U.S. Ties Slovenia: Referee Koman Coulibaly screws U.S.
There is nothing worse than a referee deciding the outcome of a match, let alone a game on the world’s biggest stage. What just happened between the U.S. and Slovenia was a disgrace to the game, and the effort the U.S. team exerted in the second half.
The feeling of being down two goals, to have Landon Donovan single handedly put the team back in the game with a goal seconds into the 2nd half was exhilarating. Bradley’s tying goal was all the more uplifting. To come back from that deficit only to take the lead with minutes left, and then have that goal reversed is nothing short of a travesty for the game, the U.S. team and U.S. soccer as a whole. So what can be done about it? (goal is at :22 seconds)
Well for one, the Referee Koman Coulibaly should be investigated for corruption, because he has to be on the take. Either that or he hates the U.S. and should have never been refereeing this game in the first place. Eric Wynalda agrees:
Minutes after the game ended, some U.S. fan had already taken to vandalizing his Wikipedia page, which has sense been edited:
“Coulibaly is rumored to hate the United States of America with the burning passion of a white hot sun.”
In my opinion, Ref’s blowing calls is as old as the game itself, and it isn’t going to change. At the least, FIFA should consider video replay for goal scoring plays, similar to the rule instituted by Major League Baseball for home runs. It is a slippery slope to add video replay, but if it means the right team wins the game, I am all for it. What do you think?
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After looking at the video a number of times I have to agree with the referee and award an off-side. Please check your rule book and you will see that the referees decision is final. As a retired referee I will also add that the definition of a spectator is a person who can see from 100 to 150 metres what the referee can’t from 10. I am sorry US but a legal challenge would bring the game into disrepute and you can be charged and excluded from taking any further part.
A referee has to make a lot of decisions in an instant so please support them and not bag them as it is a thankless job.
Hi David,
Thanks for the response. The funny part is that the call wasn’t actually off-sides, he called a foul.
I agree that Referees have a difficult and thankless job, but this is the World Cup, not some U-15 game. Besides this call, he blew another big call that will cost Robbie Findley a game thanks to a 2nd yellow in 2 games for a handball in the box when the ball hit him in the head! There are always 3 sides to every issue. Team A’s side, Team B’s side and the Referees side, but only the Ref’s side matters! However, after playing the game and being a Ref too(12-16), a Ref gets an F grade when he makes a wrong call that decides the outcome as a game.
Can you clarify who was offside? I’ve seen the same video and no one is close to offside. and why would the ref and not the linesman make that call. Also explain why the ref allowed the bear hugs on 3 US players go un penalized. We all understand that the ref has a thankless difficult job but that’s part of the job requirement. You ref for the love of the game not for the praise of the fans or players. If you make a bad decision on the field at any level but especially under the scrutiny of the the world you have to be criticizied. All aspects of the game have evolved over the decades including the quality of the refs and it is because of the ability to follow, review and learn the game on our tvs and computers. With this in mind its a call that needs an explanation. Was it offsides was it a foul or was it a mistake? FIFA, and the ref himself needs to learn from a play like this.
Yes,i agree with u guys.Definitely no offside, as player only arrived after ball was crossed.allso looking at the other offences,like holding nd pulling.Should have been a penalty then! Im a South African nd a coach nd feel than the US were done in.I call it daylight robbery!! Yours in Sport,John.
While I appreciate getting emails about your soccer drill, I do not appreciate your attack on a World Cup referee. I would bet you do not know what he called, or why he called a foul and disallowed the goal against the US, and yet you are sending out an email to people claiming “…..Referee Koman Coulibaly absolutely screwing the United States”. < p align="left"> < p align="left">
I think that is outrageous and completely uncalled for! I do not know if you are a referee or not, but I have been refereeing for 36 years, as well as coaching for almost the same amount of time, and although I agree there are some bad officials and some bad officiating, officials should not be degraded and defamed on the internet the way you are doing it. There was a great deal of fouling going on in the box before the disallowed goal, and perhaps the ref saw something a US player did rather than the other fouls. However, whatever he saw, he has every right to call it and should called it, if he believed it was a foul. He made the call before the ball found the back of the net, was well positioned, and was very definitive about the goal not being allowed. If the US players hadn’t been doing anything wrong in the box, then he wouldn’t have had anything to call against them. Both teams were clearly pushing, shoving, and holding.
I hope you will be responsible enough to write a retraction when you write your next email, or I for one will certainly not be looking at any futher material you have to offer.
As an obvious representative of the game, and I presume a coach either now or at one time, and clearly a person that wants to teach coaches how to coach better and players how to play better, why on earth would you criticize an official so openly when you should be teaching players and coaches to accept officiating decisions as they are made, rightly or wrongly.
Or perhaps you are a proponent of Instant Replay? That would certainly be a fun part of the game wouldn’t it? Perhaps this official would be your hero if like the baseball official, Jim Joyce, he admits he made a mistake? Or perhaps you think that he should be punished like the Colombian defender, Andrés Escobar Saldarriaga, who made a mistake and scored an own goal in the 1994 World Cup? If this official truly made a mistake, and called something completely wrong, then why did he do it? Surely not for personal gain? I believe he called what he thought was correct, as most officials do at the time they make a call. Sometimes officials see things differently to you or I, or perhaps even differently from what actually happened, but that is the way they see it, and I believe officials simply call what they see, right or wrong. Are we ever going to find officials that don’t make mistakes, in the NBA, NFL, or in world wide events like the World Cup? Officials are not infallible, and they make mistakes no matter how experienced they are, and no matter what level they are officiating. Can an official ever call a perfect game? Perhaps only in the eyes of the winning team, and even then, that is debatable.
Well, he is about to be dismissed from officiating any future World Cup games, and I think that says enough about his officiating. Calls get missed all the time, and Ref’s are human, but this was either a con-job or gross incompetence.Neither one is acceptable on this stage, in my opinion.
As far as the headline goes, it was written to get people to open the email, come to my site and watch the video. If you finished reading the article and past the headlines, my whole point is what what can be done about it? Nothing really.
Some people are calling for an investigation, others are taking to vandalizing his wikipedia page. I brought up the idea that it might be time to consider some form of instant replay on goal scoring plays to rule out human error affecting the outcome, and encouraged people to leave their comments on my website within the article, for the entire world to see.
Since yesterday, my anger has calmed a bit, especially after the England and Algeria tie. Our team still controls it’s own destiny, not some incompetent Referee taking away what should have been a magical win. Maybe he is corrupt (not likely, but possible), maybe he hates America (within the realm of possibility), maybe it is just incompetence? Whatever the case, he injected himself into the final decision (and next game too, for Robbie Findley at least), and for that he deserves a bit of heat. The baseball ump and Andres Escobar are irrelevant to this situation, the only similarity is human error, I am not calling for him to be shot, and I could care less about an apology for his screw up, the damage has been done.
By the way, have you heard the argument that between calling the foul and the free kick, he decided he messed up, so he called the foul to avenge, once again, for his f-up? Perhaps incompetence mixed with a little anti-U.S. sentiment? Who knows.
Im still baffled.
What the hell was he looking at?
He must of already had something in his head, he was going to call the penalty regardless of what happened.