Gold Cup Commentary: Same clown hurt Canada before

[CoachRich]

The Province

Gold Cup officiating anything but golden

Same clown hurt Canada before

Terry Bell

The Province

Sunday, June 24, 2007

The U.S. gets to host Mexico today in the soccer's Gold Cup final in Chicago.

The Americans will be all smiles. So too will the Mexicans, who'll probably have more support at sold-out Soldier Field than their hosts. Television executives will be dazzled by the sheer beauty of a matchup that prevented the ugly ratings that a Canada-Mexico -- or, worse yet, a Canada-Guadeloupe final -- would have produced.

CONCACAF officials will also feel the love.

In Canada we're not quite so infatuated. Here the game doesn't look quite so beautiful.

And here we're left to wonder what might have happened in overtime Thursday if Atiba Hutchinson's goal in the dying seconds of a 2-1 semifinal loss to the Americans had not been nuked by a larcenous call.

Here we're still wondering how Mexican referee Benito 'the Bandito' Archundia and his linesman managed to conclude that Hutchinson was offside even though he appeared onside and the ball the Canuck drilled into the American net had just bounced to him off an American defender's head.

Some of us may also be wondering why Canadian Soccer Association president Colin Linford isn't making more of a fuss.

"It's a game played and refereed by humans," the stoic Linford was quoted as saying. "If a mistake was made, it's easy in hindsight ... we just had to accept it. We didn't think he was offside but the referee and the linesman did, so you have to live with it.

"You get breaks sometimes and you don't get them other times."

Excuse me? If a mistake was made? Live with it? Accept it?

And when did Canada catch anything from senor Bandito except a boot in the teeth? This is the same clown who, in 2004, screwed Canada not once but twice in a CONCACAF World Cup qualifier against Honduras. The final score in that thing of beauty was 1-1 but only after a questionable call allowed Honduras to tie it late and another questionable call wiped out a Canadian goal in injury time.

Neither the coincidence nor the consequence of Mr. Archundia's work were lost on Canadian coach Stephen Hart.

"Usually, as you get deeper in the competition, like the semifinal and the final, you don't have referees from those countries being involved," he said after Thursday's affair. "There are 40 countries in CONCACAF so you think they could find referees."

Hopefully, Linford's stoicism is reserved for the media. Hopefully his tune will change and his defiance will increase when he's able to talk with CONCACAF and FIFA officials. With Canada hosting the under-20 World Cup there should soon be plenty of opportunity.

Sometimes a country's big wheels need to squeak. Jamie Sale and David Pelletier wouldn't have an Olympic gold medal today if the Canadian Olympic Association had called the French judge a human instead of a &^%$#, and sugar coated a scandal with comments like 'if she made a mistake.'

There's enough talent in Canada to qualify for the 2010 World Cup and there still may be an outside chance that mega-talent Jonathan De Guzman will choose to play for Canada instead of The Netherlands, where he's getting a passport. The Toronto product and brother of Canadian midfielder Julian De Guzman, stars at Feyenoord and has been called one of the 10 best under-21 players in the world.

Unfortunately, seeing Canada get treated like a pinata does nothing to convince him to play here.

Canada has to dig in its heels on this one. It's time to tell the world there'll be no more banditos.

© The Vancouver Province 2007

[loyola]

Their no comparaisons between a bad call by an AR and the Sale/Pelletier scandal. Bad calls happens all the time in soccer and you don't see teams protesting every times they're screwed by a call.

Like some people have pointed out, this play is a lot closer than I initially thought. The ball is a inch over Hume head, if he touched it (which I don't believe he did) Hutchinson appears to be offside. And I could see why the AR thought Hume did touch it by looking at his positionning when that happenned. I still think it's the wrong call, but it's a much more difficult call than I thought at first. They're also the qualification of Oneywhu header, deflection or back pass.

I just don't think that we have a matter for protest here. In 2004 after Homduras, of course but for this, I just don't think so. It appears to me that it's a judgement mistake by the AR and nothing more.

If we look at the whole game, you can see some others judgement mistakes that went both ways (Hume and DeRo should've been yellow carded, Hume took a dive but got a FK, 2 offsides wrongly called against the USA, Boca red card, Jazic wrongly called offside twice), the last one was just worst because it was the last play of the game.

Of course, I've nothing against the CSA asking for better refs in CONCACAF (asking for Euro refs) but I don't think a protest is warranted here.

[clamlinguine]

Loyola, you truly are a sucker. A Neville Chamberlain like apologist. I suspect you are wannabe bureaucrat. These calls you refer to are window dressing, nothing more. When in the last 30 years has canada been the benificiary of a "questionable " call which utimately led to them winning a meaningful game. Let me help, never.

Quit polluting the board with your BS.

[Markus]

Didn't catch that article but kudos to terry bell for writing it. I don't suppose it will make any difference but I like that someone somewhere agrees with me about Linford. His lack of action speaks volumes about him.

[Guest Jeffery S.]

Hilarious how badly they let you write when you work for the Province, what a rag. Anyone want more ketchup on their spagettis?

[Gian-Luca]

quote:Originally posted by loyola

If we look at the whole game, you can see some others judgement mistakes that went both ways (Hume and DeRo should've been yellow carded, Hume took a dive but got a FK, 2 offsides wrongly called against the USA, Boca red card, Jazic wrongly called offside twice), the last one was just worst because it was the last play of the game.

DeRo was carded on that play. Whether Hume should have been carded is largely inconsequential & I think only serves to muddle what is a clear cut case of the officials blowing it big time at the end (nevermind the multitude of additional cards that could have been given to Bocanegra, Donovan (again) and Keller).

FWIW, I don't think any of the offside calls were incorrect other than the one on the equalizing goal & the offside that was called against Hainault when he was pulled down in the box for what should have been a penalty.

[loyola]

quote:Originally posted by Gian-Luca

DeRo was carded on that play. Whether Hume should have been carded is largely inconsequential & I think only serves to muddle what is a clear cut case of the officials blowing it big time at the end (nevermind the multitude of additional cards that could have been given to Bocanegra, Donovan (again) and Keller).

FWIW, I don't think any of the offside calls were incorrect other than the one on the equalizing goal & the offside that was called against Hainault when he was pulled down in the box for what should have been a penalty.

I think Craig Forrest comments at approx. min 70 of the game are interesting regarding the ref's performance. He said Archundia did an outstanding job. I think that's the most objective comment we can have on this issue because ours are all tainted by subjectivity since we all know what happenned.

I still agree with Forrest for the exception of a few calls including the last one but their was nothing to suggest the game was fixed.

[Soju]

Except when the AR flagged a ball off Guch's head as being offside in the last minute of play.

[Gian-Luca]

Forrest said that, but then he also question/condemmed a lot of the decisions prior to the comment, especially in the first half.

Incidentally, I also don't agree with everything Forrest said - he felt (& repeated his views on Saturday's TFC game) that the red card to Bradley should have been a yellow. I don't agree. It could have been a yellow, but I don't think there can be too many complaints about it. He went it high, from behind and absolutely nowhere near the ball. It was cynical challenge to slow our team down & stop us on another break (a very similar looking break that we had just scored on a few minutes earlier).

[Plava]

this is soccer once the game is called you cant change a call or else argentina wouldnt have won the 1986 world cup

[Gian-Luca]

quote:Originally posted by Plava

this is soccer once the game is called you cant change a call or else argentina wouldnt have won the 1986 world cup

Bahrain vs. Uzbekistan World Cup Qualifying 2005 would appear to disprove the above assertion.

[loyola]

quote:Originally posted by Gian-Luca

Bahrain vs. Uzbekistan World Cup Qualifying 2005 would appear to disprove the above assertion.

There's a difference between a technical mistake by the ref and what happenned between us and the USA. Here we have a judgement call that was made. In the Bahrain game, it was a technical mistake by the ref and teams can appeal those but not judgement call.

[canso]

Who exactly are you loyal to loyola?

[loyola]

quote:Originally posted by canso

Who exactly are you loyal to loyola?

???

So you are GWB now? "You're either with us or against us".......

99% of the call are judgement call, just imagine how it would be if teams start appealing for every offside, foul, corner that was wrongly assess?

I've say it 100 times, the call was wrong but when you watch the replay and realized that Hume was millimeters away from touching that ball you can see that wasn't that evident, specially when you're 30 meters away like this AR.

Sorry for not jumping into your "it's a conspiracy" bandwagon but I feel that our players wouldn't be helped with that kind of attitude. It was a bad call for sure, live with it and move on.

[Gian-Luca]

quote:Originally posted by loyola

There's a difference between a technical mistake by the ref and what happenned between us and the USA. Here we have a judgement call that was made. In the Bahrain game, it was a technical mistake by the ref and teams can appeal those but not judgement call.

I'm well aware of that, but it was a distinction that his statement did not make.

[terpfan68]

Enough already about "the call". If circumstances were reversed all of us would be laughing our heads off on how we "put it" to the United States. S_ _ _ happens.

[Grizzly]

The people who claim that for a game to be fixed all the decisions have to be in favour of one team are completely wrong. The ref is only favouring one team and has to be very careful to appear balanced. A ref can usually only get away with one call like the disallowed goal against the US although Arcundia did risk two such calls in the Honduran game. Things like the oft mentioned red card to the American player are perfect cover for the ref and as we can see from this thread is providing him with a lot of defence for throwing the game. Archundia and his AR single handedly changed the outcome of the game but can refer to the red card as proof they were unbiased. Yet how often does a team score when their opponent gets a red card in the 89th minute? 9 times out of 10 they don't and if they do and the ref disallows the goal he can point to the red card as proof he was unbiased. Additionally, when the team he wants to win is leading 2-0 the ref doesn't need to make controversial decisions. Note that the other controversial call which was the lack of red card on the foul on DeGuzman occured with the game still 0-0 and at a time when Canada had the run of play. Why does he give a red card at minute 89 for a foul that while still deserving a red was not nearly as bad as the earlier yellow card infraction?

I say all this having attended several games in Germany that were later proved to be fixed by a betting syndicate with a ref who admitted to being paid to influence the outcome. Reffing in the 3rd division is not that great anyway like CONCACAF so I just thought it was a bad ref at the time. Not every decision went against my team (who were supposed to lose) but just one or two crucial ones that did indeed cause them to lose. In some of the fixed games in Germany the team supposed to win did not because the ref can only help them so much before it is obvious but the odds were certainly tipped in favour of the team the syndicate was betting on. Often they bet on the team that was favoured to win anyway so it did not look obvious. The scheme came undone not because the refs were obviously favouring certain teams but because the betting companies noticed irregular betting patterns in which certain bettors were winning more often than possible if they were merely lucky. Few of the games had calls as bad as the three by Archundia.

It is not just us Canadians who believe this was fixed either. I have several Central American friends who all e-mailed me after the game and stated the game was obviously fixed. When the head of our confederation has been caught red handed in several criminal schemes and is not punished by FIFA and remains head of our federation, I don't see why it is very hard to believe that matches are fixed in a tournament that is purposely designed to produce a Mexico-US final. Especially after several major leagues have had scandals involving referees fixing matches in the past two years and following two World Cups with extremely poor and suspect reffing.

[loyola]

My point is the play is a lot closer and tougher to call due to the fact that Hume is a millimeters away from touching the ball (at that precise time, Hutchinson is offside). So, it's possible (and that's what canadians players said the AR told them "a canadian touched the ball") the AR saw Hume touched the ball and called the offside right away.

I think the BigSoccer discussion in the referee forum provides more impartial views than this board where we're only a few to question the conspiracy theory.

[shaku_bert]

Word up, Grizzly!

The problems in Italy, Germany, the far east all prove that match fixing can and does go on. Central America, Mexica and the Caribbean all (rightly or wrongly) are thought to have institutionalized corruption. The commissioner is known to be involved in illegal schemes. The commissioner has made desultory remarks about Canada. Is it really then so far-fetched to entertain theories about conspiracies?

That was a good post, Grizzly.

[Grizzly]

Hume is a complete non-issue in this because the ball obviously does not change its flight path even slightly as it goes by him which would have been the case if he had touched the ball. Refs are trained to watch for such things and as I said before Archundia is a good ref just not an honest one. He is reffing the Mexican league and has reffed in the World Cup so unlike many CONCACAF refs the excuse can not be used that he isn't reffing at a high level.

[loyola]

quote:Originally posted by Grizzly

Hume is a complete non-issue in this because the ball obviously does not change its flight path even slightly as it goes by him which would have been the case if he had touched the ball. Refs are trained to watch for such things and as I said before Archundia is a good ref just not an honest one. He is reffing the Mexican league and has reffed in the World Cup so unlike many CONCACAF refs the excuse can not be used that he isn't reffing at a high level.

It's the AR who made the call, not Archundia. And if you're asking him to overule his AR, I'll ask you when it's the last time you've seen this happen at this level (for the record I watch maybe 3-4 games per week and I've never seen that in my whole life).

[Grizzly]

I certainly have seen refs overrule ARs especially in a situation where a defender plays the ball which negates an offside. I don't remember when the last one was but while not common it is certainly not as rare as you are implying. These are basic rules of the game that Archundia is violating. How does Craig Forrest who is not a referee immediately state how can that be offside when it comes off the defender while both Archundia and the AR who are in much better positions than Forrest and have years of training and experience miss it?

I will also state that in the three fixed games in Germany I saw, only one of them was as blatantly biased as either of the Archundia games in question. Even in that one game which had three dubious incidents only one of the incidents involved the ref as the other two involved players (on my team) who were also paid to throw the game. The ref called a dubious penalty on our team. He then called a penalty on the other team (helping him to disguise his bias) which our best striker subsequently missed (which would have been believable enough until it came out he had received money from the syndicate). The third incident involved our keeper handling the ball well out of the box. Even the gambling syndicate was very careful to make things look good and plausible.

[canso]

So you are GWB now? "You're either with us or against us".......

Just curious as to why you call yourself Loyola.

Especially in light of your repreated attempts to convince ourself that this was not a fix.

And the sucking up to the American posters.

It's not unpatriotic to brown nose Americans, many Canadians need that validation in order to feel important...Celine Dion for example.

[Grizzly]

Loyola is calling Canso George W Bush and Canso is calling Loyola Celine Dion. I am not sure which is the more insulting of the two. Could you imagine if George W and Celine had a baby how stupid (not to mention ugly) this kid would be? It is a scary thought.

[canso]

"Could you imagine if George W and Celine had a baby"

Anyone else get a picture of Rene Levesque in their mind?