OT: Abbey Wambach sucker punched!

Abbey Wambach sucker punched.

Abbey Wambach Interview

Let's hope FIBA takes action!

I doubt they will.

But hopefully Olympics and/or FIFA will.

FIBA.. FIFA...FITA sounds like a 60s song.

Damn fat fingers!!

Pita?

Dang. Now I'm hungry....

looked like the two #14s did not care for each other. wambach managed to get a pretty good shoe shot on the inside of the leg of colombia's #14 in their second encounter. wouldn't be surprised if there was not a lot of history between the two most of the game.

it was an accident

just like when Bluto broke the guitar in Animal House

feefa, feefa, bo-beefa, banana-famama fo-feefa, me, my, mo-meefa...FIFA!

Doubt if even your meds can help you out with that one, brer bear.

per Julie Foudy's tweet (12:30pm PT today)

"FIFA gave COL player Lady Andrade a 2 match ban for her "suckerpunch" on @AbbyWambach. Essentially, her Oly's is over. #deserved"

When I read the headline the first thing I thought was: Hope Solo's at it again!

Abby said she was getting taunted the whole match and dodged a few other punches, as well...amazing she kept her cool, but I guess she's been a target for a long time now...

Good. But I have to admit, the video I saw did not clearly show a punch, could have been an open palm to Abby's face. Clearly a foul, so what happens to the ogame officials who missed it?

Hard to get that far into the eye socket with an open-handed strike...even using the heal of the hand which is just as bad as a fist. Also, Abby called it a punch and said she dodged at least one more...

1. Sure looked like a punch on the videos I saw.

2. Nothing will happen to the officials, given that it was away from the ball. Had it happened near the ball, the expectation for one or more refs to see it would be a lot higher. It is possible that the AR in the other half might have seen it, but her view probably was blocked, given the position of the two players and how the punch was thrown. The nearer AR would have been lined up with the "last" defender, watching for offside, and not seen it - and the center referee likely had her eye on the player with the ball. The fourth official might had the best chance to see something but apparently was also focused on the ball or the lead attacker/defender.

Yes a lot of stuff can happen "off the ball". Even with 3-4 sets of eyes on the play. One reason they allow the governing bodies to go back and look at things the ref's have missed. (when brought to their attention). However usually if for instance the ref had seen it and had only given a yellow card(or just a foul), they could not go back and give any more punishment.

looking very carefully at the video it appears to me that wambach moves slightly into andrade's route to obstruct her just before contact, and it looks to me like abby also raises her right elbow . my impression, in general, of wambach is that she initiates a lot of contact. which is fine, but sometime opponents get frustrated with it. that said, the suspension is certainly warranted.

I don't know the FIFA rules when it comes to a post-game video review and punishment, so let me ask a hypothetical question.

Assume the ref had seen the contact, but with her view largely blocked, and stopped play for impeding, with the resulting IDFK. When questioned later by FIFA, she acknowledges she did not see the punch. Could FIFA still levy the harsher punishment, given that the CR called only a foul because she could not see the punch itself?

As I said, I don't know what FIFA's guidelines are, but I'd think they could escalate the punishment IF the CR hadn't seen the punch. Probably couldn't do anything if the CR did indeed see the punch but thought the proper call was merely a foul - or a yellow card.

Thoughts?

Everything that happens on this play before the sucker punch is merely normal soccer.

In the EPL, the answer would be no...if there is a penalty levied on the field then there can't be a taped review. I think this is what meyers was explaining above. If it's the same for the Olympics, then it's better that the referee saw nothing than for them to have seen a lesser infraction.

FWIW, I think it was a clear intentional face strike...I imagine Abby muscles these players in front of the goal all day long, so we really don't know the whole story, but I've never seen her throw elbows or anything that would get her carded...she knows better.