Bob's Links and Rants

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Thursday, June 21, 2007

Soccer Weirdness

You don't see this every day in sports: The sellout crowd, most of whom didn't come to see the game, boos the referee, who happens to be their countryman, for making a bad call in favor of the home team.

That's what happened in Chicago this evening. The US was playing Canada in the first semi-final of the Gold Cup international competition. In the last minute of the game, Canada apparently scored a goal to tie the game at 2-2, but the referee called offsides and disallowed the goal. The referee was from Mexico, as was most of the crowd--the second game of the evening being Mexico against Guadalupe. As frequently happens in the US when either the Mexican national team or a Mexican club team plays here, most of the audience is Mexican. Although officially a sellout, Soldiers' Field was practically empty in the first half, but was pretty full by the end of the first game, when the disputed call was made. While probably few of the Mexicans care much one way or the other about the Canadian team, they would have loved to see the US lose. But the Mexican referee screwed it up for them.

Yeah, I know. Least important thing that happened all day.