Refs draw fire at London Olympics
Alex Morgan scores in the last minute of extra time to give the U.S. a 4-3 win over Canada. (AP photo)
The biggest blow-up comes in the wake of the U.S. women’s epic 4-3 win over Canada in soccer Monday.
At issue was a delay-of-game call against the Canadian goalkeeper and a hand ball on the ensuing free kick that resulted in a penalty-kick goal for the U.S., tying the score at 3-3 and sending the game into overtime, where the U.S. won with a dramatic last-minute goal.
“We feel like we got robbed in this game,” Canadian goalkeeper Erin McLeod said. “The referee said I had the ball for ten seconds. She obviously counted the time I was on the ground with the ball. Once I got to my feet I calculate I only had the ball for five seconds. … the referee was very one-sided.”
Canadian team captain Christie Sinclair was equally blunt: “We feel like we didn’t lose. We feel like it was taken from us. It’s a shame in a game like that, which is so important, that the ref had such an impact on it. We feel cheated.”
Canadian coach John Herdman was furious.
“The ref, she will have to sleep in bed tonight after watching the replays. She’s gonna have to live with that. We will move on from this. I wonder if she will be able to.”
But American star Abby Wambach said the controversy was much ado about nothing.
“There was a few other times throughout the game that [McLeod] held it for 18 seconds, 10 seconds,” Wambach said. “And the referee had warned her before to play quicker. It’s the referee’s call. I feel like you can’t blame something on the referee.”
U.S. coach Pia Sundhage wasn’t shedding any tears for the Canadians either. Asked if she felt sympathy for her opponent after the controversial calls, Sundhage had a one-word answer: “Nope.”
Meanwhile, a water polo referee has apologized to Spain for blowing a call that cost the Spaniards a match against Croatia.
Boris Margeta was banned from officiating any more Olympic games after he allowed the Croatians a goal that shouldn’t have counted.
At least he’s owning up to his mistake.
“It was very bad,” Margeta said in an interview with TMZ. “After I saw the replay I knew I made a mistake. My apologies to Spain’s team.”
Spain, at least, will live to fight another day for the gold. They finished third in their bracket and moved on to the quarterfinals.
Not Canada, though. The U.S. will play Japan Thursday for the gold medal, while Canada plays France for the bronze.
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74 comments Add your comment
creative
August 7th, 2012
11:38 am
Soccer Ref…Good Job Dude. You should not be allowed to post anymore. My question is Why in tennis are they only allowed one serve? On another note for our less retarded posters… she had been warned 2 or 3 times why push the limits. Also maybe this is payback for the 1976 Bball Moscow refereeing.
Sam…we obviously do now go back to asking 18 year old UGA players, who you would probably hate if they weren’t football players, for their autographs. Now get back to work. If you don’t care why did you click on the article dbag. I’m sure your parents are proud!!!
Sean
August 7th, 2012
11:50 am
DC, you’re insane.. Up your meds.. cause you clearly need another dose if you think that. Put your phone down and stop texting, and “SEE” the world. Only then, will you understand..
Big C
August 7th, 2012
11:50 am
Wow. It it hilarious how people take an article on how a referee possibly messed up a call in the Olympics to the issue being President Obama, healthcare, and other political issues. Get a damn life!!!
DC
August 7th, 2012
11:55 am
Sean…are you saying that American Football/NBA/Baseball/Hockey/”Nascar” is bigger than Soccer globally?
Paddy
August 7th, 2012
12:19 pm
Play Fair……your not from round here, are you boy? Best you leave town, quiet like. Folks round here don’t like that kind of talk. We hate the Canadians and everybody else we play. We want to win all the gold and make the other team cry when they lose. What is wrong with being hated by all other teams?
Gord Bobcageon
August 7th, 2012
12:35 pm
“people outside of America don’t like America because they’re jealous, pure and simple” Really? Hilarious…. Both Canada and the USA played an exciting intense game. Congratulations to the USA women for their victory. Well done. (from a Canadian)
ParanoidAndroid
August 7th, 2012
12:39 pm
No mention of the South Korean lady that got robbed in fencing? That was pretty bad.
Brandon
August 7th, 2012
12:43 pm
Like someone said earlier, don’t put the game in the hands of the refs. Take care of business on the field and you won’t have to worry about blown calls.
Brandon
August 7th, 2012
12:48 pm
It almost reminds me of UGA Football from the past few years – Don’t leave the game up to the kicker and it won’t matter if he misses a few field goals.
GFY
August 7th, 2012
1:00 pm
Take it easy on the Canadians as they have an inferiority complex…..Canada is kind of like your attic….you don’t go up there often but when you do you sometimes find some cool stuff.
steve
August 7th, 2012
1:33 pm
Let’s just make this fair for Canada. Instead of a coin flip…our Navy versus your Navy winner takes all!!!!
PLAYFAIR!!!
August 7th, 2012
2:34 pm
Thank you to those who proved my point. I’m from a country other than Britain or Canada – here on an L1 visa creating jobs for Americans. The wait times nonsense you refer to is propaganda put forth by FOX News and the like. Did you know the US government spends more per capita on health care than Canadians do for free health care? Educate yourselves – read BBC News, CBC News or any other countries’ news for that matter, for unbiased US news. International news is rarely reported on local news – hence the navel gazing. Stop letting politics define who you are as a person.
Yeah I’m a liberal ………. and JESUS WAS A SOCIALIST!!!
BTW….it was a Canadian player on the ground when USA had the ball. So sad you had to watch the game on NBC. Awesome delayed Olympic coverage – can’t get enough of that water polo or prancing horses.
billyBobjacket
August 7th, 2012
2:36 pm
Proposed rule: If play has to stop while you roll around on the ground clutching your knee/ankle/head/whatever, then you go off the field for then next five-ten minutes of play. If the injury is that bad it should take at lest that long for you to recover or be medically evaluated and cleared to resume play.
billyBobjacket
August 7th, 2012
2:43 pm
You can be sure that as the game clock ticked down the NBC execs were going ape-$#!+ at the prospect of not having the US team in the gold medal game. A few expletive-filled calls to the referee supervisor were likely placed, making sure that the right calls and non-calls were made to ensure the US team would advance. How many times have we seen this in the NBA and NFL…the big money big TV market teams always get the calls in thelate going, because the TV big shots want to sell ads in the huge New York, Boston, Philly, LA, Miami, or Chicago TV markets, not in Kansas City (or God forbid, Canada!).
Paddy
August 7th, 2012
2:56 pm
PLAYFAIR……we only care about sports and winning every game/match by the biggest margin possible. And yes, we really don’t care about soccer at all. You can go all the way back to 1971 and list all the groups that have tried and lost hugh money in trying to interest the buying public in a game we just don’t like much. You know what they say, “one man’s sh_t is another man’s ice cream”.
Paddy
August 7th, 2012
3:15 pm
PLAYFAIR……..JESUS WAS A SOCIALIST, you say. Wow, they don’t make Jews like Jesus anymore! Thank you, Kinky Friedman!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
RugbyPlayer
August 7th, 2012
3:28 pm
Playfair…you full of it…you must have been kicked out of your country for scams and lies. A hospital survey of five countries (United States, Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom and Australia), conducted by Robert Blendon and colleagues in Health Affairs found that “waits of six months or more for elective surgeries were reported to occur ‘very often’ or ‘often’ by 26–57 percent in the four non-U.S. countries; only 1 percent of U.S. hospitals reported this. Half of all Canadian hospitals reported an average waiting time of over six months for a 65-year-old male requiring a routine hip replacement; no American hospital administrators reported waits this long.
*Canada had the highest percentage of patients (36%) who had to wait six days or more for an appointment with a doctor. 57% of physicians in the U.K, and 51% of Canadian physicians reported that their patients experienced long waits for diagnostic tests, compared to only 9% of U.S. physicians who reported the same.
* The U.K (60%) and Canada (57%) had the highest numbers of persons who had to wait four weeks or more to get to see a specialist physician. In the U.S., only 23% reported a wait of four weeks or more for specialty care.
* The U.S. also did very well on measures of wait times for non-emergency or elective surgery. Only 8% of surveyed patients in the United States reported a wait time of four months or more for elective surgery, compared to 33% in Canada and 41% in the U.K. Germany scored the best, with only 6% reporting a long wait for elective surgery.
Perhaps if other countries adopted a free-market approach to health care, more of their citizens (and politicians) would seek treatment within their borders. This leaves just one question: if the United States adopts government-run health care system, even remotely like that of Canada, Britain, etc with government control of benefits and financing, plus reams of rules specifying what we can and cannot get, which border are we going to cross to get the care we need?
Ayn Rant
August 7th, 2012
5:18 pm
Well, Mr. Playfair, your allegations have been confirmed by a dozen or so people whose comments show that they have been deprived of truth and perspective by their media, and brainwashed by their politicians.
Canadians pouring over the border to get medical treatment in the US? Waits of 3, 6, 12, 18 months for medical treatment in Canada or the UK? Europeans and Canadians envious of the US? What a pack of lies and deceptions! And, how unnecessary to be so ignorant! People who submit comments have access to the internet where they can find the world’s principal newspapers, most of them unfettered by provincialism and politics.
Did everyone miss the Olympic opening ceremony where the UK’s national health service was honored and bragged about? Has anyone seen a similar gathering of Americans to honor Blue Cross and United Healthcare? I doubt it!
The US is my country, and I’m staying here, except for overseas business trips and vacations. I’m hoping that the next generation will be smarter, wiser, and more aware than the parents who blindly follow the politically-directed media and the lying politicans.
Know ur rules
August 7th, 2012
8:06 pm
The rule on GK is 6 seconds AFTER the completion of save, usually this means she has full control and able to stand with the ball. Clear in the replays it is shown the goalie had kick the ball after 5 seconds, not 10.
catlady
August 7th, 2012
9:20 pm
Isn’t Canada made up largely of the French? “Oh, I hurt my arm. And that is my surrendering arm, too.”
Cliff
August 8th, 2012
8:46 am
The confusion over the 10 seconds probably has something to do with the metric system.
jimjones
August 8th, 2012
9:20 am
Canadian beer smells like skunk pi*S
Refs draw fire at Olympics | Bazaar Daily News
August 8th, 2012
9:47 am
[...] Cop a look at some other hilarious ref moments in the Atlanta Journal Constitution [...]
Man
August 8th, 2012
9:51 am
So much ignorance on one web page…