Ad Disclosure
The Refs Were in the Bag for England
Published:
England couldn’t score a goal against Ghana. Pathetic!
Not only that, but there were two flash point incidents from the nil-nil draw:
That’s a penalty. The defender launches himself, gets none of the ball, and lands on the attacker’s thigh. I’ve seen counterarguments that Ezri Konsa gained position and therefore Prince Adu is contacting him, but Konsa is airborne and lunging and has no established position. This really isn’t a 50/50 challenge. The reason he got “in front” of the guy is because he came recklessly flying through the air.
As for the covering of the mouth, it’s a new rule. They put it in place because there was an incident in Europe where a guy allegedly said something racist to another player while holding his hand over his mouth. Obviously you can’t do any kind of lip reading if you can’t see the player’s face. It’s the same thing with baseball players holding the glove over their face or NBA players pulling the jersey up over their mouths.
In the Turkey/Paraguay game, an MLS player was ejected for doing this, but an England player did it on Tuesday and nothing happened. The rule is left open to interpretation, and only enforced when an interaction is deemed to be “confrontational,” which is a little vague. How do we know if something is confrontational if the guy is covering his mouth? We’re just guessing based on body language, or considering the most recent passage of play? We lose some context on whether the interaction is friendly or adversarial.
So that incident isn’t necessarily a huge deal, but the Konza tackle was. England got away with one. The refs were in the bag for them. Despicable!
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com