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Monday, June 28, 2010

The Benefits of the Status Quo

Now that the American World Cup fever has broken, we can all go back to our regular lives, pending any sort of international commitment. However, it would be a tragedy if we did not learn any lessons from the premier showcase of the world's game.

In watching a handful of matches, it seemed fairly obvious that much like baseball, the call for instant replay in soccer is growing. USA's offsides call in the Slovenia game was just the beginning and yesterday someone else besides the red, white, and blue had a reason to bitch. Nevertheless, FIFA seems content with blowing off any and everyone that questions their referee's calls and I am doubtful any major changes will occur. They have been running the World Cup for 80 years without it, why change things now? Once again the information age proves to be a mixed blessing with new data just showing us problems we've always had, just never really noticed.

Anyway, watching commentators, coaches, players, fans, etc... all talk about instant replay and officiating in soccer got me thinking about our little sport. Just a few years ago I could not have been more adamant that Ultimate needed referees, but now that I am a few years older and wiser, I am beginning to see things differently. Much like the children's story "If you give a mouse a cookie" introducing changes to the officiating system just opens the door for more. First its instant replay for goals, then offsides, then handballs and pretty soon the game looks completely different. Likewise with Ultimate. I cannot believe I am writing this but, once you have a more direct role for calls I can imagine more and more things slipping through the cracks (rather than being caught) and pretty soon the game that we once thought would be improved by impartial judges is now a mockery because of them.

The underlying assumption regarding officials in ultimate is that they will reduce the number of suspect calls. However, what if this is erroneous? What if they make matters worse? Forget the objective standpoint of, "If someone is watching, the foul/travel/pick/etc... will be called" because, as the World Cup has shown, even trained professionals at the highest levels in the most popular sport, get it wrong. That being said, I am beginning to believe that the status quo has more merit than I have historically thought. Perhaps this self-officiating system is worth while, not because of SOTG, but because there are more eyes in better position than without. And whats even more comforting is that our sport does have a reasonably sound system of checks and balances. The contest system is quite effective and one of my favorite moments in Ultimate is when I can look my opponent in the eye and say, "That's a good contest."

In any event, after 4 months of LSAT prep, I have learned the power and risk of assumptions and the World Cup has shown us that refs botch things quite often. Bottom line, much like Germany/England and Argentina/Mexico, the better team won. Even with USA/Slovenia, whatever issues the official created did not end up affecting the competition in the end. Rarely is it the case that poor officiating actually changes the course of a game and in that rare instance, our current system would have prevailed. Ultimately, Rule #76: No excuses, play like a champion.

just my thoughts

match diesel

1 comments:

Andrew Pariser said...

My two cents: introduce instant replay in soccer in the same way it's used in ice hockey--only review a possible goal, where the "correct" call is pretty indisputable 95% of the time and in the rare 5% there isn't enough information to determine the outcome perfectly, defer to the call made on the field. I'm pretty confident FIFA won't add instant replay for offsides or other calls, and that's perfectly fine by me!

The subjective nature of calls is part of every officiated sport, and is something that every athlete learns to deal with. In baseball, you learn the dimensions of that night's strike zone after your first few at bats. In soccer, you learn how loosely the official calls fouls or yellow cards from the first few incidents on the field. Even in ultimate as it is now, you learn whether the other team is going to call your travels in the first few points. No amount of officiating or instant review will get rid of this subjectivity, and it's one of the things that makes sports so compelling to watch.

I think the appeal to officiating in ultimate has to do with efficiency of the game. Watching this year's College finals was worse than scratching my corneas with nails. Florida is a terrible team to watch play ultimate because they exploit the current system and slow the game to a crawl. If the referees were given more power, they could enforce a better game (where better means whatever you want--fewer fouls, faster play, fewer bullshit calls).

And yes, officials change the game. But much like soccer or basketball or any other sport, you still have a self-officiated game when you play pickup and the outcome doesn't matter as much. When the games are so important that players are wont to make bad calls to their own advantage, that's the exact reason ultimate needs officials IMHO.