USA vs Canada womem's.

[Paul Marin]

"Welcome to international football, where common sense goes in one door, falls into a wormhole and walks out the other side into 1984."

-- you can change "international football" to FIFA and "1984" to 1884.

[Reggaedoc]

Agree Paul. It was the time delay call that led to the panalty, and even the penalty was silly. The Canadian defender turned her back to the ball to protect herself when the ball was hit her. The whole point is the ref in my opinion was over zealous/incompetent. I can't remember another time, when this was applied at that level, and at a point when its application had the potential of adversely affecting the outcome of the game. She was just dumb. I think the Canadians have a good reason to protest and have the game replayed. There needs to be match judges in soccer. its about time because refing now has made the outcome of games predictable. I don't even the EPL anymore. You know who is going to win before the game kicks off.

[Chubble]

Six-second goalkeeper rule baffles many

The critical, controversial call that helped the U.S. women’s soccer team score the tying goal in its overtime victory over Canada may not have been wrong, but that does not mean it was right, either.

Referee Christiana Pedersen’s ruling that the Canadian goalkeeper had been wasting time, giving an indirect free kick to the Americans, was one that many veteran players and coaches say they have never seen, and many described it as baffling.

Even soccer governing bodies advise using extreme caution when making such a call.

With Canada leading, 3-2, in the 78th minute Monday, Pedersen ruled that Canada’s goalkeeper, Erin McLeod, held the ball for more than six seconds after making a save. The ensuing free kick led to a penalty kick in what turned out to be a 4-3 win for the Americans.

The rule in question falls under Law 12 of FIFA’s Laws of the Game. FIFA’s official interpretation of that law includes a notation that states “a goalkeeper is not permitted to keep control of the ball in his hands for more than six seconds.”

But U.S. Soccer, the English Football Association and other governing bodies have emphasized to referees that the rule is discretionary, and is not meant to be called except for egregious violations.

Carmine Isacco, head men’s soccer coach at York University, says the six-second rule is always tested in games, with goalies rarely letting the ball go within that time frame.

“It’s a subjective call about blatantly wasting time and in that case there was no way she was attempting to do that,” he told the Star’s Joseph Hall.

On the play, McLeod caught a corner kick, fell to the grass, got up after about four seconds, then punted the ball away 10 or 11 seconds later. Other accounts of the match had McLeod releasing the ball after about eight seconds.

Either way, Pedersen had already blown the whistle — too soon, according to some interpretations.

The six-second count is supposed to begin not from the moment the goalkeeper first gains possession of the ball, but after she gathers herself, gets up and begins to look for a teammate to play it to, as U.S. Soccer notes in its advice to referees:

“Infringement of the six-second rule is sometimes misinterpreted,” the federation noted in its Ask a Referee online column. “The count starts when the goalkeeper is preparing to release the ball, not when he or she actually gains possession. Why? Because very often the goalkeeper has to disentangle him-/herself from other players or move around fallen players, and it would be unfair to begin the count in such a case.”

But such minute distinctions are secondary to the overriding principle emphasized to referees: to not blow the whistle for offences deemed trifling.

“Technically the goalkeeper must release the ball within six seconds of having established full control, which would not count rising from the ground or stopping their run (if they had to run) to gain the ball,” U.S. Soccer noted. “However, goalkeepers throughout the world routinely violate the six-second rule without punishment if the referee is convinced that the goalkeeper is making a best effort.”

Moreover, U.S. Soccer advised referees in a 2010 memorandum, “Before penalizing a goalkeeper for violating this time limit, the referee should warn the goalkeeper about such actions and then should penalize the violation only if the goalkeeper continues to waste time or commits a comparable infringement again later in the match.”

Was McLeod making a best effort? Pedersen has not said; requests from newspapers and television in her native Norway to interview her were turned down because she is prohibited by FIFA from speaking to reporters without the world body’s permission.

Certainly McLeod did hold the ball for about 12 seconds after gaining possession on two separate occasions, in both the 58th minute and the 61st. But even in those cases, she appeared to be making an honest effort to find a player to whom she could send a pass.

Nevertheless, the Americans’ Abby Wambach was in Pedersen’s ear, doing what many players do when their team is losing: audibly counting down the seconds after the opposing goalkeeper gets hold of the ball to pressure the keeper to give up the ball, or the referee to make the six-second call.

“I wasn’t yelling; I was just counting,” Wambach said Tuesday in an interview with Yahoo Sports. “Probably did it five to seven times.”

In the 78th minute, Wambach said, she did it again, and this time Pedersen bit.

“I got to 10 seconds right next to the referee, and at 10 seconds she blew the whistle,” she said.

Referees usually give warnings before issuing cautions for time-wasting, but Pedersen seems not to have done so on the pivotal call.

McLeod said she was informally warned by an assistant referee at halftime.

“She said, ‘Don’t delay the play too much,’ but it wasn’t like a real warning,” McLeod said. McLeod added that on the critical call, Pedersen told her that “I held the ball for 10 seconds — she obviously counted the time when I was on the ground.”

The National Post asked McLeod whether she had indeed held the ball that long.

“Nowhere near,” McLeod said. “I think the referee was very one-sided. I was stunned when it happened.”

She added: “I have never known this to happen in a game before. It was an interesting decision. Referees never make this kind of decision.”

Canada’s coach, John Herdman, noted that it wasn’t as if McLeod “purposely tried to slow the game down, where you see goalkeepers really cheating —– she wasn’t doing that.” He said McLeod was simply waiting for her fullbacks to get into position for a short outlet.

One reason referees do not whistle the six-second rule is because the penalty is so harsh: an indirect free kick from the spot of the violation, inside the penalty area. Several hundred games can go by without an indirect free kick being awarded inside a penalty area.

Almost invariably, when goalkeepers are cautioned for time-wasting, it happens during a goal kick. That way, the referee can give a yellow card to the keeper, who then simply takes the goal kick, so that the match itself is not affected.

FIFA added the six-second rule to Law 12 in 1998, but it has always been seen as a guideline more than as a hard-and-fast regulation, and not to be invoked unless there is an egregious violation.

“If a goalkeeper takes six, seven or eight seconds when there is no evidence of deliberate time-wasting, why spoil the game when there is no need to?” as an Indiana soccer referees federation noted. “It’s very much like the leeway given when a throw-in is taken. We would not expect every throw-in to be taken on the exact blade of grass.”

A BBC article even suggested that the six-second rule be done away with entirely. “No referees adhere to it anyway,” former Hearts and Dundee United defender Allan Preston said. “We don’t want a keeper standing with the ball for more than a minute, but it doesn’t get used. Sometimes you see it getting used at the start of the season, but apart from that, you never see a ref pulling up a goalkeeper for holding on to the ball for longer than six seconds.”

Pedersen’s six-second call was not even the decision that most outraged Herdman, the Canada coach. Rather, it was the handball awarded on the subsequent indirect free kick, when Megan Rapinoe’s hard, close-range shot struck two Canadians in the arms and hands.

Under the sport’s rules, if a player has no time to move her hands out of the way, no handball foul is to be given.

“When a ball is struck at that pace. ...” Herdman said after the match, and trailed off without completing the thought.

“We’re deeply disappointed,” he said.

[Chubble]

t’s only happened once before on a stage this big.

A free kick awarded in a soccer game after the referee made an obscure call against a goalkeeper, judged to have held the ball too long. The outcomes were eerily similar: it led to tying goal and eventual loss by the offending team.

The call for violating Law 12 has caused controversy because it’s rarely made at the professional level or high-profile events like the Olympics. It’s blamed for the loss that left Canada playing for bronze in women’s soccer Thursday at the Olympics and the U.S. playing for gold.

The only other time it appears to have been made in recent history was in a 2002 Premier League game between the Bolton Wanderers and Newcastle United, according to Sports Illustrated columnist Grant Wahl.

Bolton goalie Jussi Jaaskelainen was penalized for holding the ball too long in that game and the resulting free kick led to a tying goal. Newcastle went on to win 3-2.

Jaaskelainen was critical of the referee, David Elleray, over the call.

“I thought this was the wrong decision,” the Finn was quoted as saying on the Bolton website following the match.

He accused a player on the opposite team of blocking him, making it impossible to release the ball despite a few attempts.

“You could see I was trying to get rid of the ball and I was certainly not time-wasting, but the referee wasn’t looking at the time; he just counted the nine seconds and then blew his whistle,” said the goalie.

“I think referees should hold their hands up when they make mistakes like this, everyone makes mistakes.”

Ten years later, that same call is being blamed by some for another close loss at the Olympic Games.

Referee Christina Pedersen awarded the U.S. a free kick, judging that Canadian goalkeeper Erin McLeod held the ball too long late in the game that Canada was leading 3-2. The ensuing U.S. kick hit a Canadian defencer in the arm, which then led to a penalty kick. Abby Wambach converted it for the U.S. to tie the game.

Pederson, the referee for the women’s game, is the most experienced ref in Norway and has been an international referee since 2007, according to her bio. She was also a ref in the women’s World Cup in Germany last year.

According to the official rules of soccer known as “the laws of the game” an indirect free kick is awarded to the opposing team if a goalkeeper, inside her own penalty area controls the ball with her hands for more than six seconds before releasing it.

The rule exists to prevent goalies from running out the clock. Pedersen penalized McLeod for holding the ball for 10 seconds.

“We feel like we didn’t lose, we feel like it was taken from us,” said Canadian striker Christine Sinclair. “It’s a shame in a game like that that was so important, the ref decided the result before it started.”

It was a bitter loss for Canada who will play France for bronze Thursday morning.

“They’ve come to see the flag rise. That’s the job. They came here for that and the job is not finished,” said head coach John Herdman. “They’ll be disappointed tonight because it won’t be gold or silver, but we’ll take a medal from this tournament.”

With files from Star Wire Services

[Zeppo]

Well Zeppo I remember a certain game in DC with a hand ball call when the US was losing.

So one incident that took place 15 years ago?? How does this equate to Caribbean countries getting punished by bad calls "for years"?

And do you really think that Mexico and the USA never end up on the wrong end of a bad call in CONCACAF? A few years back I seem to remember a certain Jamaican ref calling a PK against us in Costa Rica for a handball when Berhalter clearly headed the ball out of the box...

A loss I might add would have probably caused the US to miss the big dance.

Nope. Even if you give Jamaica 2 more points for that match and subtract 1 from the USA we still would have finished even on points but above you guys due to your lousy goal differential (U.S. finished the Hex +8 and Jamaica -5).

[Peter R]

Abby Wambach sound like , dare I say "chubble"

[Peter R]

She fi get investigated tuh! Is there some law about players trying to influence the ref? leave the ref to do his/her job... Her admission to counting seconds don't sit right with me...

[Paul Marin]

No matter how you slice it...dem tief Canada. Total effery.