I’m guessing Argentina and Bosnia are likely to go through. Share your thoughts!
The cult of the referee
Tissue Thin Pseudonym raises a very good point in the Group D 3rd game thread:
Watching these games I keep thinking that soccer badly needs a second referee on the pitch. There’s just too much space for one guy to cover and watch. There was all sorts of whining from traditionalists when hockey started using a second ref but it’s been a vast improvement and soccer has fewer issues with another body creating obstructions.
I agree, long term, the best way to improve the refereeing of the game at the highest level is to get away from the remnants of the cult of the all powerful and all knowing center referee. The game is too fast, the players are too skilled and the field is too damn big for one guy to cover the entire field with some assistance from his assistant referees whose focus is pulled towards a dynamic line just at the moment of a hard offensive challenge.
At the highest levels, the center referee is running eight to ten miles during a regulation 90 minutes plus stoppage time game. That is more than any single player on the field. He is also engaged in as many full speed, hair on fire sprints as the hardest working forwards. He is attempting to cover a field of two and half acres where it is not uncommon for a twenty second sequence of hard challenge, sixty yard displacement of play, hard challenge, thirty yard displacement, hard challenge, fifty yard displacement.
Few other major sport asks as much from there referees. NFL referees have to officiate the same number of players on a field 70% as large. They use a seven man crew. Baseball uses a six man crew to control ten to thirteen players. Hockey uses four officials to control twelve players. Only rugby asks as much of their officials as soccer does.
So why hasn’t the highest level of play seen a change to improve the officating? (By the way, so far, I think the officiating in this tournament is very good)
Group C Third Game Open Thread
I’m guessing the Cafeteros and the Elephants go through. What do you all think?
Group D Third Game Open Thread
Who goes through? I’m guessing Italy and Costa Rica.
Open Thread: Always Look on the Bright Side of Life
Spenser Hall, at SB Nation:
… From one perspective, the United States lost a win last night, coughing up a late goal off a schoolboy blunder in the final splinters of a match the USMNT had won via a courageous comeback. Soccer and hockey both call this bug a feature: the capacity to hide hot, venomous, and sudden death in the midst of a seemingly harmless flow of events. One minute you’re on the snowmobile; the next, the snick-snicking of weaselly teeth clicking hungrily in the frozen night…
You might also look at it this way. This is by far the best, most consistent performance the United States has had at any World Cup to this point in group stage. For a good chunk of the Portugal game the United States actually passed the ball, controlled the game, and threatened consistently. Imagine that four years ago: consistent, flowing menace from the United States, a team known more for prayer volleys down the flanks and endless, hopeful crosses into the box. That was the United States last night, a neonate team still standing on wobbly fawn legs in a forest full of mature predators…
For so many reasons, it will not be easy or simple, but it’s not simple or easy for anyone. The most talented team in the world by reputation, Spain, is already out of the tourney. England’s gone. Italy have fewer points, and have already lost to Costa Rica, a team the United States considers a fair but equal opponent in CONCACAF play. Soccer’s only equality is cruelty, and prolonged exposure turns even the most self-respecting viewer into a masochistic gambler bent on playing the next hand. This game beats you into submission over a long enough span, and turns wins & losses at the whistle into the same intense, indispensable drug…
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Apart from telling me (a) how deeply wrong this person’s sorry opinions are; (b) that this whole ‘World Cup’ thing is an overrated distraction from the real world; (c) that I suck at finding topics & what has become of the real BJ front-pagers, huh?!?… what’s on the agenda for the evening?
Open Thread: Always Look on the Bright Side of LifePost + Comments (151)
Group A Game Three Open Thread
Will the hosts win the group? Will El Tri or Croatia move on?
Group B Game Three Open Thread
Can the Dutch seal the group against Chile? Can either Spain or Australia redeem itself?