The referee’s conundrum…
I’ve watched it unfold in the World Cup. I’ve seen it in most pro sports—football, basketball, and hockey. I’ve seen it in most collegiate sports. The referee’s conundrum in an intense game or match is deciding how close to call the fouls and how much to let the players play. While I don’t usually do sports op-eds in this blog because players, coaches, fans, and even referees can become very emotional in the “fog of war,” a recent incident in the Brazil-Colombia World Cup match merits a comment.
Some people are up in arms against the Colombian who, by accident, broke the vertebrae of a Brazilian player, the star striker. I saw the event, knew it was an accident, and also knew that in most games the Colombian would receive a yellow card, even if it was an accident. That would be calling the fouls close. I won’t side with Brazilian fans who want the Colombian player banned. Their own players were guilty of egregious fouls that weren’t called up to that point too. The referee let that game get out of control.
After the Brazilian team’s complete collapse in the semi-final, I guess we can say that their fans probably have other things on their mind. But it’s human nature to look for someone to blame. They might go after the coach, for example, but he brought Brazil the last World Cup championship. In his defense, during that defensive collapse, he didn’t even have time to substitute. And, talking about defense, Brazil’s star defensive player was sitting it out for fouls, which brings us back to the topic at hand.
The guilty players in the Colombian game were mostly Brazilians. Gone are the days of Pele where we saw sweet dribbles, dexterous passes, and beautifully bent goals (from Brazilians—we saw a wee bit of that from the Colombians and Germans). The game is now big money. Evidence for that can be found with that school in Barcelona (it trained the Argentine team’s big star) and the effort in Germany from 2000 to prepare many excellent players (some of them on the current German team—I think the U.S. coach was part of that crowd).
With the money comes greed and too much on the line for losing players and coaches. FIFA isn’t immune to the greed effect as rumors abound about the current Cup, and the selection of Qatar for 2022 with its 125-degree days is rumored to have been made with bribes. Remember the time a Colombian scored an “auto-gol” and was shot when he returned to Colombia? That wasn’t that long ago. Or, when two Central American countries went to war over a soccer match?
And greed only adds to the frenzy associated to the matches, maybe at the detriment of those fine touches and well planned sets. I haven’t seen finesse from any team in this World Cup (maybe from the Germans, but it’s hard to tell because the Brazilian collapse was so complete). Maybe from individual players and coaches—the German striker Muller, the U.S.’ goalie Howard, Colombian striker Rodriguez, and the Dutch coach’s decision to change goalies in the shoot-out against Costa Rica. In general, though, teams are well matched, there’s little finesse shown, and rowdy defense rules.
The Brazilians started bullying the Colombians from the start. The NY Times has commented (previous to the semi-final debacle) that their playing style is now to slog it out without finesse. The Times isn’t known for its perceptive sports coverage, but they’re right on this call. And the referees are wrong. I suspect it’s because Brazil is the host team. FIFA, already under attack for many things, doesn’t want a disaster at this World Cup, but fireworks might occur if Brazil loses (time made this prophetic). FIFA knows that; the referees know that. Brazilian players were getting a pass. It didn’t help with Germany.
While it might be a host-team psychosis, there could be other reasons for letting matches get out of hand. FIFA would like the favorite teams, the VIPs in soccer, to move forward, teams like Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany, Holland, and Italy. Some of these are already eliminated, including the host team (a disaster for FIFA as well as Brazil?). They would have a PR disaster if, say, we saw a final where Colombia faced off against Costa Rica. Yet, both these teams were as good as any of the VIPs this year. One solution for FIFA is to let the VIPs get away with flagrant violations. Maybe it won’t happen in the final.
I’m not saying there’s an evil conspiracy here. I’m saying that there’s a bias, maybe more from FIFA than the referees, but the latter should be above the bias. Sure, a referee should error on the side of letting the players play—the game’s already slow enough for the majority of play time—but fouls must be called, and fairly. This isn’t happening in this World Cup. In the second piece about this problem in the Times, there’s a picture of a Brazilian player with a choke-hold on a Colombian player. The Brazilians were playing dirty—they have no right to complain about losing their best player. But the referee was the real culprit in letting that happen for the whole game. And the debacle with Germany proves that Brazil accomplished nothing by playing this way.
Basketball and soccer are tough games. In football and hockey, players at least have some padding. Not so in basketball and soccer. It is essential to both games that referees call the fouls. It’s the Goldilocks principle applied to sports: calling it too close makes a game boring; calling it too loose, and it’s out of control. The art of good refereeing is to strike the correct balance. Intense games (the NBA finals, the World Cup) need to be handled with intense refereeing where that delicate balance is fairly maintained all the way through.
Brazilian fans have no right to criticize the Colombian who eliminated their star player. It was an accident caused by the intense play that the referee allowed to get out of control. The Brazilians should look at their own players first, but especially the referee. And not worry so much about winning. It’s only a game! The results of the match with Germany should be a lesson. Brazil is a great country. And there’s more to life than soccer.
And so it goes….
