PRETORIA, South Africa – Talk in the U.S. camp has mostly turned to Algerian agenda, Thursday’s big test at the Loftus Versfeld Stadium, just up the road from the American base. It’s win-or-go-home time, so the focus must be fierce.
Dispatches From South Africa: Coulibaly In Context
But there was still some lingering talk about the goal that wasn’t – which is also a goal that could be put the United States on far steadier Group C ground.
There were reports in the blogosphere that perhaps Clint Dempsey had been the man adjudged guilty of naughty deeds in that mad and desperate scrum inside the Slovenian 18 late on Friday.
Dempsey, being typically candid, admitted during Sunday’s press availability here that he’s no angel – but defended himself in this instance.
“If you watch the game, on all the set pieces, that’s the one set piece where I’m probably not mixing it up with somebody,” he said.
“I don’t know who has reported that, or they are talking about. What I did on that play was acted like I was going in, then came back went around to far post. And if Mo had missed the ball, I would have had the goal. But if you freeze frame that play, three of our guys were in a head lock. So to single me out, to say that’s the play where I caused trouble, I don’t think you were really watching the game.
“But saying that, there probably were other plays where I was mixing it up,” he said. “But on that one, for sure not.”
At any rate, it’s not about Slovenia, heroic comebacks or referee decisions that are comically out of context with events anymore. It’s all about a result against the Northern Africans, who will be feeling confident after their draw with (ostensibly) mighty England.
Actually, check that. It might still be about big decisions from the man in the middle. It just can no longer be about that big decision.
If it does come down to a critical call, will the United States be on the favorable end? History suggest that the answer is “Nyet!”
The United States hasn’t gotten the benefit of a big call since an unseen handball against Mexico in the Round of 16 eight years ago. Since then, you could pinpoint four major decisions in U.S. World Cup matches that have gone the other fellows’ way.
(You could add more wood on this fire by factoring in some dodgy decisions in last year’s Confederations Cup. But since a World Cup is clearly on a plane all of its own, we’ll keep the circle tight on this one.)
After the win over Mexico at World Cup 2002, there was the Torsten Frings’ handball on the goal line, seen by pretty much everyone in the world. Well, everyone that is except referee Hugh Dallas. As we’ve all spent eight years lamenting that big fish that got away, let’s just move on.
World Cup 2006 started with an outright fiasco of a performance, and no decision was ever going to put things right for Bruce Arena’s bunch that night in Gelsenkirchen. But the whistle wasn’t blowing in Yankee favor from there in Germany.
In the memorable night in Kaiserslautern against Italy, neither Daniele De Rossi’s violent elbow now Pablo Mastroeni’s nasty tackle, both of which drew quick red, could really be debated, so they cancel out in my mind. Mastroeni’s mad moment certainly wasn’t as disgraceful as De Rossi’s. But it was a very bad tackle – and it was just such a ridiculously needless act, in a place on the field where he simply didn’t need to be so aggressive. Throw in the fact that the referee was going to even the match if given the opportunity – and everyone knew it – and I just never see the argument in that call. It was the textbook example of the type of two-footed, cleats-up tackle that FIFA had promised would result in expulsion.
So, for the purposed of this post, we’re gonna call those a wash.
What wasn’t a wash was referee Jorge Larrionda’s decision to give Eddie Pope a second yellow later against Italy. Pope did clatter into Alberto Gilardino, but it wasn’t particularly aggressive or violent. Pope thought he had reached the ball. Later, Pope even said Larrionda didn’t appear to initially realize that he was issuing a second yellow. The point he was making: if the referee had known he was about to change the contest so significantly (8 against 9 on the field – what is this college intramurals?) he might have opted for discretion.
Bruce Arena suggested on the record later that night what everyone in America was thinking: that name brands in global soccer sometimes get a big benefit of the doubt.
Ghana isn’t a name brand, of course, but the Africans certainly got a huge benefit of the doubt one match later when Oguchi Onyewu put the most benign of body checks on a much-smaller striker.
Replays confirmed what seemed obvious to most of us in the stadium that afternoon in Nuremburg: Onyewu hadn’t lifted his arms and certainly had not pushed the 5-7, 155-pound Razak Pimpong. (Onyewu, of course, is 6-4 and weighs about 210 pounds.) Still, down the Ghanaian went. German referee Markus Merk pointed to the spot.
Everyone else just shook their heads.
So now we’re back to Friday against Slovenia, and the quizzical call by Malian man in the middle Koman Coulibaly. That was the fourth in a row that didn’t go U.S.A. way.
Conspiracy? Nah. Just the vagaries of life, the way the cards fall sometimes – in this case exacerbated by the U.S. place in the global order. The Americans aren’t going to get the benefit of the doubt in most cases, and certainly not when playing the world soccer heavyweights. Algeria certainly isn’t one of them, so the “heavyweight” factor won’t apply Thursday in Pretoria.
The U.S. will have their share of big calls fall their way eventually. Maybe a good run will even start later this week.
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