Busacca Right, Tommy Smyth Wrong…Again

You’re drunk. There was no foul. I agree there was a slight tug on the shirt, but well before Torres struck the ball or even shifted his weight to his left foot to prepare.

Spain deserved to win and they defenitely did not need that little bit of bad officiating.

Posted from  Canada

I’ve been with you on all of your assessments up till now, but I think you’re letting your Tommy-hatred run away with you here.

The only tugging I could see–even after repeated viewings–was the tug on the shorts outside of the box. Now *maybe* that was deserving of a red-card. But that can’t be the foul the ref called, since he awarded a pk: (1) it occurred outside the box, and (2) he had already let play continue, presumably on advantage. And I just didn’t see any other foul.

What am I missing?

Posted from  United States

I should add that I don’t think the sequence really affected the outcome. At that point, Ukraine weren’t getting back into the game even with 11 men at 2-0. In the overall picture, the missed offside calls were more important.

Posted from  United States

That red card was such a bullshit call it’s not even funny. Sure Vashchuk yanked at Torres’ shirt a little bit, but that was nothing compared to other incidences of shirt grabbing in other games. After that slight tug, Torres dove, plain and simple.

Bad call, Busacca, bad call.

Posted from  Canada

Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! This crew should not see the light of day for the remainder of the Cup. Tug on shorts was clearly out of the box and no contact made afterwards. Offsides calls were awful and in the second half, the same asst. ref missed at least 2 offsides calls on Spain. May not have made a difference in this game, but it sure contributed to the goal differential!

Posted from  United States

Wow how the fuck did they put a braindead moron like you in charge of the referee section you’re a biased dumbfuck! A 3 YEAR OLD COULD SEE HOW MUCH THAT REF WAS PAYED.

Posted from  United States

This was the MOST OBVIOUS GAME RIGGING in the tournament so far and you’re denying it? THIS IS THE REF SECTION? ahahah what an idiot!

Posted from  United States

Any chance Andrew can be shown a red card for trolling?

Posted from  United States

If it wasn’t for some of the worst officiating I have ever seen, the outcome of this game might have been different. Sure Spain may have still won, but if you take away the penalty shot goal, red card, and bad offside calls the score could have been close.

The officials of this match should be all red carded!

Posted from  Canada

Three things I was appalled at:

The holding (pants) occured outside the penalty area.

There was no foul inside the peanalty area in my opninion as a former referee.

Poor offside calls.

Where a red card should have been awarded was the open cleats foul on the thigh of the Spanish player by a Ukranian
defender earlier in the game.
To me that was blatant with
possibility of a horrible injury.

Just goes to show you that even
the best referees picked by FIFA
have bad days and overreact in big matches. That PK ruined watching the rest of the game.

I agree with most that this this referee team did not have
its act together.

AE

Posted from  United States

Wow. Some, uh, spirited comments here today!

Aaron - if the foul was a good call, do you think a red card was justified, or would a yellow have been sufficient?

the tug was outside the box, you can’t even dispute that

Posted from  United States

Trent> I think you are asking the wrong guy…you need to ask a ref.

In retrospect, I will admit, the tug on the shorts was outside the box and therefore shouldn’t have been a p.k, just a free kick…but it still would have resulted in red since he was the last defender.

And just for the record, I wouldn’t have blown my whistle in any game that I ref for the shorts-tugging on this play, but then I again, I haven’t been instructed by FIFA to crack down on that sort of thing.

But I’ll agree, I think the AR on Spain’s end in the first half really made the most impact. Ukraine would’ve likely had the early lead if not for his blunders. But that’s why I think offside should be taken out of the rulebook. It’s too controversial, too many errors are made, and doing so might result in more goals being scored.

Oh, and a special shout out to my pal Andrew. You make a very astute point, the referees were quite biased. We all are really. It’s just a question of how much you’re willing to pay us.

Well, I’m off now to go ref some games and make tons of cash on the side from the eventual victors.

Peace

Well don’t take it personally I was just hoping to have a really fair world cup this time and I knew something like this was going to happen! I was really pissed when I wrote that, but, really, I’ve watched the game twice and to me it’s obvious the refs knew who to give the win to this game. Of course spain didnt pay them, but obviously they had a bad tooth with ukraine and were determined to rule against them (the pk and red card were ridiculous and the offside calls aswell). But this is really unfortunat because I really dont want this to happen in the tournament later on, because this has a potential to be one of the best world cups if not for this crap!!!

Posted from  United States

What can be done w/ the horrible officiating of the world cup. Watching the US vs Italy game and see a red card issued for a slightly late tackle, but Mastroeni did get a piece of the ball. Not only this card but so many cards in Cup have not been justified. Fifa should really look into doing something about the officiating that is ruining the games.

Posted from  United States

To Aaron:

Come on! Take the offside rule out of the rule book would completely ruin the game. You do not change rules due to referee incompetence. You upgrade the capability of the referee.

Tounge in cheek:

You would not have arguments during and after the games. The
bars would loose money. No more family arguments. Commentators
would be speechless, replay operators would loose jobs ETC….

Seriously:

The offside rule affords a defending team to wear down the offensive players by forcing all of them to retreat and stay even with the second to the last defender away from the goal being defended until the ball is passed forward.

This has tactical and physical
advantage to a team who defends
correctly using the off side trap.

However the disadvantage is that
it also affords a well timed speedy offense to execute brilliant breakaway plays that are very exciting. Meaning it is a vulnerable defense.

Case in point: USA vs Italy first goal, Reyna is playing the offside instead of the ball which allowed Italy to head the ball into the goal. Everyone knows you play the ball that close to the goal NOT WATCH IT!

I am curious, if the rule was eliminated what is your version of attack strategy:

kick and run,

kick and sit on your butt in front of the opposing goal untill the ball arrives ?

if no goal then the same going in the other direction ?

Booooorrrrringgg ! Yawn !

PS. All this mandatory yellow for shirt holding and other FIFA mandates so far had the opposite effect…less goals per game…….interesting.

AE

Posted from  United States

What is all this bad officiating? Did you catch the match between Korea and France? Could somebody explain me what was up with that French second goal? It seemed rather clear that the ball had crossed the scoring line but still was not granted. I’m starting to wonder why this type of ‘wrong refeering’ always favors Korea which in 2002 allowed them to go so far without really deserving it. Apparently 4 out of the top 10 wrong decisions made public in a fifa DVD also involved Korea. Strange isn’t?

Posted from  Germany

Additionally, the referee does not see korean offenses but he happened to catch Zidane ‘pushing’ a korean player. It seemed to me, Zizou was trying to stop himself from running into the guy in all speed. Could have been a slight fault but I still believe the yellow card was a little harsh. As a fellow mexican, I was hoping Archundia would do a good job in this match…I’m a little deceived by his performance though…

Posted from  Germany

what is the deal with all the bad referreing in all the matches…
Even though it did not affect the outcome of the game, the Argentina - Serbia game, the referee was always in the way of the argentinians. What about Ghana’s penalty kick, the guy gets a yellow card for kicking too early (ok that’s the rule), but he says he heard a whistle, suppoerted by a Czech player of all people, still the ref keeps the yellow card and now Ghana looses their best player for the game against the US. All the games i have seen have had terrible refereeing, and worse of all, not even especially favoring one team, just loser calls…If they want to keep human error into the game, then why do the referees have a earpiece to listen to comments from someone else?

Posted from  United Kingdom

Just one comment

There are no rules in soccer only laws of the game.

Posted from  Canada

Further to my earlier post see link from FIFA official site

http://www.fifa.com/en/regulations/regulation/0,1584,3,00.html

Posted from  Canada

I just watched the Korea vs. Switzerland game and I was astonished that the referee overruled the offsides flag by his assistant, which resulted in a swiss goal. The official on the sideline has the most clear view of what’s offsides and the referee ignores it? Why does he even have his assistants if he’s not going to listen to them? There were arguments that the ball touched a korean player, but “the ball played the player,” which is a very important policy to prevent players from kicking the ball into their opponents’ hands and getting a call.

Posted from  United States