Nice to see that you admit your error. But I want to also take you up on the question of "intentionality". The question has to be answered OBJECTIVELY, not subjectively. The German player watched the ball move to his hand (away from his body, protecting the goal space that he couldn't legitimately block with his body or head) and ALLOWED the ball to strike his hand -- he made no attempt to move his hand, and note that the ball was not travelling quickly. OBJECTIVELY, that is "intentional", and I don't have to get into his mind as to whether he "meant" to do it.
In longshadow's defense, a great deal of refereeing in soccer consists of judgement calls. In this case, as per the FIFA article I referenced in #94, the question for the referee is basically "was the ball moving to the hand, or was the hand moving to the ball?" And then the subjective judgement of the ref really comes into play, because he has to judge whether or not the player gained some advantage by the handball. In this case, he clearly did, as the ball was prevented from entering the goal, but if that same play occurs away from the goal, then the referee is probably making the right call by letting play continue, assuming there is no advantage gained by the handball.
Really, for calls like that, context and advantage are everything when it comes to making the call. And those are inherently subjective judgements. That being said, the ref blew the call - clearly, by preventing the ball from entering the goal, the player gained an advantage, and a penalty kick should have been awarded. However, as it was clearly unintentional, no card should have been issued - intentionally preventing the ball from entering the goal with your hands is a red-card offense.
And finally, in defense of the referee, the replay clearly showed what happened, so I can only assume that both the ref and the linesman were blocked by other players and missed the call. That's not much of a defense - their job is to be in the right position to make those calls in the first place - but that's likely what happened....
Frings was in his defensive position on the near post, with his arms down along his body. You do not have to move your arm, as you would not have to move your arm guarding your groin or face in the blocking wall. The ball hit his arm as he was in a defensive position. No whistle.
In the discussion over in the Kicker.de forum someone made the point that Frings didn't move the arm, even reflexively. Either he is an extremely cool cucumber or he didn't see it.
Also, people have stated that the play was blown off before all that because Kahn was obstructed in the 5 meter area. That would make the question moot.
I think the consensus from the Germans on the game is that the US played very, very well and Germany kept their poise and scored the goal. The better team didn't necessarily win, but the German patience and tactics paid off for them.
Without a doubt, without Oli Kahn, the US wins.
The other issue I've seen here about Ahn, the Korean player who shot the golden goal against Italy, then lost his job, has been pretty well refuted IMHO. The owner of FC Perugia, the Italian side is apparently a "Margie Schott" type. Sports' reporters like to 'unload' on him and embellished some quotes from both sides to create an issue. Factually, Ahn made 1.5 million last year riding the bench. His contract runs out June 30 and he was going to be released anyway. It seems the club helped Ahn a great deal with his career, and Ahn understands the situation.
longjack
If the hand was there first, then by definition of causality, it can't be there with the intention of handling the ball, as the player didn't know the ball was going there before he put his hand in that position. Thus it is not "deliberate" handling of the ball.
Now, I will grant you that if the ball were kicked from mid-field, and you saw it coming and left your hand were it was going, that would be deliberate handling, but in today's game there was very little time for anyone to react, as it was deflected up into his hand from a short distance away.