Of Some Consolation

Can there be a World Cup game played without controversy? 

It's amazing that a system designed to eliminate controversy has only made it worse. TigerBlog is referring to the VAR, which stands for "Video Assistant Referee."

What it should stand for is "Your guess is as good as theirs," which doesn't really go with "VAR" but still. 

A ball hits a wire on the camera above the field and play continues when it's supposed to be blown dead. Not reviewable. Goal, England. A missed call on the field ends up reversing a yellow card, the second on a Swiss player, and suddenly Argentina is a man up for the rest of the game. It was clear on the review that it shouldn't have been a yellow card on the Argentine player, but it was also a really uneven penalty against Switzerland — especially since the "simulation" in question wasn't one of the worst in the game, let alone tournament. 

With that, Argentina has continued to come up with miraculous endings in this knockout round, first against Cape Verde, then against Egypt and now against Switzerland Saturday night, when the world's No. 1 ranked team scored twice in the second extra period for a 3-1 win. 

Oh, and one more thing, something that TigerBlog has said before. Why can't the official time be kept on the scoreboard? If TB was a World Cup ref, he'd want it on the scoreboard. He could signal when the clock should be stopped, like in every other sport, and he wouldn't have to worry about any questions about why he blew the whistle early or let them play on or whatever. 

Get ride of stoppage time. A 90-minute match now is easily more than 100 minutes. A match that goes to extra time is closer to 140 minutes than the 120 it's supposed to be by the time it ends. 

Sadly, this was not in the jurisdiction of the NCAA Division I men's lacrosse rules committee.  

Anyway, the semifinals are now set with the top four teams in the FIFA rankings, as No. 1 Argentina plays No. 4 England Wednesday and No. 2 France plays No. 3 Spain tomorrow. TB is shocked that England in the semifinals for only the fourth time ever,  and he also thinks that the French, with Mbappe, will be the ones left standing come Sunday, after the final at the Meadowlands. 

The World Cup is one of the few tournaments in the world that still has a third-place game, one that will be played Saturday in Miami. Why does the World Cup still do this? TigerBlog has to think that there's no way that the losers of the semifinals want to go through the motions of Saturday's game. 

Maybe he's wrong, but common sense would say otherwise. This isn't the Olympics, where a bronze medal means a whole lot more than a fourth-place finish. 

There used to be third-place games in several tournaments, most notably the NCAA men's basketball tournament. In fact, there was a third-place game before the championship game every year from 1946 through the last one in 1981. 

This, of course, included the 1965 tournament, whose third-place game matched the two teams who lost in the semifinals: Princeton and Wichita State. Princeton, the East Region champion, had a rematch with Michigan of their classic Holiday Festival game from December in one national semifinal. This time, the Wolverines were in control pretty much throughout, winning 93-76.

This is how the Daily Princetonian story, written by John Alexander and John Kretzmann, saw it:

The key to the game lay in the officiating. Bradley drew his third foul late in the first half on an offensive call, and from that point on, Princeton was forced to play a much too cautious game. [Head coach Butch Van Breda Kolff merely corroborated the obvious discontent of the 13,200 fans on hand when he commented vindictively on the officiating: "Please don't ask me about that." During the contest he was more vociferous —"What in the world did we come out here for?" At the game's end, Princeton had out-fouled Michigan, 24-14. 

Perhaps video review would have made a difference? 

Wichita State, meanwhile, was defeated by UCLA 108-89 in the other semifinal. The third-place game saw Princeton set 11 different records, some of which still stand, in the 118-82 win. 

The 118 points are still the most Princeton has ever scored in a game. The 58 points that Bill Bradley scored in that game remain the most ever by a player in a Final Four game. 

This was Kratzmann after that game: 

By the three-quarter mark, it was evident that the Bengals were fighting only the record book— Wichita had long since surrendered, and the NCAA records were about to follow suit.  

And then, scrolling down a bit, TB found this quote from van Breda Kolff: 

"This makes up a little for last night (the loss to Michigan) and lets the kids go out feeling pretty good."  

Hmmm. Maybe TB is wrong about the consolation game. 

He's not wrong about the VAR and the scoreboard.