save the clip of himself running into a Slovene and then falling down as if fouled for his Oscar reel, since it was a magnificent performance, and he well deserved the free kick for it. But you win some, you lose some; the fact that Coulibaly called more fouls for the US than against them is just one of those things. And if the USA was any other team than the USA, I would sympathize with them for catching a rough break; after getting their asses handed to them by a really charged up Slovenia in the first half, they returned the favor in the second, and good on them for it. They earned that tie — the Donovan goal, in particular, was real pretty — after earning an embarrassing loss in the first half of the game. But a tie was really all they earned; they dominated the second half after the Slovenes dominated the first. A tie seems about right.
What makes me really happy, however, is all you self-righteous American pig dogs crowing about how you had the game stolen from you. Welcome to the fucking World Cup! Does it taste bitter? Does it burn? Now hold that there, right there, on your tongue, for about a century. There! Welcome! The World Cup is pain, princess. Which is why I’m delighted to see people like Joe Posnanski or Peter King as just the first of the many insufferable sports buffoons we’re going to be hearing from in the next few days, the first of many American soccer idiots to demonstrate that we‘ve finally arrived. I mean that: no real soccer nation can be complete without jabbering idiots believing the world is against them because they lost and the refs are totally in the bag for the Slovenians, cause you know the Slovenes, right? Notorious for something, I’m sure, once we figure out who they are. Or this lovely inebriated fool, who stumbles over the name Slovenia and pronounces FIFA “fie-fa” as he proclaims about the anti-USA bias while walking through my neighborhood. It makes me happy to finally live in a country — and a neighborhood — where people can be insufferable asses about soccer. USA! USA! USA! The people who defaced Coulibaly’s wikipedia page, by the way, get a special zunguzungu seal of approval; well done, boys. Now if you can just get a good street riot started, you’ll really take the USA to the next level.
(I’ve been to Slovenia, by the way; it’s a beautiful country. Just wanted that out there, to bolster my smug patronizing aura. To order two beers, say “dva pivo.”)
Peter King’s SI column, for example, is really just run of the mill chauvinism; his dark mutterings about how Coulibaly — “from the landlocked West African country of Mali” — must be unprepared for his job since he only previously refereed in the African Cup of Nations is the sort of sports-commenter crypto racism that the US has been producing more and more of lately, but which has been pretty standard issue in Europe for quite a while. We’ll need more of that in the days to come, but don’t fool yourself: every newspaper in England has at least half a dozen writers capable of turning out that kind of performance at the drop of a hat. And his wailing indignation just demonstrates what an amateur hour dog and pony show he’s running. You get the idea that he really does think he’s the first soccer commentator to demand accountability from FIFA, which I bet he even knows how to pronounce. I hope someday he has the chance to cry and moan after a ref takes away his victory in the semifinals or the quarterfinals, or even the finals themselves. And maybe, just maybe, someday God himself will reach down onto the pitch and hand victory to his opponents.
But it’s Joe Posnanski who truly showed promise today. After a truly amazing story about some lady who doesn’t even like baseball just happening to be in the stands when Nolan Ryan threw his seventh no-hitter — and take note, kids, the incredible rambling tangent circling wide and than back is where the pros shine — he pivots suddenly to talk about the injustice we’ve just seen in Johannesburg:
…I thought about her Friday morning as I watched the United States soccer team put together one of the most remarkable comebacks in the history of the World Cup. I thought about her and all those people in America who were watching world class soccer more or less for the first time.
And I was thinking just what an overmatched referee named Koman Coulibaly cost us all.
Understand: This was Nolan Ryan’s seventh no-hitter. This was Jerry West’s 60-foot shot. This was Montana to Clark in the end zone. This was Bobby Orr’s flying goal. This was the young Tiger Woods at Augusta. This was all those things multiplied several times because this was happening on the giant stage, in the world’s biggest sporting event. A team does not come back from a 2-0 halftime deficit to win in the World Cup. It doesn’t happen. It had NEVER happened. In soccer at the World Cup level — with its impossible mix of passion and fury and consequence and vuvuzelas — each goal is a minor miracle. Two goals is something like insurmountable, especially when a team has shut you out for an entire half.
First of all, when Posnanski wrote that “A team does not come back from a 2-0 halftime deficit to win in the World Cup,” I suspect that what he meant to say was “I don’t care about 1970’s quarterfinal when West Germany came back from a 2-0 deficit to win 3-2 because it didn’t involve the USA (Go USA!).” Or perhaps he meant to say “I also don’t care about West Germany’s comeback from a 2-0 deficit to win 3-2 against Hungary in 1954, nor do I care about Portugal’s 1966 comeback from being down 3-0 to win 5-4, for the same reason. Go USA!”
He’s right about the miracle part, though, which is why I hold out hope he might someday be a real soccer writer. Every goal is a miracle. But Americans have been so used to the idea that God Bless America Fuck Yeah, and for so long, that we’re slow to remember the God of the World Cup is not your namby-pamby hippie love and peace God or your moronic God who gives a shit about your high school Basketball game, no, this is your old testament God smiting the shit out of people for no damn reason. Get used to it. Get used to losing, and feeling like the universe is against you because it is. Like flies to wanton boys are we to the soccer Gods. They disallow our goals for their sport.
But the rest of that piece, Oh! Cry me a river. The business about how “what an overmatched referee named Koman Coulibaly cost us all”? As if every ref isn’t always overmatched. As if the rules don’t state that the ref doesn’t have to say why he called a foul for a reason. As if it isn’t the point that a huge honking element of luck lives in the game and sometimes the not-better team wins. Ask Spain about that. Ask Germany. The not-better team often wins. And using the phrase “cost us” is like hanging a sign around your neck saying “I’ve never had to lose regularly enough to realize that it feels like life.” And the plaintive “Two goals is something like insurmountable, especially when a team has shut you out for an entire half,” makes me wish I had the world’s tiniest violin to play for him, for his pain in his team not having been rewarded for realizing — half way through the game — that maybe, just maybe, the way to get out of a hole is to stop digging! For Americans, that’s not bad.
And yet what really makes everything fall into place is this last monologue, in which he has the incredible stones to demand that “the World” transform its game so it can better pander to — no, seriously — American fans who aren’t really into Soccer:
The world has grown used to the foggy quirks of soccer — extra time, diving, stretchers for players who immediately run back out on the pitch, calls made without explanation. But most of us are not used to these things. And, for so many, this was a lousy introduction to the fog.
In the end, the draw gives the United States an excellent chance of advancing to the knockout round. If the U.S. beats Algeria, it probably will move on. But a victory would have given the U.S. an excellent chance to win the group. And a victory would have given a lot of people all across the country a moment to remember … and a story to tell when people asked, “So, when did you become a soccer fan?”
Instead, it will baffle a lot of people who wanted something to remember. And it will give a lot of people who didn’t like soccer in the first place a chance to say: “What the heck was that?”
What if that lady had wandered into Arlington and complained that a no-hitter was really boring and that maybe they should move the mound farther away from the plate to make it more exciting? Not so much, huh? So maybe the point of the World Cup isn’t actually to interest as many oblivious Americans as possible to a sport the rest of the world is doing a nice job with all by themselves. Maybe they like their World Cup more or less the way it is, and maybe a whole bunch of Americans who think the rules should be changed because the rules didn’t allow US TO WIN are sort of hilariously adorable. And maybe openly acknowledging that Americans will only like soccer if they win at it isn’t quite the most persuasive way to argue that the rules should be changed to match American expectations? It is, however, a nice start for my country, who I may even start rooting for from now on. USA!
zunguzungu 
I didn’t know what the call was until much later–I thought it was a call of offside (was in a bar, and the commentary was in French). As soon as I started reading tweets about a foul, I understood and stopped being upset. That’s soccer.
I’m glad, then, that I was shielded from the ravings stateside until your post. Each of these columnists needs to understand that a point from Slovenia is perfectly ok for advancing. The US could even tie the fennecs on Wednesday and advance, if they get a good enough result in the England/Slovenia match. Beat Algeria, and the second round is practically given.
Point is, you win some and lose some, and that’s sports, and even here, the US didn’t really lose anything.
I’m always eager for the MNT to do well, since I hope it’ll raise soccer’s profile in the US, and I don’t see many negatives with that. But the kind of whining you’ve produced here, from writers (Posnanski) whom I read often and tend to like, makes me reconsider.
This all said, the English incompetence has been a total thrill, and Algeria played amazingly last night.
(side note: might there be something to say about how the villain here is the Malian “overmatched” ref and not Slovenia, who simply out-classed a stumbling US side for most of the match? It is probably the case that in every soccer match, the list of culprits for your team’s result, in order of responsibility, is this:
1. Your team (85%) you want to win? Play that way.
2. The other team (14%) but sometimes you run into a buzzsaw and are simply overmatched. Even a perfect effort still comes up short.
3. Officiating (1%) it is certainly the case that refs can completely blow calls that change the game, but statistics demand that these calls be distributed randomly, meaning that one can’t count on them, and one must, in fact, play around them, taking advantage where possible. the World Cup has the best refs in the world, and despite all the howling about cards, they have been quite consistent.
But the point remains: blamin the ref is always about being a spoiled brat and refusing blame for how you acted. Good to see the US hasn’t learned that.)
note also: all of the above does not hold for the NBA.
I’m writing this at 6am from my phone, so excuse lack of clarity.
disse:I drop a leave a response wheeevnr I appreciate a article on a site or if I have something to add to the discussion. It’s caused by the sincerness displayed in the article I browsed. And on this article Novas unidades CNA pelo pac3ads! | Apaixonados por Idiomas. I was actually excited enough to drop a thought I actually do have some questions for you if you do not mind. Is it just me or does it seem like a few of these remarks appear like they are left by brain dead individuals? And, if you are writing on additional online social sites, I’d like to keep up with you. Could you make a list every one of your public pages like your Facebook page, twitter feed, or linkedin profile?
I looked over my own gametime tweets. Yes, I complained that the refs, twice, called handballs on balls the US players clearly headed (clearly to me), but that’s roll-with-it gametime fretting. Turning in a POST on a blog about those misscalls would be ridiculous. The only good reaction for an MNT fan after yesterday’s match involves analysis on figuring out how on earth the US plans on building some kind of flow in the midfield. Their longball tactics were an anachronism that the Slovenes handled with no trouble at all.
Moacir, longballs are how we scored our two goals. Slovenia obviously didn’t handle it with “no trouble at all.”
I find most plans for how the rules should be changed to make the game more palatable to a U.S. audience pretty stupid, but don’t you think U.S. interest in the sport would actually be a huge educational opportunity for the U.S.? There are few realms of culture which elicit the kind of sustained interest as sport, and if learning something about, say, Côte D’Ivoire or Slovenia (much less maybe re-educating them to think of the world not in total U.S.-centric terms, much less teaching some genuine humility) ended up being a by-product of that sustained interest I see that as a win. In that sense, I agree with Posnanski: this could have been a pivotal moment in really turning the U.S. onto football, and it’s a shame it didn’t happen.
I recognize that this is kind of what you’re saying, though I’m not really buying the sort of reverse American exceptionalism undercurrent I’m picking up which says basically that the U.S. needed to be taught a lesson for being the *only* nation so naive as to think that it really should win all the matches it deserved to win. Isn’t every nation like that? I mean, you seem to acknowledge that’s so, but then you get to Posnanski–and maybe you’re just being hard on him for effect or something–but is attributing to him the thought, “I’ve never had to lose regularly enough to realize that it feels like life” really fair for a guy who covers Kansas City sports? Who’s from Cleveland? Like all sports fans–Americans or no–he probably does in fact know something about losing regularly.
Absolutely love this post. Have been sharing it wherever I can. Best thing about the game I’ve read. I will say, though, that Posnanski was specific enough in his lament that he was technically correct. Please correct me if I’m wrong, but the famous comebacks you cite all began in the first half, no? Sadly, he may well be right about no team coming back from a 2-0 halftime deficit; though certainly not two-deficits, in general, as Austria came back from being down 4-2 back in ’54 against Austria (now that’s a memorable match!).
It’s been interesting to read that the wire reports of the match contain quotes from Donovan and Bradley about the disallowed goal. I expect petulance from Landon, but Bradley should’ve shown more tact. He got totally outmanaged in the first half, and his team played terribly all around. He should be grateful Dempsey didn’t pick up a card in the opening seconds!
But I’d suggest, in fact, that turning to English reporting might be a *good* thing here. Articles about the English side are fascinating in their amazing schizophrenia (something present in many French articles about the French team, too). At the same time, with no dissonance, they both think the England team will win the World Cup and think that the team is rubbish.
But in post-match analysis, the blame typically falls square on those Umbro shirts. Granted, there were no disallowed goals against Algeria, but everything I’ve read about last night’s match has been solely about how England didn’t live up to the task which was their charge (personally, it broke my heart to see how persistently deferent (Spurs winger) Aaron Lennon, who is simply brilliant, was to Gerrard, who was killing the English attack with his misplay). The same is true about the first match. It was interesting to see that Green was not even terribly scapegoated (unlike in the US, where he’s been the persistent butt of countless jokes). The English press realized that the 1:1 draw was the result of poor play all around. Yeah, the goal was unlucky, but good teams overcome adversity, etc., etc.
Point is, and what I think this post is getting at in a very roundabout way, is that in nations with robust popular soccer histories, the blame game points at the team (France is referred to as a nation of 65 million selectors). Blaming the ref is rookie exasperation, and it shows a decided lack of appreciation of nuance (which Posnanski seems to be hinting at while succumbing to it). I’m having a bit of trouble parsing the parts about american exceptionalism (7am, etc.), but as I’m forming the narrative in my head about my feelings toward the match, the key is, and will always be, that you don’t win with longballs.
The fact that he’s *technically* correct is the part of the column, Brad, is what I find most egregious actually, since it makes it seem like an all the more willful misleading of his readers; those comparisons are really not at all appropriate. It would have been a fine comeback, but certainly not any more singular than the sort of thing one sees almost every cup (since they happen every four years, the phrase “never in world cup history” is particularly misleading).
It’s his sense of entitlement that kills me, though, phrases like “I was thinking just what an overmatched referee named Koman Coulibaly cost us all” that frame the victory as already possessed and having been stolen by a bad ref; as Moacir puts it, griping about the ref is an incredibly spoiled way to behave, especially since they had already lost the game by letting Slovenia walk all over them. The fact that they came back as far as they did was just grace. And grace is never to be taken for granted, much less presumed.
As for American exceptionalism, well, I’m happy to see soccer catch on in the US, but the entire “unless the US wins we won’t care” presumption is the first thing that has to go for that to happen. That loss should make us even more invested in the US; instead of declaring that the rules need to be changed, we need to spend the next four years BURNING WITH RAGE AND VOWING REVENGE!!!!! Maybe a nice little war of choice in the Balkans, too, you know? The funny thing is that the US is still very likely to advance, as long as they beat Algeria into a pulp, and that’s still in their power to do. Which is my main gripe with Posnanski; he feels cheated and refuses to accept that this is what World Cup feels like, which is, like, fine, but good luck with that. In that sense, I’m not so much trying to psychoanalize him as I am marveling at what would make an apparently intelligent sportswriter write such a silly column (and so many other writers write the same column). And my guess is that it feels different when a bunch of Slovenes beat the US TEAM than when one American team beats another; as Moacir points out, it’s interesting that none of the rage ever touches the Slovenes themselves or the Americans in the first half. We’re so used to American dominance that when we can’t have it we don’t know how to react.
I think Moacir’s last point is completely on target, in that sense; it’s because we lack a sense of international soccer history that we’re a weird inverse of Anglish soccer fans, who believe in their own destiny with greatness but have been disappointed so many times that it co-exists with fatalistic pessimism. We still only have the first part of it. Because the fact really is that every world cup team is kind of great, and yet only one will win. So while your older teams will get that old familiar ache in the pit of their stomach when they see a truly excellent home side lose to some team whose greatness they can’t imagine, we view things like Slovenia beating US as unthinkable, unimaginable, because we don’t remember that it happens all the time.
Also? the quote from Donovan about asking the ref in a non-confrontational manner why the goal was disallowed is hilarious.
Moacir,
Sorry for the confusion–the comments about reverse American exceptionalism are rather vague. I didn’t actually see your comments at the time, so I was just addressing Aaron’s post, though.
What I meant was that Aaron seems to be saying basically that the U.S. is the only nation who is so naive as to think that this kind of thing doesn’t happen all the time in sport, particularly in football, and so naive and arrogant as to think that its side will win every match it deserves to win, even if that’s not how it works out for everybody else. That’s the reverse exceptionalism–the U.S. is different from all other nations and that it alone thinks it should be privileged in ways that other nations aren’t. And it deserved this lesson to show it how naive and arrogant it is.
I’m saying that I don’t think that Posnanski (or the U.S. players) shows some exceptional strain of U.S. naivete and arrogance (though the idea of re-regulating football to make the U.S. side more successful does) about winning and losing in sport, and certainly not some special U.S. breed of ignorance about the deserving team sometimes losing. Posnanski understands that; anyone who follows any sport understands that. Expressing frustration with a questionable call is different from expressing incredulity that questionable calls exist and that they sometimes will happen to our side.
Moacir’s point about most nations heaping the most scorn on their own team is well-taken, and I’m certainly not arguing that the U.S. is a well-educated football country–most of the people watching probably can tell little about what’s a successful strategy and what isn’t and just rely on whether it scores goals or not. However, there’s a difference between saying the U.S. deserved to win because it put three good goals in the net and its opponent put in two, and saying the U.S. deserved to win because it was the better team and goddammit, it’s America. There’s a difference between saying that although the U.S. played a terrible half of football it also played an extraordinary, out of this world half which actually did make up the difference, and saying that it deserves a win for trying really hard and being America. I think Posnanski and most other commentators are saying the former parts, not the latter.
This, by the way, was a nice re-cap of why the goal was only a rough call, not an injustice for the ages.
Aaron,
I was typing the above while you were typing yours, evidently. But I just don’t see what you see in Posnanski’s column. I don’t see the indifference to the first half of play–he just doesn’t dwell on it as the most important part of the match, which may be what the English press would have done but nevertheless isn’t really that bizarre, particularly when he’s trying to sell the sport. And I don’t see the refusal to accept that questionable calls happen sometimes–I just see someone frustrated that it did this time. I don’t know why he would or should be angry at the Slovenes, or why not showing anger toward them demonstrates an imperial arrogance. And he does in fact mention that the U.S. is still quite likely to advance–what he’s bummed about is that the call cut off a magical rally. And I really don’t understand why you think the second half wasn’t pretty special–it’s not winning when you’re three down in a best of seven series special, but it’s also not “the sort of thing one sees almost every cup” if it’s “technically” never happened before.
Andrew,
Well, most directly, I’m actually saying the US is now much more like other nations in that we act like idiots when it comes to soccer. I welcome the change, generally. But the problem with that Posnanski column isn’t even that he says silly things about how no possible flaw existed on the play — you can see in these pictures what Coulibaly saw, which was Bocanegra pulling down a defender, apparently in the lane Edu would a second later take to score the goal. Obviously Posnanski didn’t see that; a humbler man might wait to find out what actually happened before pronouncing on it, but let it go. At least his gripe is with the call, which is where it should be.
What gets me about that column is the raw noobishness of making it all a story about us, the American fans who don’t care about soccer. That whole “lady walking into Rangers stadium” anecdote is just silly; the point seems to be that what’s really important about the game isn’t who wins or loses but whether or not American fans have a great soccer experience. To the extent that he’s just reflecting his own subjective experience and frustration, of course, fine. But this paragraph just blows my mind because it links his subjective experience to that injustice, makes the bad call a problem because it doesn’t give his non-soccer caring American fans any jollies:
“The World” which loves soccer and follows it avidly has grown used to the foggy quirks of the game because they understand it, or accept it. The “us” who don’t, on the other hand, are people that don’t particularly follow soccer and don’t care. So why is it such a world-shaking tragedy that it was a lousy introduction to the game?
There’s also the matter of caring a thousand times more for a nicely packaged “Great Sports Moment” than the fact that the US will still advance, and as Moacir points out, needs to spend their energy figuring out how not to get trounced by the big boys.
Ships passing in the night apparently. I should really be watching the Ghanaians instead of typing, but my internet is choppy. Oh shit! Red Card! OH!!!!!!!
Um. I think I am going to watch the Ghanaian game, actually. But the short answer is that, my attempt at comedy aside, the worst I would really say about the Posnanski column is that it was silly, in a totally understandable way.
Self-righteous, U.S.-hating jerks like you are why people hate soccer in America. Figure out a way to show the damn clock to the fans and get back to me.
Joe and Peter write better in their sleep than you do awake.
I’m disappointed that the NY Post chose to go with “Screw-S-A”. Surely symmetry demanded “USA LOSES 2-2”?
I’m glad you finally found an identity you’re happy with!
Wow. Peter’s may be my first true hate comment! I, too, have arrived!
The “smoking gun” photo of Bocanegra’s foul omits the above the shoulder view, where the Slovene has him in a headlock. I know that there not being a clear foul ruins your gleeful soccer-snob chestpounding, but I’m sure you’ll make up for it with something snide and clever.
Excellent analysis, Aaron. Proud to know you. I have not read any American sports journalist’s outrage at some very questionable calls in the Germany, Serbia match. American sports writers need to stick to writing Vuvuzela columns and ESPN needs to buy some vineyards to justify being the source of American whine.
My god, 1986, Maradona, World Cup, Argentina, England… oh, the inhumanity, oh, the injustice ?
The ref blew the whistle well before any of that holding went on. It was simply a make up call for giving a free kick that never should have been when altidore dove. 9 times out of 10 there’s a blatant foul on either team, this time there wasn’t really,I don’t think bocanegra was doing anymore fouling than pecnik.
Hey #1 Rick! I know, right? Stop the presses: Area Fans Disapprove of Referee’s Call! And in other news, Man bites dog.
Adam, No, I know. My point wasn’t that he was clearly right, it was that it was a bad call well within the normal range of bad calls. Which are part of the game.
Paul, That’s an interesting point. Which would bring us back to the original bad call that went USA’s way, making the real issue that fact that this is a non-issue, just one of those things.
A few things:
Rick, the calls in the Germany-Serbia were ripped very harshly by the ESPN radio crew that I listened to on the way to work, and the ESPN TV crew, who I heard when I got to work and pulled the game up online. He (A Spaniard!) was awful by all accounts in the first half. Someone from FIFA must have come down to him at halftime and told him to chill out because no one wants to watch 6v6 football. I watched the entire second half and I thought he did alright then.
As for some of the other issues at hand, was the FK that led to the goal “soft?” Maybe so considering Altidore’s strength, but the Slovenian defender did have his hands up trying to block him off. Hardly a horrible call. Surely Bocanegra was the only American that could have even been considered to be blown for a foul, but the Slovenian defender on him wasn’t innocent either, and picking that alone out of the fray (ignoring fouls on the Americans including a bearhug on Michael Bradley) hardly excuses the referee. He was overmatched from the very beginning, from Dempsey’s header (should have been a yellow, a red would have been very harsh) to the Findley yellow card for a face/handball to the disallowed goal. It wasn’t just a bad call or two, he struggled throughout. Add on to that the fact the he and FIFA have been very vague on what the foul was, only leads to more furor. I wouldn’t mind if he or Undiano (the GER-SRB ref) didn’t ref again at this World Cup.
As for the furor being a form of American/European exceptionalism, maybe so. I tend to think fans of any nation would have been upset in that situation. Maybe they would not have had the platform to broadcast their frustration, but they certainly would have been furious at the call. Heck, people from Tunisia and the Côte d’Ivoire care for Coulibaly as much as Americans do.
And to conclude, anyone who calls for vuvuzelas to be banned or the rules of football to be changed can go straight to hell in my book.
Wow!!! Great Article!!! I actually happen to think that it was a terrible call. But now you know what? I’m actually kind of pleased that it happened – its fun to see our country get exposed and embarrassed by these arrogant buffoons. Coulibaly mad an honest mistake – it happens to all of us. But guess what? He had the gall to not cater to every whim of the United fucking States of America!!! How dare he miss a call for US OF ALL PEOPLE!!!! Jesus, all these hacks and fringe football fans posing as sportswriters need to get off their high horses. And people wonder why the world views us as arrogant and self-centered
I’m definitely on the same page as you here. I had a nice conversation about football the other day w/ a Scotsman, and we talked a long time about the horrible call that went against the US in their 2002 quarterfinal match against Germany. Namely, we talked about how we’d know US had embraced soccer when a missed call like that would go down in infamy — not unlike Henry’s handball against the Irish this year (something that will be encoded in the Irish DNA from here on out). I’m still not sure the US is there yet.
Awesome, awesome blog post. Thank you for calling out these clowns! I, like many Americans at the time, were upset with the call, but that’s life. I still don’t know if there definitely was a foul, at least there were on both teams if there was, but once the game ended you have to move on. The US players have actually pissed me off with all their postgame comments about the ref. It’s one thing to say something immediately after the game, but once you’ve had time to cool down, stfu and quit bitching.
Also, please write or edit this blog post and add that annoying Rick Reilly to your enemies! Check out this absurd column he wrote a few days ago:
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/story?id=5288738
Once again, another American asking the World Cup to adjust to our standards of what he thinks the World Cup should be.
Tim: Rick Reilly is a toolbag. If he represents the US, then I’m moving to Canada.
I really don’t see the furor over the call as American arrogance. Was the anger at Jim Joyce and the MLB “Detroit arrogance”? I don’t think so. It’s a populist stance to call for the ref’s head, but it is also kinda sad that fair play is a “populist” ideal.
Personally, and this sounds more insulting than I intend, I think soccer fans don’t want “mainstream Americans” polluting their beautiful game. It’s more that the US doesn’t care about soccer for 3 years and 10 months per 4 years, I think, than it is that they care strongly about an unfair result. If Italy goes crazy about a bad call, riots even, and their sportswriters write overblown, somewhat racist-flavored columns, well, they live and die by soccer — they earned it!
Which, to me, is pure anti-American snobbishness. And I say this as an anti-American snob.
You do know that the ref said he called a foul on Edu, right?
So your little Bocanegra theory is quite shit, isn’t it? Then again, you probably knew that, but the facts didn’t really support the argument you so desperately needed to make.
This is every bit an “ugly anti-American” post as anything you cite can be pinned an example of “ugly Americanism.” Much of this acceptance, and even lauding, of soccer’s corruption and incompetence is a symptom of why places like Mali are the way they are.
Go go USA! I hope we win!
Another perspective prior to the controversy :
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/13/AR2010061305048.html
Umm, you mean the home team’s fans and reporters upset about a horrible call is somehow….strange? You expect them to be as upset at the Germany-Serbia calls? Idiotic post – its one thing to defend the Malian but quite another to criticize the critics. So they are ugly Americans when they call out a badly refereed match? umm….OK. You be dumb (and purely anti-american).
Also – yes we dont really like your sport all that much. It has no history here and we find it quite boring. Get over it.
Hard to take you seriously when you don’t even have the facts straight. Coulibaly did not call a foul on USA’s Carlos Boconegra, which is good since Bocanegra was in a headlock and then thrown to the pitch by a Slovene defender. In fact, he never said what the call was. A day later, FIFA has stated that the foul was on the USA’s Maurice Edu. I challenge anyone to point out on the video where Edu fouls a defender. He doesn’t. Coulibaly, in his first World Cup, appeared to be completely out of his depth, and he came to South Africa with a troubling and controversial history. The call in this game was bad enough that it appears likely that Coulibaly will not ref another game in South Africa. From Yahoo Sports:
“If he is found to have made a serious mistake, especially one that affected the outcome, then he would be highly unlikely to play any further part in the tournament,” Yahoo! Sports quoted a source as saying. “FIFA is determined to keep refereeing standards high and does not want high-profile mistakes.”
This has nothing to do with someone being “in the bag” for Slovenia. Coulibaly was an incompetent, as bad as the official in the Germany game, who was also roundly criticized by ESPN commentators. So instead of yesterday being a day of great football, it was day stained by controversy and ineptitude of the officials.
Bottom line: it was a shit call. Second bottom line: the American constitution allows us to point that out – no matter how mongo-like it comes across.
[…] What A Beautiful Game! I watched the USA-Slovenia game this morning and I’m not bothered by Coulibaly’s calling a foul in minute […] […]
Congratulations on those sports-related hate posts. Ain’t nothing like the real thing. Meanwhile, you can say whatever you like about our American footballers so long as you can muster some patriotism for our homegrown ‘tossers after the Starcraft 2 release.
All I can say is that the referee made some mistakes in the match, but guess what? So many other referees have been making mistakes this world cup. Look at the game between Cameroon and Denmark? Denmark almost scored a third goal OFFSIDES, yet it was not called… Why is that?
The thing is if Coulibaly is being singled out because he’s an African, then this world really has no hope and I can only wish it the best. There are many unqualified referees who are not being called on anything.
Good luck to the remaining African teams in this world cup.
[…] this blog post, for instance, courtesy of the fine people at zunguzungu.wordpress.com. The author says the following about […]
This post is generally terrible, both because you get the facts wrong on numerous occasions and because you completely miss the point of Posnanski’s article. I’d like to respond with the same needless venom you showed, but that would be pointless.
Other people have covered the facts: the foul was not called on Bocanegra, he was surely innocent of a foul anyway, the refereeing was terrible throughout the game in both directions, and the line about 2-0 halftime deficits was in fact correct. Sure, Posnanski takes some poetic license in using the last fact, but if playing for drama is his worst offense I think I can forgive him.
What’s more amazing is that you miss the entire point of Posnanski’s piece. He is a soccer fan — perhaps not as much as you or I, but certainly a fan — and he wants to evangelize soccer in our country. In the U.S.’s stirring comeback (unless you would object to me calling it “stirring” because Portugal had a more impressive revival 40 years ago), he saw the opportunity to show a lot of your stupid Americans how great soccer is. And he’s right — in my office, there was a crowd in the breakroom for the last half hour. In my girlfriend’s office, where a TV is right above her desk, she was unable to do work because she was surrounded by everyone in the office. And yet, in the end, all anyone talked about was the terrible call. A lot of those people who gathered in the breakroom ended up saying “God, soccer is dumb.”
And when Posnanski writes “And I was thinking just what an overmatched referee named Koman Coulibaly cost us all,” that’s what he’s talking about. Not the fact that the Yanks tied one stupid World Cup game. That’s what he’s referring to with the Nolan Ryan anecdote — like the girl who saw one great baseball game and became a fan for life, maybe some of those Americans who witnessed an incredible comeback would have started following soccer. Maybe not. But if you think the guy is bitching because the U.S. were robbed of two points, you need to work on your reading comprehension.
I also can’t leave without addressing your nonsense regarding Americans whining about officiating. As you so eloquently put it, “The World Cup is pain, princess.” Well, yeah. In every third game, one country or another gets completely boned by the referee. And then every writer in that country complains about the ref. Are you really going to argue that Italians or Brazilians or Argentines never piss and moan about officiating? And if not, what’s your point? The Americans are getting screwed just like everyone else and reacting just like everyone else.
Look, these snarky asshole hit pieces can be really funny. If you want to take down Rick Reilly or Peter King, be my guest. They’re generally idiots. But you have to be right. Posnanski is an upstanding dude, one who likes soccer a lot. And, having spent his entire life covering and rooting for the most inept franchises in American sports, he certainly doesn’t feel entitled to winning. You didn’t just miss that, you missed the whole point of the story. If you try to write one of these pieces and you don’t know what you’re talking about, you just sound dumb.
The referee who threw out the United States’ would-be winning goal last week will not officiate another World Cup match anytime soon, FIFA announced Monday. Mali-born Koman Coulibaly, who disallowed a crucial American goal against Slovenia on Friday night, was left off the list of referees for the next two days of matches.
The game ended in a 2-2 tie, rather than a 3-2 American victory that would have marked the biggest World Cup comeback ever.
FIFA officials have been tight-lipped about the controversial call. “We do not comment on referee decisions,” a spokesperson told The Wall Street Journal.
Coulibaly received a poor rating from FIFA following an expedited review of his performance Saturday, Yahoo! Sports reported.
[…] dispatches about officiating following USA’s draw with Slovenia in the World Cup, Zunguzungu penned an appropriate – given the initial outcry – takedown of the “insufferable sports […]
Which is why the real point to make here is that bad calls are a part of the game
Which is why the real lesson here is that Congress pass a law to make participation in any FIFA-sanctioned event a renunciation of citizenship. Let the rest of the world wallow in a sport where the referee is an unchallengeable apparatchik; the appropriate game for the American people will have checks on the referee and appeals to higher courts, to see that the laws of the game are applied consistently and fairly.
congratulations to spain for winning the world cup !
amen sister!
[…] From Zunguzungu: […]
[…] From Zunguzungu: […]
Interesting article, thanks for sharing