In the moments following “the call” few have taken the time to see whether it was even correct -- did Erin McLeod hold the ball for more than six seconds – and if it was consistently enforced – was that the only example of an infraction occurring.
CSN went back and looked
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Since we cannot show Olympic highlights here we will need to describe the action. If you want to watch a full replay of the match you can do so here.
First, the incident:
76:36 - McLeod gets hands to ball.
76:37 – McLeod is fully in control
76:40 – McLeod stands up and takes a couple quick steps forward
76:45 – After walking for three strides, McLeod waves her defenders forward to indicate that she was going to kick up field. She dribbles the ball on the ground.
76:47 – McLeod kicks
76:48 – Referee blows the whistle to call the free kick.
So, a liberal interpretation has McLeod with the ball 12 seconds, a more conservative interpretation is 10 seconds. As Daniel Squizzato wrote this morning, by the letter of the law she is guilty of an infraction.
The spirit is another thing altogether. The only way we can measure that is to look at whether the referee consistently called the play the same way for both teams, throughout the game.
Picking a random point of the game (the 24th minute) I measured the next three times the goalkeeper had the ball in their hands.
As chance would have it, McLeod had one punt that also took 12 seconds. Much of her same actions were repeated. She gained possession, quickly looked to move it, then gathered and slowed the play down waiting for her team to get up field. One habit she may wish to break is that in both cases she walked with the ball – and not a purposeful walk, but rather a stroll that gave the indication that she wasn’t in much of a hurry.
In Solo’s case she did release the ball within six seconds on the first possession when she rolled it to a defender in four seconds. Of note is how quickly that play appears on first observation. It’s noticeably faster than the typical re-start, but yet is just two seconds from the technical limit.
Her second possession was put back in play after an estimated 10 seconds. You can see it at 28:59. I say estimated because the feed cut to a replay at 29:05, six seconds after Solo gathered the chip, and re-joined the play at 29:10 with the ball coming down from the punt. It was first touched at 29:12. If you assume a three second hang time you come to the 10 second estimate. Regardless, the ball was not in play at the six second mark
This is not meant as a “gotcha” moment, but rather an illustration of how normative it is for a keeper to take about 10 seconds to put the ball in play. There was nothing exceptional about Solo’s re-start and literally no one world would have been calling for a foul.
Just as no one in the world should have been calling for McLeod to be called for a foul.