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Merkus Merk is a good ref, but he butchered it today.

He screwed the USA with the bogus penalty call, and he screwed Ghana with the ridiculous early yellow on Essien that disqualifies him for the Brazil match.

One valid criticism that a hater could make about soccer is that the number of suspensions are way too high because of the yellow card accumulation rule. It's just stupid to suspend great players for what is frankly an ordinary part of the game.

IMHO the only person that I've who truly deserved a suspension was the thug that elbowed McBride.

Merkus Merk is a good ref, but he butchered it today.

Let me put it this way: there is no good refs on that level of playing. Merk maybe somewhat better than others, but he butchered his portion of highly visible games in the Champions League as well. I don't think even Molina was perfect. Nobody can on that high speed, high intensity play. Plus, the video replay we see and they don't is getting better and better.

There was something assuring in the unchanging rules of the game that resists bringing in every new supposedly hot trend. BUT, but, but... There are complains about some aspects of the game that become universal practically everywhere. There is no league in the world that does not have referee crisis, offside crisis, crossing the goalmouth crisis.

Some changes must be done, otherwise the fans will lose sanity. We might say that in ten years technology may solve some of these problems, but why not to start now?

If hockey and basketball played on the much smaller field can have more than one field official, why soccer can't add another one?

There are game stopping moments anyway, let's not pretend that it flows 45 minutes non-stop. Some crucial moments can be reviewed by now existing 4th official even now.

After the game review of cards given or not given should be a routine. A terrible foul that did not receive a card during the play can be penalized now only in extraordinary situations. Why not change it? Same as reduce penalty if the card was not justified. (at least some consolation)

There is no way FIFA will introduce any changes without long experiments. We had some stupid ones in the US, why not do some beneficial to everybody ones. I am sure FIFA will be happy, and our restless fans as well.