Where was the Lampard ref when we needed him?. Sometimes, a referee’s mistake could be a good thing. I am referring here to the match between Japan and Paraguay on Tuesday. The two teams did not dive or hack or even play particularly badly. It’s just that nothing much happened.
FIFA president Sepp Blatter during a media briefing in Johannesburg on Tuesday
On a day when Sepp Blatter apologized for a contagion of referee errors in recent days, what this particular World Cup match badly needed was a referee hallucinating that he saw a ball fly into the goal mouth.
Any mirage goal would have put everybody out of the stadium rather than bring on 30 more minutes that ended with a 5-3 Paraguayan victory in a shootout to move into the quarterfinals.
Frank Lampard’s shot in England’s loss on Sunday was clearly over the line, perhaps to everyone but the game officials
Where was that infamous ref who missed Frank Lampard’s goal that bounced a good two feet inside the goal on Sunday? And where was the hapless ref and his so-called helpers who missed a blatant offside by Argentina later on Sunday?
At least Blatter said he was sorry for those two wretched calls and for others, presumably even the outrageous call that nullified a winning American goal against Slovenia, not that the Yanks would have beaten Ghana in the next round.
Blatter, the president of the world soccer body, known as FIFA, caved from his recent hard stand against using modern technology to at least monitor the goal lines. On Tuesday, in a scheduled roundtable with the news media, Blatter said he would consider some kind of technology, which could be television replay or an electronic chip in the ball.
On Tuesday, FIFA agreed that game officials should have called Argentina offside on its first goal against Mexico on Sunday
“The only principle we are going to bring back for discussion is goal-line technology,” Blatter said. “For situations like the Mexico game, you don’t need technology.”
The main recourse FIFA had was not to change the decisions but change the refs. On Tuesday, it was revealed that Jorge Larrionda of Uruguay, who missed the Lampard goal, and Roberto Rosetti of Italy, who worked the Argentina-Mexico match, did not make the cut for the remainder of the tournament, a standard practice for referees who make a glaring mistake.
Obviously, FIFA cannot change the techniques for monitoring the goals during its quadrennial championship, the biggest tournament in the world. But Blatter at least revived his role as a man of many ideas, some of them actually credible, like this one.
This is the same who once mused out loud about holding a World Cup every two years, which would have meant the tournament was no longer a World Cup but rather an interesting summer vacation.
Another time, he proposed that the best thing for women’s soccer would be hot pants, or short shorts. He backed off that one pretty fast and continued to run one of the most powerful sports organization in the world. In 2005, he mused about doing away with playing the anthems before matches after a few instances of fans’ heckling rival nations. That thought vanished, too.
Blatter, 74, may be facing the reality that a championship-level soccer match involving fast and powerful and, dare we say it, devious players is too complicated to be refereed by one person and two assistants on the sidelines.
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The refs have not gotten worse over the years; the game has gotten faster, and mostly, technology has improved. Today, there are cameras that can absolutely prove a ball was inside the line, as Lampard’s shot was. Blatter took a while to face this flurry of gross errors but, to his credit, he did get around to it.
After letting other officials fumble around Monday, declining to comment against the news media storm, Blatter chimed in with an apology to English and Mexican officials. By that time, all they needed was a ride to the airport. Their World Cup was over, although they would have lost under any circumstance.
Blatter, who worked for a watch company before becoming involved with the Olympics and FIFA, once thought of himself as a force for change and modernity in the FIFA gerontocracy.
He does not lack for ideas. Not too long ago, he proposed that all clubs in the national leagues field at least six citizens at all times, a move that would cause squads in England to fall back a few decades in style and talent. He was reminded, however, that the so-called 6-plus-5 rule would be against the laws of the . Never mind, he said.
On Tuesday, Blatter reverted to his old pose as Sepp the Reformer, Sepp the Visionary, Sepp the Rebel. Or at least Sepp the Damage Controller. He said the issue of technology would be discussed in July, when the International Football Association Board reviews its rules. Last year, that organization tabled any discussion; this time, Blatter may force soccer to give the refs a chance not to look foolish on a worldwide scale.
The refs did not need much help in the Japan-Paraguay match. I have nothing against scintillating scoreless ties, but this was a boring one. The teams were an odd match, the Paraguayans looking blocky in their red jerseys and white shorts, almost like a beer league team, but with world-level talent. The Japanese all had baroque hair arrangements like an American high school home-room, circa 1968. And nobody could put the ball in the net.
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There was one neat touch. The weary Japanese players all wore long capes, apparently taken along just for the occasion to preserve body heat while standing around after two hours of play.
I won’t even go into the only-in-America question of why they have shootouts in soccer. Maybe you wanted more of that? The match was begging for a gift goal somewhere. Where was the Lampard ref when we needed him?( nytimes.com )
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