Shallow thinking

Today in the World Cup we've had another terrible and game-changing referee call. In a knock-out game between Germany and England, with the scoreline reading 2-1 to Germany, the referee called back a perfectly legitimate goal for England which, if allowed, would tie the game at twos. The Germans then went on to win the game 4-1.

I'm not going to write about FIFA and its ridiculous policies when it comes to botched referee calls; first, everyone can see the obvious themselves and second, it just makes me too mad. Instead I'll write about something a lot of fans and sports journalists have said after this game. Look, Germany won 4-1, they say, so you can't really claim that that one goal for England would have made any difference.

To put it mildly, it is a very unintelligent thing to say. What on Earth makes you think that, with the game tied 2-2, the rest of it would've gone the same way as it did with the score being 2-1? This is not a controlled experiment, this is life. You can't just change one variable and expect all the rest of them to stay fixed.

The structure of soccer is such that it provides a strong disincentive to playing an offensive game. If the other team commits most of its players to defense, scoring against them is very hard. Furthermore, the very act of trying to score against them is extremely risky: you have to commit seven or eight players to play on the other team's half. This means you're exposed at the back, which creates a constant danger that when the defending team manages to steal the ball from you they will get to have a quick breakaway with lots of space to play because your defenders are trying to attack. Such counter-attacking "sucker punch" goals happen all the time in soccer, and that is why teams always try to avoid committing too many players up front. They only do that when they absolutely have to--that is, when they fall behind in a must-win game. So if the English were given that goal they clearly deserved, the game would have been tied, and England could play a careful, defensive game. But because of the referee call, they had to chase, commit players to offense, which allowed Germany to score two easy counter-attacking goals. I'm not saying Germany would have lost if that goal was allowed. I don't know that. But I do know that it would have been a very different game.

Added: And the referees aren't quite done yet. Another unfair, game-changing call occurred in the very next match, Argentina-Mexico. Argentina scored their first goal from an obvious offside position. An early lead allowed Argentina to adopt the comfortable "defend and counter-attack" strategy.