From Anglo-Germanic roots myself, I "naturally" grew up with a strict play-by-the-rules ethic. I've been a soccer fan for more than 20 years, though, and I'm particularly fond of my wife's ancestral Italy. So I've definitely developed a more flexible, pragmatic sense of sporting ethics.

But that's exactly what upsets me so much about today's bad call against the USA. The Slovenians did absolutely NOTHING to deserve the call. There was no diving, no deception, no feigned blows to the face, but just a bunch of guys taking down Americans so blatantly that they were begging to be penalized themselves.

If you're going to cheat, do it right.

... Americans think that they on top of the world even in soccer. Well, here comes ugly truth....

Cognizance of sin does not equate to the acceptance of sin. I love soccer (futball) and I have played it since I was five. Bad calls are a fact of life, OK. I am hardly one to condone instant replay. But I am a child of the protestant ethics and I loath every player who fakes a fall and especially every ref who brings his politics onto the field with him. I've spent years in Europe and the Middle East and I know how much they hate the very idea of the US making it into the first rank of soccer powers. Well its coming. Maybe not this year, but it will happen and I am going to dance a jig when we finally cram the ball down the throats of every last national team that embraces dramatics over ball handling. Oh, and by the way...FIFA sucks A**.

This is an interesting article but I fail to see how the US should just shrug off this blatantly bad call, and frankly, I don't find the divers and actors the least bit entertaining. Yeah, everybody bends the rules a bit but all this fake rolling around the ground is downright womanish.

Alright it appears everyone can agree to bending of rules. I like to also look at the bad call for US goal today reflective as the recent world events. Whenever something goes wrong for another country we have "bend the rules" attitude.
Gaza flotilla raid incident. America supports Israel for independent investigation. amid world condemnation.

When something goes bad on US terms. We tend to speak up or act. Like the Congressional Hearing of Hayward. The world largest consumer calls foul. Then others recognize of this world or game of contradictions, and the biggest contradiction is America. So world put us in the position where we are complainers. Just to stereotype us as Egotistical with Jingoism that needs to be eroded. So that Brazil or Argentina will win. Then again we revert back us all bending rules or studying the spectrum of corruption.

This article is ridiculous. The point is something like "cheating is part of what makes soccer interesting, because the way teams go about cheating is a fun examination of national character." Uh, no, you aren't supposed to cheat, and the refs are supposed to enforce the rules, not openly favor one team over the other (I think that is pretty inaguable in the case of the Slovenia-USA match). The premise the article is that we should embrace the fact that one can't even play a game in international competition that isn't on some level corrupt. And people wonder why the US has gone sour on the United Nations.

having lived in Europe and now Asia, there probably is some truth to "oh no, now the Americans are getting really good at soccer".....

my guess on the "foul" foul call is that the ref saw numerous fouls (the replays clearly show them - in generic terms "2 players colliding with and grabbing others"), blew his whistle, and without really thinking he "just called it on the USA"......very similar to the blown call that ruined the perfect game in baseball....make a quick call...woops, wrong call....

would be refreshing if the guy came out and said "yep, I blew the call"....but that is "anti-FIFA"....just like blown off-sides calls, dives, not calling hand-balls, not adding another ref to the pitch, not using instant replay, etc etc....

"tradition = sacred cows"......which gets to all the corruption in the game.....but I won't go there....

Cal. Pete makes the point that renders this whole article moot. Slovenia didn't do any of the things you're praising here; they didn't demonstrate particular skill at anything.

Lots of the (moot) argument being made here might actually be worth considering, regardless of the USA-SVN context -- for instance, that there really are just too few on-field officials to get all the calls right -- but the conclusion that "Coulibaly's controversial call, and the ensuing uproar in the U.S. media, might do more to get Americans to pay attention to the World Cup than a by-the-book 3-2 victory over Slovenia ever would" frankly contradicts everything you've been saying about the American national character in the entire rest of the piece. The uproar will turn people off from soccer in the USA, not draw them into it.

A different theory of the non-call was floated a while ago that I'd like to put forth again here. In this view, Coulibaly whistled the free kick dead not to punish any purported American foul, but to correct what he considered his mistake in awarding the free kick in the first place. "Oops, I shouldn't have called a foul when Altidore fell down, and I can't take it back, so I'd better apply my ref powers again to restore the status quo." This theory also says a lot about American national character and how it differs from other soccer-playing nations. In the USA, violating the letter of the law in the name of restorative justice is really, really not cool; a judge must also live with his or her mistakes. In other countries -- even Canada, I think, given the tradition of make-up penalties in the National Hockey League, unique in American sports -- calculated intervention like that is looked on more forgivingly than here.

This argument is very fascinating piece but probably best we don't spread this idea too much. It can likely perpetuate to the future generations that we can cut corners.

The conclusion of the article: "What, really, is the difference between cheering the guile of a fantastic dribbling and admiring the crafty deception of eliciting the call of a non-existent foul? The goal in soccer, after all, is to win the game, and one way to do that is to influence the referees, who like government regulators, have a crucial and difficult job and are themselves flawed human beings."

The difference, "really," sir, is that in one case we are cheering the skills and prowess associated with a mastery of the games, and in the other case we would be cheering CHEATING. This is probably the world's most important distinction. Like, ever. Hint: We reward people for their success when they play by the rules, and we punish people who lie or cheat or steal to get ahead. It's kind of the most basic foundation of this country. If your belief that it is just super dee duper and peachy keen to cheat in the game of soccer was applied to the real world... well, you would have chaos, thievery, fraud, and crime-- on a massive scale, unpunished, and apparently praised online by certain political science professors. Thank God writing articles on this website seems to be the full extent of your worldly influence.

Get your head in the real world dude. Cheating sucks. And those who play by the rules and score the most goals DESERVE to win. This is no time to wax poetic about the intricate beauties of cheating or to day dream about how cool it is that corrupt refs can get paid off. Were you serious when you wrote this?

The United States won this game, fair and square, no matter what some blind ref said. When a ref blows a call, he should apologize immediately-- if he doesn't own up to it, then he deserves all of the jeering in the world. And I am glad to do my part, by piling the jeers on him and on those who defend such incompetence.

Let's go Yankees! USA USA USA!

Handled as a "newcomer" (I know they already play soccer before) I thought the u.s. team wouldn't get far as it's not the main interest in sport for the most american. but suprisingly they played nice games, fast and fair as possible. Hope they stay some games more.

René, Webdesign

The goal of football is to be peace and friendship should not be forgotten. sikis sex

Just to clarify: I was not justifying cheating. I merely suggested that every team in the World Cup has players that cheat; who are going to get away with it: Just take the hand ball goal of Luis 'Fabuloso' which the referee seemed to have seen; when talking to the Sambq Boys' striker; followed by the supposed smash in the face by Kaka tonight that was part of the reason for the referee giving Kaka, his second yellow, along with his trying to control the game; which led to his red card. Until FIFA decides that using technology to correct cheating is more important than maintaining the flow of the game in crucial situations; like red cards and goals; cheating is going to continue: I do not like or condone cheating: I want to enjoy the beautiful game; despite this ugly side and commend the referees for getting so many calls right.

When cheating becomes sport in its own right, the initial game is no longer being played. Watterson's "Calvinball" is an apt depiction of a game ruled by caprice verging on pure Id; it might certainly be a spectacle in itself, but it's the Transgression in and of itself that is the sport's raison d'être. That's not the point of Football/Soccer, a game with set rules that give it form and purpose. If the methods by which a sport is played and won are altered, the sport itself has been compromised, if not invalidated.

The international sports with the highest standards of fairness and transparency are not coincidentally the ones that have the least potential to be enrobed in scandal. This should be the goal of any organization, athletic or no. User BOON brings up a salient point, namely, that instant replay lowers the potential for falsehood or human whim. By that process of open petition and review, I will posit that a sport's very existence is prolonged and a fan's focus can once again be on the players and their athletic ability.

Soccer/football is just a game right? Well, after watching the past two games (USA vs Algeria, USA vs. Ghana), I noticed that it isn't. Not by a long shot. Since it is more then just a game for many people all over the world, rules matter and Integrity must be made the most important part of the game. The USA is right to keep play clean. (And plus who doesn't love it when the US gets a penalty kick)

Whatever the rest of the world thinks about the game, and how it should run, FIFA has rules for a reason and may I remind everybody that all Federations and countries agreed to those rules when they joined FIFA.

Overall interesting article. Agree with you on the facts that different countries play slightly different ways. Yet Rules are Rules and they are important.