Sister Kissing
June 17th, 2006USA and Italy played to a 1-1 tie in the World Cup today. The American players, unfamiliar with World Cup rules, believed they could win the game on a tiebreaker by beating the crap out of the Italian team. They didn’t win the tiebreaker, but did collect two red cards.
June 18th, 2006 at 12:29 am
Okay, so in the crazy world of the first-round World Cup round robin, this was off the scale crazy. Let’s see, first, give up the first goal in the 22′ (at least it wasn’t 5′, like last week), then get it back on an own-goal (though our forward was in position to score it, anyway). Then, have the Italian side go down a man on a red card on De Rossi’s cheap shot elbow to McBride out of frustration (why so frustrated? Still plenty of time to go, and the score tied 1-1….?). Then a completely uncalled for red card against the best player on the pitch (did you see Mastroeni’s shot from 35 yards just barely miss over the crossbar at 42′) just before the half, and then a similarly lame 2nd yellow (and thus, red) to Pope in the 46′ (i.e., one minute into the 2nd half). Come on! Two red cards in a 2 minute interval spanning half time. We finish the game in a 10 v 9 situation, and still maintain the draw. This was after we had a nice goal nullified, in possibly one of the sanest decisions made all night. Italy was lucky to get out of this one with a draw, and yet, so was the US, given the referee! Now, Italy must beat the Czech Republic, and we must beat Ghana for us to advance to the second round, unless the US plans on scoring a huge amount of goals against Ghana to get in on goal differential.
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BTW, the referee in the match, Jorge Larrionda, was convicted in 2002 for sports corruption, and was not allowed to referee in the 2002 World Cup as a result. His profile, which will not include this incident, can be found here: http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/06/en/w/ref/173372_LARRIONDA_Jorge.html
I’m not saying he was corrupt in this game, but he was incompetent with the two very questionable calls on late tackles charged against Marcianno and Pope. How can this guy ref at the World Cup level? Unbelievable.
Here’s the news item as reported in 2002…
REFEREE BANNED
MONTEVIDEO: An Uruguayan referee designated to officiate at this year’s World Cup finals has been ruled out of the competition after being found guilty of corruption by his national federation. Jorge Larrionda and four other referees — Gustavo Mendez, Oliver Viera, Carlos Lopez and Fenando Cresci — were stripped of their status as international referees for six months after a three-month investigation into the allegations of corruption. AFP
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Grrrr!