World cup football rocking all over the world!

[66andBlue]

A few years ago a saw a montage of TV clips showing all kind of fakes when NFL players (receivers and defenders) tried to get interference calls to go in their favor.  Not much different, IMO. 
There is one exception, here the resulting delays caused by instant replays are welcome because it provides more advertising minutes and thus more income.
I rather be amused by some bad acting on the pitch than be annoyed by another beer commercial.

[mdsalemi]

Well at least--finally--the FIFA boss is acknowledging and apologizing for bad refereeing.  They had a "Who's who" list of these refs (it is only a few) as well as a description of how to win an Oscar with the fakes in the papers in today...

Blundering refs cut from World Cup list
JOHANNESBURG (AP) Uruguay's Jorge Larrionda and Italy's Roberto Rosetti, whose blunders have prompted FIFA to rethink using video technology, have been left off the list of referees for the rest of the World Cup. Larrionda failed to see an England shot cross the line in a 4-1 loss to Germany and Rosetti wrongly awarded a goal to Argentina's Carlos Tevez against Mexico when he was offside. Without giving reasons, FIFA announced the cut Tuesday. Two more left out were Koman Coulibaly of Mali, who disallowed a third United States goal in a 2-2 draw with Slovenia, and French ref Stephane Lannoy who harshly sent off Brazil's Kaka for a second yellow after Ivory Coast's Kader Keita ran into him while going for the ball.

Well, jeez--it's about time!  Ban them from the sport.

A Field Guide to Fakers and Floppers
And now for some breaking news: A lot of players fake injuries during soccer matches. OK, maybe that's not so newsy—flops have been a way of life in the sport for years. But after a handful of seemingly overblown falls toward the end of Saturday's U.S. loss to Ghana, we decided to try to make some sense of them.

And the Oscar Goes to...
Here are the four most common giveaways for exaggerated injuries in soccer games.
FLOP SYMPTOM - HOW TO SPOT IT - % OF ALL FLOPS 
Temporal Contiguity -Too much time between contact and reaction -29%
Archer's Bow- Player bends backward and raises arms to get ref's attention -28%
Ballistic Continuity -Too much reaction for limited amount of contact -25%
Contact Consistency- Player gets hit in one area but says another area is hurt -15%

Source: University of Portsmouth
The most common indicator that a fall is a flop is that the player gets hit, pauses briefly and then reacts. This is called a "temporal contiguity" error, according to Paul Morris, a psychology lecturer at England's University of Portsmouth—he says it occurs in about 29% of fake injuries. Meanwhile, players perform the "archer's bow" pose in 28% of flops, which is when they bend backwards and throw their arms in the air when they're hit in order to gain a referee's attention.  Dr. Morris worked with two groups of raters to watch about 400 tackles. They classified which ones included injury exaggeration and, among those, what type of exaggeration was employed (his previous injury research was published earlier this year in the Journal of Nonverbal Behavior).

One prominent example of likely flopping Saturday came late in extra time when Ghana's Samuel Inkoom fell to the ground after kicking a ball—despite not being touched by another player. He began to get up but then opted to lay on the ground and delay the game for 92 seconds—a tactic that helped preserve Ghana's lead. Mr. Inkoom was carried off on a stretcher—although the moment he reached the sideline, he climbed off under his own power.  According to Dr. Morris, this was a "ballistic continuity" issue—a fake-injury variation that occurs in 25% of all flops.

I don't make this stuff up, it is all there to see.  Fakes in other sports?  Sure.  But this stuff going on in the world cup now is out of hand.  That's why the WSJ article noted above has a sidebar called "And the Oscar goes to".  This cheapens any sport, and certainly this one on the world stage.

[66andBlue]

Well you can rant as much as you want and dislike what you see but almost 20 million people watched the USA - Ghana game on ESPN and ABC.  In 2006 about 27 billion watched all cup games world wide and the expectations are that this will be exceeded again this year.  So lots of people must like what they see otherwise they would not tune in. 
I am fortunate to live in San Diego County which has Nielsen ratings that are almost double the national average. Plus the soccer reporter for the local newspaper (SD Union) actually knows the game and its intricacies. By all accounts most people here really enjoy watching the games and yes, they did moan and groan when the US team did not advance but still they accepted that Ghana was the better team and deserved to win.

Now that doesn't mean that I am opposed to having a ball with a chip that tells the referee when it is beyond the goal line.  But I would not like the idea of having the inordinate amount of instant replays that are the "highlights" of almost every NFL game. Nor would I want to have 2 minutes of actual playing time be spread out over 10 minutes as it happens in almost every NBA game at the end.

For my taste football is still the "beautiful game"  - warts and all. 

[mdsalemi]

Alfred,

You are treating this as if I am the [only] one complaining about the shenanigans in the World Cup.  It isn't just me, what I observe is written about in the papers the next day without exception.  There are a lot of people in England upset with the bad call against them.  Who knows what would have happened if they tied the game up if their genuine, bona-fide goal had NOT been disallowed?  You?  If so, please pick some stocks for me since you must be clairvoyant!

It's not about Nielsen ratings; goodness knows, you've been in America long enough to know that the worse the refereeing gets, the more people would watch!  It's about just poor refereeing.  I hope you are not trying to justify that as part of the game.  The FIFA president tried that briefly and even he gave up.  Since you brought up a comparison to American Football or American sports in general, can you tell me when on the national stage (World Series, NBA playoffs, Super Bowl, Stanley Cup Final, NCAA) the league President threw out referrees in the middle of the competition?  No.  Don't bother looking.  Does not happen.  The fact that the FIFA President threw out 2 refs so far in the middle of the world cup speaks volumes about how bad it is!  It isn't about beer commercials, or video replays for goodness sake--stick a few more qualified refs on the field!  There are more refs on the field in youth club soccer here in the US, on a pitch half the size, than in the World Cup!  It has been proven, not by me, that the refereeing in this world cup isn't working well.  And it isn't an American thing.  Sure the American team got a couple of these bad calls, but they are only one team.

Fakes?  Cheapens the game, no matter how many millions watch it.  Again, you compared to "American Sports".  All sports have fakes, but there are a lot of NFL players who now have Parkinson's syndrome and other brain injuries from so many hits (the ones they did not fake).  Ever see the Joe Thiesmann video where his leg bends backwards?  Want to know how many orthopaedic surgeons perform "Tommy John" surgery?  Do you know who Tommy John is?  He wasn't faking.  When the World Cup players try all those fakes it delays the games, cheapens the game and sometimes alters it--particularly when bad refereeing is involved!  Don't shoot the messenger, Alfred--there is something wrong--very, very wrong, when one of these feigned "injuries" results in a yellow card against an innocent player.  We here call that "cheating".

But your friend Mark Zeigler at your local paper has it all right when he says it all gives us something to talk about!

[JamesL]

As teams get eliminated, so do the refs. There are 8 teams left (from 32), and 8 games left to play:
4 quarter finals
2 semi finals
1 3rd place play off
final

The refs are still "playing" for who will get the final - they have decided the four ref "teams" for the quarter finals already and they normally don't get the semis, with one of the quarter final refs getting the actual final. Obviously, no ref can ref his home country team.

So on that basis, I think elimination is probably normal. FIFA making an announcement to be seen to "punish" anyone but themselves and to lay the blame firmly at the foot of ABF (anybody but Fifa) is also not beyond the realms of possibility

As for technology, I am torn. All the incidents could have been dealt with with replays, the Tevez one a real stuff up as the replay was shown IN the stadium so the ref knew it was a f-up but couldn't change it. Technology is simple for "did the whole of the ball cross the line". More complex, and involving the replay etc for things like offside and off the ball incidents. That said, there is a 4th official on the touchline. Lord alone knows what he does....

[jacovdw]

Well now that the dust has sort of settled after the World Cup and the dramatic nailbiting final, it will be interesting to see just how many vuvuzelas will see use at European games...

The world of soccer will probably never be the same again. 

[JamesL]

I think I might start supporting Borussia Dortmund

[66andBlue]

Supporting whom?  
Did you mean to type "Borussia" or "Brewery"?
Lets have one at the European event!  

[Cees Klumper]

Well now that the dust has sort of settled after the World Cup and the dramatic nailbiting final, it will be interesting to see just how many vuvuzelas will see use at European games...

The world of soccer will probably never be the same again. 

Hi Jaco - I'm looking at two of these Vuvuzelas in my living room at the moment, so who knows.

Just returned from my first trip ever to the African continent - 3 days in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The taxi drivers all knew all the details about the final match, a confirmation of the title of this thread ...

[jacovdw]

...I'm looking at two of these Vuvuzelas in my living room at the moment, so who knows.

That's the spirit Cees...