Newsy: Referee Robs U.S. of Goal?

A controversial call during the U.S. versus Slovenia game has Americans crying foul.

“I’m a little gutted to be honest, I don’t know how they stole that third goal from us, and it's too bad, because that was a fair goal I think.” 

“What did you see on the disallowed goal?”

“I saw a good finish and a good goal.” (ESPN)

The American national soccer team is hot after a seemingly phantom foul call nullified the winning goal for the U.S. in its World Cup match against Slovenia.

The Americans went behind 2-0 early, but fought back in the second half to level the score at 2-2. ESPN has what happened next: “And then with the elation and the momentum, controversy here in the 85th minute. It’s a great ball by Donovan. Maurice Edu puts it in goal, but there’s so many questions on the U.S. side — first thing you look for is offside, there’s none there.”

“No, no the referee gave a free kick, and it’s a real injustice, you can see Maurice Edu wins the position in that six-yard box and that should have been a goal.”

But a sportswriter for The New York Times says it might have been a bad call, but the referee didn’t rob the U.S. of the win: “The fact is their comatose performance in the first half... put them in this dreadful hole. The Americans went from disaster to hope in the second half. Then they were robbed. If they had played that furiously from the start, they would not have needed the Edu goal, which was surely legitimate.”

Fox News’ Sheppard Smith is still outraged; and, after mispronouncing two of the U.S. player’s names, takes the opportunity to deride the sport: “Watch that! Clean, no foul, no nothing, if anything, look at that! That’s holding in any sport. The ref called a foul, or something, we don’t even know what it was. So the goal didn’t count, no one’s really sure about any of this, the ref apparently didn’t feel any need to explain anything, one of the weirdities of this, sport.”

A writer for the Huffington Post sees a pattern of unfair calls agains the U.S. in international soccer, and says enough is enough: “Elevate this into a controversy so that everyone knows that the U.S. team feels aggrieved. Not only will that help the psyche of the team — 'us against the world' — it will put the match officials on notice that we are watching...”

So what do you think? Was the U.S. robbed? Or is the team a victim of its own poor play throughout the game?

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