Q.  Two games in a row?  No. Way.

A.  For those just joining us, the U.S.A. nearly got ref-evicted from the World Cup on Wednesday when they had another game-deciding goal disallowed on a bogus call.

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Q.  Did this one have "plausible deniability"?

A.  This one wasn't (necessarily) cheating; it was just profound bias leading to a blunder by the assistant referee.

When the ball came across to Dempsey, the out-of-position referee could very feasibly have seen the play wrong.  In fact, not many people protested (loudly) until they saw the replays that definitively proved that Dempsey was onside. 

Fans on live blogs, the announcers, etc. assumed that the assistant ref knew what he was doing.  Terrible assumption.

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Q.  Why charge bias, then?

A.  The single most important point -- of many! -- was made by Ian Darke, the British announcer, and he made the point instantly on seeing the call.

On offside calls, the line judge / assistant ref / East German judge / whatever is supposed to give all benefit of the doubt to the attacker.  He is not supposed to call offside unless he has a clear view and a confident call.  He's not supposed to "guess" an offside call.

Soccer offside calls aren't like horse race finishes, where you just compare noses.  In soccer, you're comparing feet against shoulder, waist against head, CG against CG ... it can be verrrrrrrrry tough to tell which player is closest to the goal, attacker or defender.  How do you define "closest"?  A hand is sticking out there...

When the two players are roughly even, it is not offside.

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Q.  Were the two players "roughly even"? 

A.  No.  Replays showed definitively that the Algerian defender was actually closer to the goal, both with his back foot and also with the bulk of his torso.

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Q.  Comp it to a baseball call.

A.  The U.S - Slovenia call was as if you had

• Game 6 of the World Series
• Mariners up 5-3 in the bottom of the 9th
• Albert Pujols hit a 2-2 pitch two or three sections foul
• The ump called a home run (this has happened in MLB, albeit on balls 10-20 feet foul)
• The ump, rather than getting help, walked off the field with a smirk on his face, never to answer questions again

But the U.S. - Algeria call was like this:

• Game 7 of the World Series
• Mariners up 5-3 in the bottom of the 9th
• 3-2 count, two on, two out
• Rob Johnson plants his mitt on the outside third of the plate
• Felix burns a 94 fastball in and Johnson doesn't move his glove, strike three
  
• The umpire calls it a ball and sends the runner to 1st

There, a baseball fan isn't going to charge cheating, as such.  But a savvy baseball fan knows perfectly well that with two strikes, if the pitcher hits the mitt (in the zone no less), the batter's got to swing.

For an ump to let the pitcher hit the mitt, over the strike zone, and still call a ball, would tell you that the ump is certainly seeing the play from the batter's point of view.

In the U.S.A. - Algeria game, the linesman broke every principle of officiating to wave off a U.S.A. goal.  It probably wasn't outright cheating, but it was definitely a case of the ump seeing the game from the other team's point of view.

Just like when Felix gets 16 strike calls botched and James Shields gets only 1.  The ump might not be bent, but he is certainly sympathetic to the Rays (for whatever reason).

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Part 2