For better or worse, refs' errors are part of the game

Diego Maradona's infamous "Hand of God" goal at the '86 World Cup has become the most celebrated blown call in soccer history. Bongarts/Getty Images

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A wise man once told me that fans and -- by extension -- the press help define a sport as much as the guys who actually play it. For example, if you were to swap figure-skating enthusiasts for ice hockey fans, there would probably be a lot fewer fights on the ice.

His words came to mind last weekend as I watched France upset heavily favored New Zealand in the quarterfinals of the Rugby World Cup. The press and most rugby aficionados (with the exception, obviously, of All-Blacks supporters) hailed it as a heroic and historic performance by Les Bleus. Which it no doubt was.

Except in the build-up to France's winning try, the French made not one, but two forward passes. And forward passes are illegal in rugby. Had the match officials spotted it, they would have whistled play dead. France would not have scored that try, which means that it would have seven fewer points.

It's not an exaggeration to say that, without that blown call, New Zealand would be in the semifinals right now.

What's striking here isn't the refereeing mistake. Those happen all the time and we've all heard that "refs are human," etc. It's the reaction in the press and by the players. With a few exceptions from New Zealand, there was little mention of the mistake amidst the celebration of the French victory.

Now take a step back. Imagine what would happen if Brazil (the soccer equivalent of New Zealand in the sense that the Seleção is regularly the best in the world) lost a World Cup quarterfinal to, say, Sweden or Belgium because of two blatantly offside goals. The outcry would likely be universal.

Indeed, we still talk about Diego Maradona's "Hand of God" goal 21 years later. Or consider some of the controversial officiating which ended up benefiting South Korea in 2002 at the expense of Spain and Italy.

And yet, reaction has been comparatively muted. One guy who did speak up in the rugby world was Jock Hobbs, head of the New Zealand Rugby Union. He said: "In our view, some of the decisions were very, very questionable. We would like that performance [by the match officials] to be reviewed."

Milquetoast stuff right? Just a guy expressing his view after a glaring error cost his team a place in the semifinals, correct?

Wrong. Apparently, in rugby circles these days, such statements merit a buttock-pummeling. According to press reports, Hobbs could face punishment from the game's governing body for his "outburst." Outburst? You be the judge.

Suffice to say that in soccer, we're a bit less sensitive. If match officials get it wrong, we chastise them. If a team gets lucky -- and France, however deserving it might have been, was lucky on that occasion -- we recognize that it was lucky.

We don't simply accept a result, like a bunch of lemmings. We ask why. We analyze. We wonder what might have been. And we place blame where necessary.

It's not elegant, it can be unpleasant and the critics (yours truly included) often get it wrong. But we don't pretend that everything's fine when a blown call changes the course of our sport's history.

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