US Soccer captain Claudio Reyna or the referee in today’s USA-Ghana game? It’s a close call, but I’m going with Reyna courtesy of his spineless, cowardly, testicle-deficient performance after giving up the ball in a manner that would get one of my six year-olds benched.
The one rule, the ONLY rule that applies to the last man back is to GET RID OF THE BALL UNDER PRESSURE! Even when there isn’t pressure, kiddie defenders are taught to clear or pass the ball with a maximum of two touches. Reyna, being an all-too typical midfielde who believes that no ball should be too-quickly deprived of his presence, stupidly – idiotically – hung onto the ball despite being the last man back and gave it up in the worst possible circumstance.
To then go down and pretend you are hurt as the other team scores is lame, unsportsmanlike and remniscent of poultry ejectus. I’ve previously asserted that Reyna is overrrated and probably shouldn’t be starting, this just confirms it and would rightly serve to bring his international career to an ignominious end. Arena did the right thing in taking him out before the half was over, and, if he retains his job after the Cup, he’d better find another captain and another ball-controlling center midfielder.
This isn’t to say that the penalty given by the FIFA referee was excusable. A decent referee would have noticed that Ghana has been looking to go down all game long and done what most of the refs have been doing and waved it off. And it’s totally insane for FIFA to allow its referees to repeatedly give out cheap penalties and red cards against the US team on the one occasion when some Americans are actually watching; you don’t develop interest in a sport by turning off potential spectators the only time they tune in.