Without Israel around, refs delegitimize Team USA

United States' Maurice Edu, bottom, and Clint Dempsey react after the referee disallowed a goal by Edu during the World Cup group C soccer match between Slovenia and the United States at Ellis Park Stadium in Johannesburg, South Africa, Friday, June 18, 2010. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)


For the record — and the game is still going on— Team USA has had their second disallowed goal disallowed of the World Cup. Early in the game, Team USA had the Algerian defence in dissaray, and several USA players in the box. The USA striker could have made a shot and saw his teammate in front of the open goal a few feet away. He passes laterally, and the stricker sticks in hard into the back of the net. Whistle.

It is De Va Jew all over again. The ref calls off the goal, ostensible for offsides this time. But every commentator and the replay clearly show that yet again, USA was robbed of a legitimate goal.

Maybe it is because there are more Jews on Team USA than ever before? At least three Jewish players make the USA team far and away the most Jewish team in the tournament, “Jonathan Bornstein and Benny Feilhaber, both 25, along with Jonathan Spector, 24, comprise what could be the largest Jewish contingent on a single team in the U.S. squad’s history.”

Maybe because the goal they scored against England was lame? We all saw that mistake made by the English goalie, and conspiracy buffs — and the world loves Jewish/American conspiracies— might even think it is a case of World Cup match fixing. Perhaps the English goalie made a deal for some White House stimulus money to let that one through.

Whatever the reason for the lack of love from the officials – Team USA, we love you, and hope things go your way!

UPDATE: And in the final minutes – Donovan scores and Team USA beats Algeria to advance to the next round!

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Rabbi Yonah

13 Comments

  • Well, this is more of a conspiracy theory than what British tabloids fabricated re: a German referee in today’s game and what his motivations might be and that the German team had already had the offioial ball before the tournament to get used to it in time. Neither is true even though the German team played a technically beautiful first match.

    The only real problem I’ve seen so far is that not all referees are up to the same quality of performance and they also don’t apply comparative levels of stringency. Colinas they aint. Things would be better if the FIFA finally permitted general video evidence as the matches are getting faster and faster.

  • sorry to burst your bubble, but jonathan spector is not jewish. his mom is luthern, and his dad irish catholic. he went to luthern grade school and a catholic high school.

    • Okay, conspiracy theories abound, but I doubt judges in this tournament actually looked up the religions of the players on the US side.

      It’s strange that this is the first coverage Jewlicious has given to the two or three Jewish players on the US roster. I wish it had been more congratulatory.

    • Are you sure? His grandfather is a very notable Jewish athlete — the first ever player for the Boston Celtics and definitely Jewish.

  • Middle, I was wondering whether Serbian player Kuzmanovic was of Jewish background as the name is pretty telling. Feilhaber is a typical German name. Online bios say the paternal side is Jewish, which is something only a select few of us recognise in any defining way. 😉

    I’m still trying to find out whether German coach Joachim Löw is a distant relative of the (in)famous Rabbi Löw of Prague; at the very least, the families appear to stem from the same area. It would be awesome if we could have a Golem playing on the German team tonight. 🙂

  • Wikipedia has listings of Jewish athletes, as do a couple of websites (just google it). You should be able to find out from those.

  • Perhaps I did not use enough humor – I am Joking. I dont think that there is a massive anti american conspiracy. I got the info about the Jewish players from articles online. Oops.

    • Haha, but this kind of thing is just tedious, and contributes to our own conspiratorial-mindedness, and just puts us on the same level as the world Jewish Conspiracy bozos. Is this all that this website is good for?

  • I tried, Middle, but the problem about 2.0 info is that it’s far from comprehensive. Kuzman + ov + ic suggests migration from Germany to Russia and then Yugoslavia. It’s not uncommon to find double-suffixes of lineage added to German Jewish last names (they’re a story worthy a post on its own) among descendants of German Jews, e.g. -ov + -ski.

    In the Löws’ case, I’ve been digging deeper sourcewise, but much is obscured in the lack of record not untypical of the past.

  • Is Joachim Löw Jewish or at least has Jewish background? I say that because of his last name and dark hair, but his features looks rather German than Jewish. Another one who looked Jewish form me was Rudi Völler, the former coach of Germany in Korea-Japan 2002 and also player of the German team during the 1980s and 1990s. Is Rudi Völler Jewish?

  • Musmon, Löw was brought up Catholic. It is not too unlikely though that there is some Jewish background as there used to be a sizable Jewish population in the area his family is from plus his lastname is / was more common among German Jews (a Germanised variant of either “Lev” or “Judah”, it can also spell “Loew” or “Loev”, after the second great vowelshift also “Loeb” in areas approximately south of Frankfurt) than among Germans (there used to be a profession in medieval times called “löw”). As for his features, natives of this area typically have got dark hair and dark eyes.

    As for Rudi Völler, he comes from Hanau, which is mostly Catholic and Protestant. A small Jewish congregation has only re-established itself there recently.
    All I could find was that Rudi Völler attended Sunday school there, which suggests he’s a Free Church Protestant (Catholic and Protestant religious education is available at all schools here; other religions depending on the makeup of the particular vicinity. Alternatively, there’s “ethics”. The diocesis Hanau is situated in is Fulda, which hosts the burial site of Bonifatius and has got a reputation for having been somewhat conservative as it bordered to the GDR and was a haven to Catholic refugees from there.).

    Rudi Völler has / had a blond mullet. I can assure you Middle sports one, too.