A referee raised one arm to signal a foul while a soccer player stood behind him. The camera angle merged the two figures in a way that made it look like the referee's raised hand was doing something the rulebook prohibits on page one. The player's face carried an expression of mild surprise. The referee's face carried the confidence of a man unaware of what the photo section of tomorrow's newspaper would contain.
Referees and players occupy the same patch of grass for 90 minutes. Most of the time, the overlaps are unremarkable. This overlap was remarkable. The signal was textbook. The composition was pure optical illusion. Neither person did anything wrong, and both of them ended up in the same widely shared image by Monday morning.
