“This may just be once-every-four-years ignorance here, but is it asking too much to have more than one official on the field? Every time I start watching international soccer, I am amazed by just how consistently inconsistent the officiating is. Would it utterly kill the sport to have three guys out there instead of one lone nut? I did love Eric Wynalda’s line, though: “There are only two kinds of referees: bad ones and worse ones.”
This was written after Jorge Larrionda gave the US two red-cards in 4 minutes in a 1-1 draw with Italy in the 2006 World Cup.
Larrionda was assigned to the England-Germany match today, where he missed an England goal where the ball hit the crossbar and landed three feet deep in the goal.
FIFA never learns.