Shannon Boxx is ejected in the 46th minute of play.
One of the realities of soccer is that attacking weakens your defense. Sending players forward necessarily means these players will not be positioned to defend. If you lose possession during an attack, you are vulnerable to counterattack.
The useful paradox that results from this is that a team that is down a goal must attack. Their attack will increase the likelihood that they will concede more goals. Against an opponent skilled at counterattacking, this can lead to a truly vicious circle.
Down two goals, a team must attack even more - and defend even less.
Down three goals, a team must take nearly insane risks and pray they don't lose possession.
If the trailing team has a player ejected - this cycle only accelerates.
It is a fact of soccer. And it can lead to a scoreline that looks an awful lot like this:
Scoreline - September 27, 2007
USA: 0
Brazil: 4
Osborne 20'; Marta 27', 79'; Cristiane 56'
I am not an apologist for this USA team - but the headlines that will flow out of this result will trumpet the rout of the US by a superior Brazilian team are simply wrong.
Brazil is an excellent team and they surely were at least the equals of the US squad - but the fact is any competition between these two sides was gutted by the inexcusable ejection of Shannon Boxx in the first half.
Up until that point the US had been the victims of an own goal by Osborne and a first class goal from Marta - that alone would have forced the US to take some awful risks. But we would have found out if they could have handled it were it not for Petignat, the Swiss referee.
Down two goals and down a player - you have virtually no chance. Against a counterattacking phenomenon like Brazil, you have no chance at all. Goals three and four were fine examples of what talented players can do when their opponent is throwing players forward and cannot mark all the attackers.
With Boxx still in the game, they may well have lost anyway - but we'd have seen what both teams were made of. Instead, we get a farce of a game thanks to a ref passing out yellows without restraint.
Boxx's first yellow was questionable - but these things happen in soccer. A quality ref will remember the players that have early yellows and issue a second one only for egregious violations. A quality player with a yellow will avoid unnecessary risks. In this way, an early missed call can be corrected. That's soccer.
But Boxx's second yellow was unforgivable. Boxx was running for the ball and didn't even see Cristiane until after Cristiane ran into her from behind. Up until she saw the ref, I think Boxx was expecting the foul to go the other way.
To red card a player on a play like that, when the player's team is down two goals is flat out stupid. The game's four early yellows might have been Petignat's attempt at putting the players on notice, but any ref knows that this is a tactic that is loaded with game altering consequences:
Consistent carding for minor violations means you will be expected to card on obvious hard fouls (which happened). Players will begin flopping like fish, hoping to earn their opponent extra cards (which happened). And the game will stop being about playing soccer and start being about playing the ref (which happened).
Coach Ryan will deservedly get blame for his stupefying decision to replace Hope Solo this deep into a tournament. This is the decision of a panicked mind. The pressure's on, and he couldn't resist the opportunity to do something. Scurry is a great keeper, but Solo's played with her back four for the entire tournament. They've had ups and downs, but they know each other. Why screw that up?
Ryan should also be vilified for his substitutions. His team is down two goals and playing shorthanded. It's crunch time, the US needs to score - fast.
What does he do? He brings in a defender. Twice. When all signs point to going down, we might as well go down swinging - but Ryan wants to turtle in.
The capstone is that we get to play the Red Menace in the third place match. Freed from the burden of winning the tournament, perhaps coach Ryan will make better decisions - but then, that'd be expecting competence from a man who has given us little reason to do so.
Brazil v. Germany should be a helluva matchup. There are deserving players on both sides.
I'd vent more, but I'm late for work.
Dammit.
4 comments:
Haven't there been previous "issues" with this particular ref? Believe me, I'm not an apologist either. I couldn't understand why Ryan would pull a goalkeeper switch at this point in the tournament. I heard on ESPN Radio update that Solo thought that she would've made those saves and that "it's not 2004 anymore."
What an A$$ whuppin.
There were, although the US was the benefactor of those issues.
Petignat was the referee when the USA beat China in 1999 on a PK save from Scurry where she clearly moved off her line too early.
FIFA's website details the importance of the Boxx ejection, without addressing how unjust it was:
"[the US's] task became near-impossible as the first half entered stoppage time, when a coming-together between Boxx and Cristiane resulted in a second yellow card for the combative USA midfielder."
Nice that they would see fit to get a rip on Boxx as 'combative' as if she was somehow deserving of a second yellow.
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Solo has a right to gripe, but she shouldn't be talking smack about Scurry. The OG and the two late goals were unstoppable. Scurry might have stopped Marta's first effort, but there's no reason for Solo to think she'd have done better.
Now Ryan's got the problem of do I start Scurry or Solo in the third place match? If Solo's on a tear, she might not have the mindset, but Scurry just got shelled.
Stupid, stupid, coach.
What a heartbreaker! Soccer truly is the cruelest sport.
It's official: SI is quoting Solo as saying:
"It was the wrong decision, and I think anybody that knows anything about the game knows that... There's no doubt in my mind I would have made those saves. And the fact of the matter is it's not 2004 anymore. ... It's 2007, and I think you have to live in the present. And you can't live by big names. You can't live in the past. It doesn't matter what somebody did in an Olympic gold medal game in the Olympics three years ago. Now is what matters, and that's what I think."
And right there is the worst thing you can say about Ryan's call. Solo is (understandably) pissed. Saying she would have saved shots that Scurry let is likely born of frustration - but that kind of comment can create rifts on the team.
They've got a chance to salvage the national honor by thrashing Norge, but Solo's comments won't help the team's focus.
Given the trial of the past four games, Solo was likely to perform as well as Scurry. Hell, absent the distraction of the lineup change, the back four might have played better.
Picture the question mark over the starting goalkeeper spot now: Put in Solo (who's publicly implied that a teammate under-performed) - or Scurry (who just got spanked)?
Our attack was not doing well this tournament, but our defense was solid. Now Ryan has that in a shambles.
Nice work, coach.
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