The World Cup is one of the big stories in the news, especially as the quarter finals are almost here. Technology has been available and used in other sports such as tennis and football to provide instant replays. Instant replay technology provides referees the opportunity to review elements of plays including details about scoring and player behavior that may have passed to quickly to make a good call.Without instant replay, calls are made on what the officials see, but in fast paced games like soccer, the blink of an eye or a glance to another part of the field or a different player can be distractions making it impossible to make a good call. The penalty for human error, then, could be a red card or the disallowing a game determining score. Both situations have happened in this year's World Cup
competition.
Argentina's controversial goal over Mexico
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competition.Argentina's controversial goal over Mexico
http://assets.nydailynews.com/img/2010/06/28/alg_tevez_scores.jpg
To compare what bloggers are saying I went to two blogs, the first soccer blog is from Total Soccer Blog and News (TSBN) posted by Toby Davis, Yahoo! sports. Soccer blog 2 is from The Boston Globe's Corner Kicks (CK).
Controversial red card issued even though officials did not see the offense.
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41810000/jpg/_41810902_deco416.jpg
The character of the two blogs is very different. The CK blog is, posted by Boston.com staff member Matt Pepin, is "Alex Scott: A voter for instant replay." Ales Scot plays for the Boston Breakers, Women's Professional Soccer league and is following the World Cup through her blog postings. Her writing is very informal, but her knowledge and understanding of her topic is excellent. She includes two videos embedded in her article from Facebook that illustrate the need for instant replay technology. The content is of her text supports use of replay technology and gives good reasons why it would be beneficial to soccer. The purpose of the blog posting is to provide readers with tangible examples that can change the fairness of a very popular international sport as well as an event that has captured global attention. In this case, content is favored over connection.
The TSBN blog is much sorter. and includes no embedded video nor other images. Each senteance is a paragrah -- or, posibly, sentences are intentianlly separated to look like paragraphs. The writing is consistent with reader expectation associated with professional reporting with many links included. The purpose of this blog posting is very similar to the CK posting and also refers to the recent controversial goalline decision at the World Cup.
One blog is written more professionally, uses text exclusively and provides lots of links. The other is very informally written, provides two embedded videos of recent controversial calls during World Cup competition, and has very few links. Both seem credible because of the blog sponsor as well as the credentials of the bloggers. Both blogs favor content and context to inspire support for adopting replay technology in soccer.
Controversial red card issued even though officials did not see the offense.
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41810000/jpg/_41810902_deco416.jpg
The character of the two blogs is very different. The CK blog is, posted by Boston.com staff member Matt Pepin, is "Alex Scott: A voter for instant replay." Ales Scot plays for the Boston Breakers, Women's Professional Soccer league and is following the World Cup through her blog postings. Her writing is very informal, but her knowledge and understanding of her topic is excellent. She includes two videos embedded in her article from Facebook that illustrate the need for instant replay technology. The content is of her text supports use of replay technology and gives good reasons why it would be beneficial to soccer. The purpose of the blog posting is to provide readers with tangible examples that can change the fairness of a very popular international sport as well as an event that has captured global attention. In this case, content is favored over connection.
The TSBN blog is much sorter. and includes no embedded video nor other images. Each senteance is a paragrah -- or, posibly, sentences are intentianlly separated to look like paragraphs. The writing is consistent with reader expectation associated with professional reporting with many links included. The purpose of this blog posting is very similar to the CK posting and also refers to the recent controversial goalline decision at the World Cup.
One blog is written more professionally, uses text exclusively and provides lots of links. The other is very informally written, provides two embedded videos of recent controversial calls during World Cup competition, and has very few links. Both seem credible because of the blog sponsor as well as the credentials of the bloggers. Both blogs favor content and context to inspire support for adopting replay technology in soccer.
I'm big fan of World Cup! I like what you chose!
ReplyDeleteSay something which is not about blog but just about this news. It seems most of the sports games Americans like can be judged by high technology while not just by people, like basketbool and football. While for soccer, judges are the God at least at that moment. Maybe that's one of the reasons that Americans are not crazy for soccer?
hahaha, I like Quan's comment. It made me laugh. Americans do like soccer...or they should, but by all the people I have seen or heard talking about soccer in the past few weeks, I think there is definitely excitement with our team playing. We just want at least 4 people making ref calls, instant replays, and fair calls in general...most of which we don't get. It may be my American background which precludes this, but isn't it important to just have fairness in the game? however its structured? (sorry that was kind of off-topic)
ReplyDeleteOk - so I've followed the World Cup quite a bit, and I've thought alot about this topic, honestly. I was super excited about the US National Team's potential, and during the first round of play, we had two (not one but TWO) goals disallowed. I was just as angry as the other fans, BUT I'm not a proponent of instant replay technology, because it messes up the beauty of the game. Soccer is played in two 45-minute halves, and if you notice, the clock NEVER stops, not even for injuries. Therefore, the refs add on what they refer to as stoppage time (or injury time) at the end of the 45 minute half to make up for time lost. People complain about this a ton. IF they made plans to have instant replay, that would make stoppage time THAT MUCH LONGER. That's my first point.
ReplyDeleteI do think that something like goal line technology (to prevent something like what happened with England v Germany on Saturday) MIGHT be a possibility. However, I still think that there were YEARS of soccer played without any technology aiding the refs in making calls. What FIFA needs to do is be less PC. Bite the bullet, hire the best refs in the world, work to make sure they have no allegiance to the teams playing, and let the officiate. Sure there will be missed calls, but there will always be missed calls. True fans just suck it up (gripe about it sure, but... chalk it up to human error) and that's that.
I don't know if this comment made any sense at all.. I'm sorry if it doesn't! It's very stream of conciousness...
I agree with MCK. It could be because I'm American and were used to instant replay and in game review technology in all major sports. While I'm all for goal line technology, I'm not for instant replay. I'm more upset and FIFI's response to the issue, with their "there's no way were adding goal line tech" (that was their position until today), and their "our refs are trained and are not required to explain their decisions". Oh the game of football/soccer. Thank God World Cup is once every four years!
ReplyDeleteYeah the refs have been especially bad this year, and it is very frustrating for an american who also likes college and NFL football where replay is an integral part of the game.
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