Copa America Other Matches + Group A

[GasPed]

7 hours ago, InglewoodJack said:

Literally yes! The whole point is that soccer is a game and you are playing a fun activity in front of fans who want to be entertained. The second the final whistle blows, all should be forgotten except for like, racist/offensive comments or if a player tries to injure another. Pulisic was acting up, but the ref is an official, his standards of professionalism should be higher than the player’s. 

I very much agree.  The ref's job is to govern the game, be its arbiter/judge, oversee it and be impartial regardless of the emotions/abuse that might be thrown at him.  It's an extraordinarily difficult job; in fact it's impossible (refs are human, after all).  But that said, acting like a human (e.g. yelling back at players, cursing out coaches, or refusing to shake hands), makes the job even more difficult - it calls into question your impartiality, objectivity, and ultimately, credibility.  Players can and will be dicks.  But your job as ref is to be above all of that.

[The Ref]

14 minutes ago, GasPed said:

I very much agree.  The ref's job is to govern the game, be its arbiter/judge, oversee it and be impartial regardless of the emotions/abuse that might be thrown at him.  It's an extraordinarily difficult job; in fact it's impossible (refs are human, after all).  But that said, acting like a human (e.g. yelling back at players, cursing out coaches, or refusing to shake hands), makes the job even more difficult - it calls into question your impartiality, objectivity, and ultimately, credibility.  Players can and will be dicks.  But your job as ref is to be above all of that.

Not shaking hands at the end is poor attitude.  But sometimes and some players who are upset with the referee will spit on their hand before offering it to shake hands. 

[kacbru]

Rugby is interesting.  They do not tolerate dissent towards the referee.  When there is a questionable, or even down right wrong call, the captain will calmly approach the referee and ask for an explanation - no yelling, no histrionics.  The referee provides it and that is the end of it.  If a player steps out of line, they are punished immediately, so you never get close to the kind of disrespect you see towards referees that you see in other sports. 

[Unnamed Trialist]

One of the clearest indications many here have no idea what Copa America is or how we got to quarter finals: arguing about handshakes.

[Canuckia]

3 minutes ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

One of the clearest indications many here have no idea what Copa America is or how we got to quarter finals: arguing about handshakes.

That's not a very sportsman like comment.🤣

[Club Linesman]

29 minutes ago, kacbru said:

Rugby is interesting.  They do not tolerate dissent towards the referee.  When there is a questionable, or even down right wrong call, the captain will calmly approach the referee and ask for an explanation - no yelling, no histrionics.  The referee provides it and that is the end of it.  If a player steps out of line, they are punished immediately, so you never get close to the kind of disrespect you see towards referees that you see in other sports. 

I would love to see the rugby officiating mantra be adopted by soccer. No disrespect, mic connecting them with the booth that allows us to hear what is being communicated.  Would be a huge improvement over current bulkshit every time there is a call. 

[Unnamed Trialist]

14 minutes ago, Canuckia said:

That's not a very sportsman like comment.🤣

I'm an ex-pat, we're unredeemable.

[phil03]

Some have probably already come accross this one but I feel this is some pretty powerful evidence against the idea that the refs are bad equally for both sides:

[phil03]

Concacaf teams have sixth of the seventh smalest radio and the three teams who could have plausibly made a run are significantly under anyone else. Of course, its just an aspect of the referring but when the numbers are that clear and there is been plenty of complaints on other stuff... 

[Admiral Murray]

Uruguay is hilarious.  1 Yellow Card.  Nothing to see here move along.

[jonovision]

Kind of crazy that Canada had the most yellows overall, but no players suspended due to accumulation. Spread the wealth. 

[nolando]

3 hours ago, jonovision said:

Kind of crazy that Canada had the most yellows overall, but no players suspended due to accumulation. Spread the wealth. 

#brotherhood

[JAVIERF]

The Icelandic quitted 

Clashed with some of the front man and midfielders ,  

Not defenders 

[kacbru]

Is that a haiku? 

[TGAA_Star]

Argentina 🇦🇷 vs Ecuador 🇪🇨 tonight at 9pm ET Copa America quarter final 

[Macksam]

On 7/2/2024 at 12:06 AM, red card said:

USSF didn't finance it. As per usual, USSF is getting hosting fees which includes a cut of the ticket revenue (along with Concacaf). 

Conmebol wasn't happy USSF made the most money from Copa Centenario (over US$100m) as the main organizer. So, Conmebol outsourced the organization of the tourney to various parties including SUM and Concacaf.

They allowed each stadium and their partners (Ticketmaster, Seatgeek etc..) to run ticketing which is why it's been a bit different in each venue and why dynamic pricing is prevalent. And it's also why stadiums with artificial turf have used different methods to lay down the grass pitch. 

However you want to break it down, in the end, the United States is mostly financing this thing through both direct and indirect methods. 

[Macksam]

On 7/1/2024 at 10:56 PM, phil03 said:

If this is going to happen I want, at the very least four things:

I. Concacaf getting equal power to Conmebol in organization and ESPECIALLY anything refs related. The bias against Concacaf teams was sickening. They need our money for Copa America and when it come to Copa Libertadores we both have more money and the two best leagues, so it's noting more than what the cards we have should give us.

II. I want Conmebol to commit to help stamp out both the disrespect against CONCACAF teams in general and in particular the racist insults against black players from (small minorities of) fans of some Conmebol team.

III. For Copa everyone needs to qualify, simple as that. No more automatic qualification for Conmebol teams. Honestly, if we had, say Curacao, Haiti or Suriname instead of Bolivia and Paraguay the level of the tournament would be higher.

IV. No more rotation of hosts in South America, and instead a normal bidding process. This way we won't have to be subjected to Bolivia weaponizing altitude, for example.

If any of those won't happen then we should say thanks but no thanks to any deeper partnership with Conmebol.

• I. Sure, no argument there and money will eventually solve this issue
• II. The first part kind of aligns with point I, as the partnership and money grows, bias should go by the wayside. As for the second part, I have not noticed any incidents in the stands, where it counts, except for Mexicans, a CONCACAF side mind you, doing the "Puta" chant again during the end of the Ecuador match. As for online trolls, you can't police the internet of stupidity so it's best to just ignore that and move on with your life. Considering there's a plethora of black players already in CONMEBOL, I think the latter part of this point is a non-issue.
• III. I do believe every team should go through some qualification route the more both regions amalgamate with each other, perhaps this can be done by combining the Nations League into an Americas tournament with a top division of 16 teams, who would be the ones that qualify during the years the tournament is played. Also, this is really neither here or there, an argument can be made with Bolivia maybe but Paraguay are better than any of the sides you mentioned. Sure, they lost to Costa Rica when they had nothing to play for but after watching both sides play Brazil, despite the results, you can clearly see Paraguay has more quality.
• IV. I think the next few iterations will be in the US and when it is fully stabilized and on the level of the EUROs, it will go back to a rotational basis.

If I can add to this list, I think they need to properly establish the year this thing is played, it just looks more professional and people can anticipate it better like the World Cup, EUROs, Olympics, etc. considering right now it just catches most people by surprise. I think every four years works perfectly, and running it the same time as EURO 2024 was brilliant this time around, the afternoon games being a great lead in to the evening matches for our region, absolute marketing genius. 

Edited Thursday at 11:11 AM by Macksam

[Kusch to the Corner]

11 hours ago, phil03 said:

Some have probably already come accross this one but I feel this is some pretty powerful evidence against the idea that the refs are bad equally for both sides:

This is wild if accurate!

[dyslexic nam]

10 hours ago, phil03 said:

Some have probably already come accross this one but I feel this is some pretty powerful evidence against the idea that the refs are bad equally for both sides:

At the risk of stating the obvious - holy fuck that is damning.  CONCACAF has the top 5 and our region's 6 representatives are all in the top 7.   The Uruguay 26 to 1 caution is equally as telling.  When you watch the games, the level of aggression in many of the SA fouls is clear and obvious, and yet they are seemingly being given a pass. 

It would be hilarious if it wasn't so blatantly corrupt. 

But I will say that competing in these sorts of adverse circumstances is fantastic preparation for us to excel in CONCACAF.  Playing a 12-man Mexico or Honduras away becomes relatively easy if you learn to navigate these troubled waters.   Long live the idea of a western hemisphere Copa. 

[An Observer]

When I look at it, it shows no real discrepancy on yellow or red cards. What it does show is the conmebol sides foul more often than the Concacaf sides. It doesn’t mean they are worthy of yellows or anything. They probably are just better at knowing the limit

[Cheeta]

36 minutes ago, An Observer said:

When I look at it, it shows no real discrepancy on yellow or red cards. What it does show is the conmebol sides foul more often than the Concacaf sides. It doesn’t mean they are worthy of yellows or anything. They probably are just better at knowing the limit

I don't know.   The eyeball test says they're worthy of cautions.

What's his nuts (Flemming?), ref official with MLS was on TSN last week discussing the VAR decisions and as much as said that it's a CONMEBOL tourney and they're allowed to interpret any nuances into the laws of the game as suits their region.  A lot of it wouldn't fly in UEFA or CONCACAF but then it's not their tourney so deal with it.

[RS]

2 hours ago, dyslexic nam said:

At the risk of stating the obvious - holy fuck that is damning.  CONCACAF has the top 5 and our region's 6 representatives are all in the top 7.   The Uruguay 26 to 1 caution is equally as telling.

It's actually 36 to 1

[Unnamed Trialist]

49 minutes ago, An Observer said:

When I look at it, it shows no real discrepancy on yellow or red cards. What it does show is the conmebol sides foul more often than the Concacaf sides. It doesn’t mean they are worthy of yellows or anything. They probably are just better at knowing the limit

Excellent post. 

The most fouls were in Chile Peru I think, pushing 35… and a ref handling that can't pull out cards for everything. Teams have to manage fouling and refs have to manage cards.

Then, folks assume that a CONMEBOL ref will favour his own confederation, but these nations really dislike each other. There is no Latino solidarity, that is a construct of certain activists in the US. They are rivals in football and geopolitically. 

Then most importantly, I agree that we need to learn to make those chippy little fouls, just to break down the rhythm of rivals in key areas. We tend to play clean then escalate in critical moments. But we probably need to be throwing out impediments, making it awkward, then maybe you're not forced into a jam and have to card. 

I'd key on Yangel especially vs Venezuela and share the fouls around so he can't play make. A bit like us forcing Argentina to go longer by pressing Paredes. Another rather positive detail is in a 90 minute match you don't have to manage cards thinking about extra periods.

[jonovision]

People are commenting on the differences in officiating between CONCACAF and CONMEBOL, but the matches in the Copa presided over by CONCACAF refs have not been noticeably different. Is it so easy to adjust who one is as a referee?

[Unnamed Trialist]

Really keen to watch today's quarter finals to see what version of Ecuador we'll be facing in semis.