Soccer is a simple game: Twenty-two men kick a ball around for 90 minutes, and the referee always wins. When Malian referee Koman Coulibaly erroneously pulled back a soaring 86th minute goal by American striker Maurice Edu in today’s U.S.-Slovenia match, the move drew instantaneous ire from the supposedly sleepy soccer backwaters of the United States. In a second, a nail-biting comeback from a 2-0 deficit to a 3-2 victory was reduced to the bland territory of a 2-2 tie. But the World Cup, like many things in life, has a curious habit of completely ignoring the laws of fairness. Sometimes a bumbled call, a lucky goal or a tiny blunder is all it takes to change the direction of a game -- and reroute the hopes of an entire nation.
Read On
