From: "Barbara Hamilton" <bhamilton at banet.net> Date: Sun, 18 Jul 1999 10:14:16 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0
Quick question:
Did Akers get punched in the face?
Barbara
----- Original Message ----- From: Jason Zanon <jzanon at ncadp.org> To: <lbo-talk at lists1.panix.com> Sent: Friday, July 16, 1999 11:25 AM Subject: Re: Women soccer goalie cheats
> It's not as if I've reviewed the tapes of all 10 shots, so for all I
> know the Chinese goalie toed the line, as it were, of the Laws (as FIFA
> insists on calling its regs). But -- Scurry is right, everyone does do
> it. The rule about staying on the line until the ball is struck is a
> dead letter. I would have loved to see the jingoistic party spoiled as
> much as the next person, but cut her a little slack.
>
> Incidentally, I haven't seen the pregame jet fighter flyover mentioned
> on this list. Sure, that's standard fare for public events and
> especially big-ticket sports, and since they did it at the Columbine
> memorial, it's obviously done without any attention to the context
> whatsoever ... but in light of recent events, it sure seemed a tad
> incendiary. I thought Bubba took better care of his people.
>
> ----
>
> But all that aside, the big story of the final shot, and the game, is
> that
> Scurry cheated. Or, since this is a team sport, we cheated. The
> Chinese
> have been playing the tapes over and over on TV claiming that Scurry
> moved
> off her line, and in today's LA Times there is a still photograph that
> makes it incontestable: it shows her over a yard off her line -- i.e., 3
>
> or four feet *toward the ball* -- when the Chinese shooter was still a
> yard from the ball. It was a blatant violation of the rules.
> Furthermore, Scurry admits it. She said "Everybody does it. It's only a
>
> violation when you get caught." And she said she jumped as far forward
> as
> she could on the early ones to see how much the ref would give her.
> Perhaps she suspected that in this context the ref would give her a lot?
>
> The bottom line, however, was that it wasn't the bending of a rule, it
> was
> the breaking of a rule. It was probably more a subtle interaction of
> cynicism and intimitation than an actual plot, but in the end the game
> was
> fixed in our favor.
>