During the Argentina-Mexico match, the refs blew a call on one of Argentina’s goals; the man was offside, which should’ve invalidated the goal — but the officials missed it, and awarded the goal.

However, the cameras in the stadium DID see the action correctly, and the in-stadium replay made the ref’s error obvious to everyone there (in addition to everyone at home).

FIFA’s response? No more in-stadium replays.

Let’s be clear: instead of striving for actual truth and accuracy, their response to this is not that the ref should have better tools to determine correct calls at the highest level of the game; the response is to try to prevent the truth from being known immediately by those in the stadium.

Seriously, fuck them. How can an organization supposedly devoted to fair play care so little for truth?

A German octopus has been making startlingly accurate World Cup predictions.

Game, set, and match to John Isner, who managed to convert only his fifth break point of the set to win:

Final ace count: Mahut 103, Isner 112. There are more stats at the Wimbledon site, but I’ll also point out that Mahut actually won more points (502 to Isner’s 478). A “regular” match will usually play no more than 300 total points, but there were about twice that many in the final set of this match.

Isner’s last ace was a 135MPH rocket that helped him dig out of trouble when he was down Love – 30 in what turned out to be Mahut’s last opportunity to win.

Last night, a TennisChannel blogger posted something worth reading:

And then, at 59-59, the match was suspended for lack of light.

As much as delayed gratification is about my least favorite thing in life, I’m ultimately relieved. For a few hours anyway, there are no losers. And you can say there are no losers in this match, and you’d be 100% right, but tell that to the guy who doesn’t walk off with the W.

John, you were exhausted, each groundstroke accompanied not by a grunt but by a full-body heave, but you kept going.

Nicolas, 55. That’s the number of times you had to walk up to the line and serve to stay in this match. And 55 is the number of times you held. God bless Andy Roddick and his 16-14 fifth set last year, but you sir are a stud.

So while one of you will get the W tomorrow (presumably, this match may never end), this right here is how I’ll remember it. Suspended, and suspended in time. Two boxers going at it, giving the world something to talk about and be inspired by.

So thank you. For not only making tennis history, and getting people talking about tennis who otherwise wouldn’t be, and entertaining us all with your strength of will and strength of legs. For not just breaking records and making Pam Shriver misty and leaving Federer, Djokovic, Venus et al at a lack of words to describe your awesomeness. For not just creating this communal experience for everyone. But for showing me all over again why two random guys on Court 18 can create something truly beautiful.

Screw FIFA. This is beauty.

The longest match in tennis history has just suspended play for the second day due to darkness. No, this is not cricket. The Wikipedia article notes that the date of this tennis match is “22-24 June 2010.”

France’s Nicolas Mahut and American John Isner started their first round match yesterday, and played nearly three hours before calling it a day with two sets apiece. Today, as they walk off for the night, the match stands at ten hours, with the score:

As it stands now, Mahut has 94 aces, and Isner 98. Not only is it now the longest match in tennis history; its final set alone would qualify. And it’s not over.

I wonder if Isner will tweet something tonight?

Because of this game in 1982:

Although the teams were regarded as rivals (Austria beat West Germany 3–2 in a remarkable game in the previous 1978 World Cup), the game is widely seen as being fixed, with both sides having an unspoken agreement to play for a 1–0 German win. As a result, FIFA ruled that in the future both final group matches must start at the same time, so as to prevent such an event ever occurring again.

And

After 10 minutes of furious attack, West Germany succeeded in scoring through a goal by Horst Hrubesch. After the goal was scored, the teams appeared to kick the ball around aimlessly for the rest of the match. The team in possession of the ball passed between themselves in their own half until an opposition player came into the vicinity of the ball. The ball was then passed back to the goalkeeper. Isolated long balls were played into the opposition’s half, with little consequence. For the next 80 minutes there were virtually no serious attempts on goal. The only player who seemed to make any effort at livening the game up was Walter Schachner, though he had little success.

This performance was widely deplored by all observers. ARD commentator Eberhard Stanjek at one point refused to comment on the game any longer. Austrian commentator Robert Seeger bemoaned the spectacle and actually requested that the viewers should switch off their television sets.

Likewise, many spectators were not impressed and voiced their disgust with the players. Chants of “Fuera, fuera” (“Out, out”) were screamed by the appalled Spanish crowd, while angry Algerian supporters waved banknotes at the players. The match was criticized even by the German and Austrian fans who had hoped for a hot rematch of the 1978 World Cup match, in which Austria had beaten West Germany; one German fan burned the national flag in protest.

The Algerian football officials were furious and lodged an official protest. FIFA ruled that the result be allowed to stand, but they introduced a revised qualification system at subsequent World Cups in which the final two games in each group were played simultaneously.

Amusingly, some people are super annoyed by this. To me, people whining about it are just not paying attention to the rules. Sure, the rules of a soccer match are one thing, but the rules of a tournament — especially one as important as the World Cup — can produce other incentives for play not strictly speaking in line with the goals of a single match. West Germany and Austria didn’t have to overtly collude to get to this point; they just had to both realize that they could both advance with a given result, and behave accordingly. It’s absurd to insist they should have behaved any other way.

This isn’t the only example of soccer tourney weirdness, either: check out the 1994 Shell Caribbean Cup.

There was an unusual match between Barbados and Grenada.

Grenada went into the match with a superior goal difference, meaning that Barbados needed to win by two goals to progress to the finals. The trouble was caused by two things. First, unlike most group stages in football competitions, the organizers had deemed that all games must have a winner. All games drawn over 90 minutes would go to sudden death extra time. Secondly and most importantly, there was an unusual rule which stated that in the event of a game going to sudden death extra time the goal would count double, meaning that the winner would be awarded a two goal victory.

Barbados was leading 2-0 until the 83rd minute, when Grenada scored, making it 2-1. Approaching the dying moments, the Barbadians realized they had no chance of scoring past Grenada’s mass defense, so they deliberately scored an own goal to tie the game. This would send the game into extra time and give them another half hour to break down the defense. The Grenadians realized what was happening and attempted to score an own goal as well, which would put Barbados back in front by one goal and would eliminate Barbados from the competition.

However, the Barbados players started defending their opposition’s goal to prevent them from doing this, and during the game’s last five minutes, the fans were treated to the incredible sight of Grenada trying to score in either goal. Barbados also defended both ends of the pitch, and held off Grenada for the final five minutes, sending the game into extra time. In extra time, Barbados notched the game-winner, and, according to the rules, was awarded a 4-2 victory, which put them through to the next round.

Again, whining about the players’ actions is absurd. The tournament rules created the incentive, and footballers generally want to win. Q.E.D.

They see no problem with officiation at the World Cup. They don’t care about fair, and are actively opposed to measures that would help reduce human error at the highest levels of the game.