World Cup 2010

[Ghoulish Delight]

WTF? Did they call that offside?

[Ghoulish Delight]

I love that with the endless replaying of that goal that will commence, all the talk will be about the terrible offside call, but no one will even bat an eye at the 5 Slovenian players that have wrestling holds on US players.

[scaeagles]

Wife has been testing me about that. Apparently it was a pretty horrid call that the announcers haven't stopped talking about.

[Ghoulish Delight]

I wasn't listening to the audio (I was streaming through Univision, so the audio wouldn't have done me much good anyway), so I didn't hear the call, but a twitter search confirmed that the call was offside. It's the wrong call. The replay is pretty clear on that. US players were PISSED after the final whistle.

[Alex]

Here's a scenario. Assume that England beats Algeria today by more than one goal.

Then in the next game Slovenia and England draw 1-1. US beats Algeria 1-0.

The result would be a tie between Slovenia and US in all tie breakers (+1 goal differential, 2 goals each in head to head, both will have scored 4 goals and allowed 3).

At that point they'd flip a coin over who got to advance. If Slovenia wins that coin flip then soccer is a pre-teen hobby for another 20 years in the US.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Eh, even if the US wins that coin flip odds are it won't fare much better.

[Alex]

True, but for 20 years you'd have to hear about how stupid it is. We already hear too much about how stupid it is that ties are allowed.

And it would be harder to argue that advancement by coin flip isn't really stupid.

[scaeagles]

I would figure that the US should beat Algeria and that England should beat Slovenia.

Should.

If so, the US moves on. Unless I'm missing something.

[Alex]

Yes, in that scenario Slovenia would have four points and U.S. five points. England would have at least six.

[Ghoulish Delight]

This recap has a replay of the disallowed goal (the refs apparently never even said what the call was). It's at about 2:30 in.