Canada's players have complained that the refereeing in their game against the U.S. Women's National Team cost them the win. If anything, it helped them.
The women's soccer semifinal match between the United States and Canada ruled. Between the seven goals scored in the most dramatically back-and-forth manner possible and the immense likability of the victorious American team, you couldn't have asked for a better game. Alex Morgan's 123rd-minute goal might be the Olympics' most exciting moment yet.
Of course, there were complications. Each team might have gotten away with something they shouldn't have. The Canadians think the calls against their team were more wrong and more consequential, but as in the War of 1812, they are in the wrong. ("Those who do not remember the War of 1812 are doomed to repeat it," as the saying goes.)
CANADA'S ARGUMENT: Neither Erin McLeod's delay-of-game penalty nor the subsequent handball were the right calls.
Image by Hussein Malla / AP
(This is the handball. Abby Wambach converted the penalty kick.)
Canada led 3-2 at the time McLeod was called for holding on to the ball longer than six seconds, which came right around the 75th minute. The delay-of-game call on McLeod is one that you basically never see at the upper levels of soccer — I don't think I've ever seen it in an international or professional game &mdash. As for the handball, the argument against it is that Canadian defender Marie-Eve Nault was already planted in the ball's path, making the contact either incidental or defensive.
The combination of both of these decisions within minutes of each other had a multiplying effect. Newspapers in Canada cried foul (just kidding — there's only one newspaper in Canada, and it's called the Tim Horton's Gazette) saying the team was robbed; meanwhile, the players suggested the game was rigged in favor of the Americans.