The 2012 London Olympics Sports Thread

[Admiral Yi]

Shouldn't be too hard to find a video of the game should it?

[Grey Fox]

It's soccer. There's no clock management. There's a overlay timer & a ref doing it. The ref is official but who knows what it says.

[Berkut]

I thought we moved on from this.

But it was a dumb call. Anyone who watches the game week in and week out knows it is NEVER called. Anyone who says it was the right call doesn't watch the game enough.

Yes, it's against the rules. So is driving five kilometres over the speed limit on the freeways. You'll never get pulled over for that. Not in civilized places anyways.

It is NEVER called?

NEVER EVER?

Really?

So why is it a rule then? Why don't they just get rid of it, if it serves no purpose whatsoever?

And why don't goalies with a lead just stand there with the ball until time runs out?

Never ever.

Because in normal cases the ref points at them and tells them to get on with it.

And how did we suddenly get to 17 seconds. I've heard 10 at most.

Note, the "clock" starts not when the goalie gets possession, but when he/she can clear it out. If there's an opposing player within her reach, those seconds do not count.

On the play in question, the ref blew her whistle at 10 seconds.

At other points in the game, the goalie held the ball for up to 17 seconds, and often for 10+. Someone went through and measured how long she held the ball each time she had it.

Later in the day the CBC reported that they had spoken to referee Pedersen's father, Rolf, who said his daughter comes from a long line of referees in the family. The elder Pedersen said he had spoken to his daughter for about 10 minutes on Tuesday and she told him she had warned McLeod twice for holding the ball beyond the allowable six seconds.
Interestingly, Scotsman Martin Rennie, who is coach of the Canadian-based MLS team, Vancouver Whitecaps, also weighed in on the controversy. Rennie told The Vancouver Sun, "Watching it again, I realized the goalkeeper held the ball for 16 seconds, in the second half she held it for 17 seconds and then she got penalized for holding for 13 seconds. So, that's a long time on the ball and understandable why the ref called it."

http://www.insidemnsoccer.com/2012/08/08/xx-2/

[PDH]

It is only 17 seconds if you are not Canadian.  To them it is 4 seconds.  Oh, and the earlier warnings?  They were not warning but friendly chit-chat.

[Josephus]

No offence,but I don't hold the commnets from the referee's father as being entirely objective.

Let's change the onus shall we for a moment?

Find me another instance where that play is called and I'll call it a draw.

[Berkut]

No offence,but I don't hold the commnets from the referee's father as being entirely objective.

You suspect he or she is lying, and in fact the goalie was never warned? I suppose that is possible, but I am willing to accept that if the ref said she warned her, she probably did - because refs are by far the people involved most likely to actually be honest about what they did, and with the most to lose for straight out lying about what happened.

Let's change the onus shall we for a moment?

Find me another instance where that play is called and I'll call it a draw.

Find me another instance where the goalie routinely holds onto the ball for more than ten seconds with a lead, in some cases for as long as 15 seconds or more.

[Josephus]

http://www.thespec.com/sports/olympics/article/776096--six-second-goalkeeper-rule-that-probably-cost-canada-s-soccer-women-semifinal-win-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.

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 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: "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 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.

The New York Times

[Josephus]

No offence,but I don't hold the commnets from the referee's father as being entirely objective.

You suspect he or she is lying, and in fact the goalie was never warned? I suppose that is possible, but I am willing to accept that if the ref said she warned her, she probably did - because refs are by far the people involved most likely to actually be honest about what they did, and with the most to lose for straight out lying about what happened.

Let's change the onus shall we for a moment?

Find me another instance where that play is called and I'll call it a draw.

Find me another instance where the goalie routinely holds onto the ball for more than ten seconds with a lead, in some cases for as long as 15 seconds or more.

No.

Show me that in the case in question she held the ball for 15 seconds or more AFTER she got off the ground and was able to find a teammate to throw it too.

[Berkut]

I love the idea that it takes a long time to "find a teammate to throw it to".

Gee, I was just here playing, and there were all these other players, and now I cannot find them! Whatever happened to them all? Oh well, I will just stand here I guess...

At this point, it is pretty clear that there isn't any evidence possible that will convince you that the call could have been justified, which is fine - that is the nature of being a fan. You don't have to be reasonable or objective, and it is often more fun not to be, so carry on feeling violated by this unjust application of the actual rules. But I like talking about rules and how to apply them, or even trying to educate fans on the actual rules, and that has been done with you as much as possible I think.

The rules are crystal clear, and there is no question that she violated them over and over and over again. Whether it was 17 seconds or only 12 seconds isn't all that interesting, really. The intent of the rule is also very clear - it exists to stop players from doing precisely what she was doing, repeatedly and egregiously. And I would say the exact same thing if the roles were exactly reversed.

[CountDeMoney]

I love how the Canuck crying over that game is going to keep this thread alive until the next Summer Olympics.

[DGuller]

I love the idea that it takes a long time to "find a teammate to throw it to".

Gee, I was just here playing, and there were all these other players, and now I cannot find them! Whatever happened to them all? Oh well, I will just stand here I guess...

They're not exactly standing in place, are they?  Have you seen what happens after a goalie gets the ball?  All the players trot away towards the middle of the field.

[garbon]

No offence,but I don't hold the commnets from the referee's father as being entirely objective.

Let's change the onus shall we for a moment?

Find me another instance where that play is called and I'll call it a draw.

As you wish:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/olympics/2012/writers/grant_wahl/08/06/morgan-saves-us-versus-canada/index.html

It's exceedingly rare for the violation to be called at the elite level. The only previous incident I could track down took place in the Premier League in 2002, when referee David Elleray blew his whistle on Bolton's Jussi Jaaskelainen against Newcastle United. (Alan Shearer tied the game on the ensuing free kick sequence.)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2002/feb/04/match.sport12

our minutes later his goalkeeper Jussi Jaaskelainen held the ball, under pressure from Shearer, for nine seconds. Football's most infrequently enforced law allows six seconds.

From 17 yards Shearer drilled the ball into the bottom corner. From the stands the Bolton manager, Sam Allardyce, emerged on to the touchline to abuse the referee David Elleray. Elleray could miss a decapitation under his nose, but time-keeping, that is far more important.

You could understand Bolton's sense of injustice. "You must be," began the first question to Allardyce afterwards. "Gutted?" he interjected. "Yes."

[Berkut]

I love the idea that it takes a long time to "find a teammate to throw it to".

Gee, I was just here playing, and there were all these other players, and now I cannot find them! Whatever happened to them all? Oh well, I will just stand here I guess...

They're not exactly standing in place, are they?  Have you seen what happens after a goalie gets the ball?  All the players trot away towards the middle of the field.

Yeah, I could see where that would make it hard to find them.

[DGuller]

I love the idea that it takes a long time to "find a teammate to throw it to".

Gee, I was just here playing, and there were all these other players, and now I cannot find them! Whatever happened to them all? Oh well, I will just stand here I guess...

They're not exactly standing in place, are they?  Have you seen what happens after a goalie gets the ball?  All the players trot away towards the middle of the field.

Yeah, I could see where that would make it hard to find them.

You're being deliberately obtuse now.  Finding a teammate means finding a teammate who is in position, and who is also not near a player from the other team who could intercept the ball and immediately counter-attack.  Kicking the ball to the player of the opposing team is a very embarrassing way to give up a goal.  That's why goalkeepers scan the field for a while with a ball in their hands.

[Ed Anger]

I love how the Canuck crying over that game is going to keep this thread alive until the next Summer Olympics.

Their tears are maple flavored.