Of course there is a homefield advantage, and one expects certain things to go in favor of the home team. Watching Korea/Portugal and Korea/Italiy, I was still thinking that there was nothing worse going on, although Italy made me very suspicious. HOWEVER, the Korea/Spain game was a true disgrace. Yes, Spain should have put them away early, but this is the World cup, and all it takes is one goal to win. The first goal annulment could be charitably described as incompetent officiating, as there was just the normal, standard, bipartisan shoving going on. Spain was acting no worse than Korea, nor did it give them an advantage; thus, there should have been no call.

The phantom out of bounds was beyond the pale, however. If you can find a replay that has the linesman in it, take a close look at him. While he is close by, he waits until the ball is heading toward the center and Morientes is in the air to call the out of bounds. Plus, of course, the ball was nowhere near over the line. To me, this is either the most incompetent call in all of soccer history, or, more likely, evidence of bribery and favoritism. As far as I am concerned, all the referees from this game need to be banned from ever officiating again, and very, very thoroughly investigated. Sadly, given the current state of FIFA, this will not happen. Now that it is too late for Spain and Italy, of course, FIFA brings in the world's top refs, as if the world cup didn't deserve good refereeing until the semifinals.