Suárez's Handball on the Line

In the final minute of extra time in the 2010 World Cup quarter-final, with the score tied 1–1, Ghana's Dominic Adiyiah headed the ball toward an empty net. Uruguay's Luis Suárez, standing on his own goal line, stopped it with his hands. There was no ambiguity: it was a deliberate save, made with the explicit purpose of stopping a certain goal in the last kick-worth of the match. Suárez was sent off, exactly as the laws required, and Ghana was awarded a penalty that would have sent the first African World Cup host into a first-ever semi-final for the continent.

Asamoah Gyan struck the penalty against the crossbar. The match went to a shootout, which Uruguay won 4–2, advancing to the semi-final at Ghana's expense. Suárez celebrated wildly from the sideline, having already been dismissed. He has never expressed regret for the handball itself, arguing consistently that he committed a foul the laws already punished — a sending-off and a penalty — and that Ghana's elimination came down to a missed spot-kick, not his handball.

The incident sits at the center of the exact argument this site's founding essay makes about penalties and fouls: the punishment that existed at the time (red card plus penalty) was clearly not enough to outweigh the benefit of cheating in that specific moment, and Suárez's calculation — take the guaranteed punishment to prevent the certain goal — was, coldly, the correct one under the rules as written. It remains one of the most vivid real-world illustrations of an incentive problem in the laws of the game, discussed everywhere from pub arguments to committee rooms.