Re: Why is the officating in soccer so horrible?
Just to clear things up (I'm sure many of you know this already), but the red card given to Trinidad & Tobago was absolutely automatic, and it was a great call that, frankly, a lot of referees would not have had the balls to make.
Donovan was on a clear break for a 1v1 with the goalie and the defender grabbed him from behind to slow his progress. A player doesn't have to fall. In fact, you can get red carded for STEPPING in front of a player without making contact if the ball is not within playing distance (this is impeding the progress, used to be called obstruction) if this player has an "obvious goal scoring opportunity." In this case, since there was no contact and the foul is impeding the progress, play would be restarted with an indirect free kick! Still, the offending player would be sent off for denying an obvious goal scoring opportunity. The severity of the foul does not matter at all, and the call the referee made in that situation is exactly what FIFA wants. Donovan got held, the hold denied him an obvious chance to score-- I don't even think this is arguable, and in order to support a yellow card, you must argue that Donovan did not have an obvious goal scoring opportunity.
Also, the referee correctly placed the free kick outside of the box.
I was not just responding to you, KDawg, but all in this thread. Clearly the offside call against Twellman was dreadful and I missed the goal kick situation. There are tons of bad offside calls and while I would like to see that remedied, I think it is unlikely, as it is near impossible to find humans who get that right 95% of the time at such a high level of play.
-Michael
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