Eight Hours With the State Police and I Still Caught Thursday’s Action From Germany

Well, I must admit, I fast-forwarded through as much of the games as possible when the ball was out of play, but I think I was able to ascertain that yesterday’s matches were more-or-less free from any controversy. But then again, I had already reffed EIGHT hour-long games at a tournament for the New York State Police.

Most of this state’s finest were decent characters and some were very skilled footballers, but a select minority were the sort I wouldn’t want to be dealing with if I found myself on the wrong end of the law. By 8:30 this morning I’ll run out the door and ref another six games today.

With African (Benin) referee Coffi Codjia at the helm, Ecuador secured their place in the final sixteen with a fairly easy 3 - nil result against Costa Rica. In so doing, they have forced Germany to beat them if the home side are to win their group. Codjia looked extremely fit as he raced around the pitch, doling out five cautions along the way.

It was the tournament’s first referee to work his second match as Japan’s Toru Kamikawa officiated the England match against former colonial subject Trinidad & Tobago. Again, there were five cautions in this match, although I must admit I dozed off a bit in the middle of the second half, completely worn out from my day at work.

I was awake again in time to see England secure their spot in the final sixteen as Crouch and Gerrard finished off the tiny island nation in the last ten minutes of the match - Gerrard’s screamer coming in stoppage time.

But they’ll still need to beat Sweden (or tie them) in order to win the group after Sven’s homeland scored the late winner against Paraguay - thanks to Ljungberg’s header - in Berlin as Slokakia’s Lubos Michel doled out seven cautions in a relatively controversy-free match. One of his assistants did blow an offside in the 58th against Sweden. These errors are so commonplace, unfortunatley…and yet I wonder why the mistakes are almost never in favor of the offense, always the defense.

FIFA, please change the law by getting rid of it. C’mon, don’t you all agree that we’d see more scoring? Sure it would change the game you purists, but the game has had dozens of rule-changes over the years. It’s time for one more.

Well…that’s all for today. Let me know if I missed some horrible refereeing blunder. I’m already well aware of my own mistakes from yesterday, but fortunately, none of you were there to comment on them.

Until next time…

peace,
ac