Ref Killjoys our World Cup Fun
The refs had been great in this World Cup so far. But I'm getting ahead of myself, let's start with going to Ellis Park. The stadium is old and famous, mostly for rugby. But it really is a nice place. With the World Cup, each stadium has 2 security zones to get through before getting to the fan zones and the stadium itself. The stadium feels like it's in between other residential buildings; the food stands being the neighbor's front window. Definitely a huge contrast to both Royal Bafokeng and Soccer City. We stayed at a beergarden inside the security for a while with mostly USA fans, but hearing the occasional Slovenian drinking chant/song. We also met some dude from Clemson. Ashley wants you to know he lives in South Africa now and that it is interesting.
The support at the game was clearly in favor of the US. An entire half of the stadium was USA fans, while the other half was made up of locals and a respectable base of Slovenia fans. With the USA down by 2 at the half, it seemed the game was over. But then the USA came back and tied it up. It definitely felt like the USA could get a third, and effectively did. However, the ref called a phantom foul in the box, disallowing the goal. To date, there has been no evidence for any altercation in the box, and he apparently wouldn't even tell the players on the field. From our view in the stadium, we just saw a goal, started celebrating, and then were confused when the goalie played it as if it were a free kick. I should point out that when people are cheering, the sound of the whistle cannot be heard (and no, it isn't because of vuvuzela noise), so we didn't know anything happened. We were later told it was offside, but found out that wasn't correct information either. So, until the next day when I looked at the video, we were still under the impression that either there was an offside call, or there was a weak foul in the box. There were rumors that it was a bad call, but there was no way to be sure. I think if we had good replays in the stadium, we would have been much more upset.
On a technical not about the first half, it was clear that two players were out of their "natural" position preferences. The midfielders were Torres and Bradley, and Torres was playing the more defensive, holding midfielder role. That's not what he was doing in qualifying, and it seemed very awkward (in my opinion leading to the first Slovenia goal). Additionally, Altidore was playing behind Findley. Altidore is not the guy to play 90 minutes as the playmaker/feeder role. Findley is there for speed, and playing him up above Altidore leaves him isolated, as it's easy to switch the field on the slower Altidore.
As I mentioned, we didn't know the degree of controversy over the no-goal, so getting over the disappointment of the game was pretty easy; expedited by another trip to Montecasino. We had amazing Thai food, had some drinks while we watched England look awful and tie Algeria, and unfortunately found the poker room about 5 minutes before we had to leave.
[gallery link="file" columns="2" orderby="ID"]
The support at the game was clearly in favor of the US. An entire half of the stadium was USA fans, while the other half was made up of locals and a respectable base of Slovenia fans. With the USA down by 2 at the half, it seemed the game was over. But then the USA came back and tied it up. It definitely felt like the USA could get a third, and effectively did. However, the ref called a phantom foul in the box, disallowing the goal. To date, there has been no evidence for any altercation in the box, and he apparently wouldn't even tell the players on the field. From our view in the stadium, we just saw a goal, started celebrating, and then were confused when the goalie played it as if it were a free kick. I should point out that when people are cheering, the sound of the whistle cannot be heard (and no, it isn't because of vuvuzela noise), so we didn't know anything happened. We were later told it was offside, but found out that wasn't correct information either. So, until the next day when I looked at the video, we were still under the impression that either there was an offside call, or there was a weak foul in the box. There were rumors that it was a bad call, but there was no way to be sure. I think if we had good replays in the stadium, we would have been much more upset.
On a technical not about the first half, it was clear that two players were out of their "natural" position preferences. The midfielders were Torres and Bradley, and Torres was playing the more defensive, holding midfielder role. That's not what he was doing in qualifying, and it seemed very awkward (in my opinion leading to the first Slovenia goal). Additionally, Altidore was playing behind Findley. Altidore is not the guy to play 90 minutes as the playmaker/feeder role. Findley is there for speed, and playing him up above Altidore leaves him isolated, as it's easy to switch the field on the slower Altidore.
As I mentioned, we didn't know the degree of controversy over the no-goal, so getting over the disappointment of the game was pretty easy; expedited by another trip to Montecasino. We had amazing Thai food, had some drinks while we watched England look awful and tie Algeria, and unfortunately found the poker room about 5 minutes before we had to leave.
[gallery link="file" columns="2" orderby="ID"]