PARMA, Ohio — A Parma man who has shouted instructions at televised sporting events for four decades was credited Friday with the United States’ 3-2 loss to Türkiye at the World Cup, after a review of the match found that the officials, the players, and at one point the crowd in Inglewood, Calif., appeared to have heard him.
The United States, which had already secured first place in Group D with wins over Paraguay and Australia, lost Thursday night at Los Angeles Stadium on a goal by Kaan Ayhan in the eighth minute of stoppage time. The Americans led through Auston Trusty in the third minute, fell behind on goals by Arda Güler and Orkun Kökçü, and drew level through Sebastian Berhalter in the 49th minute. A goal by Mark McKenzie that would have given the U.S. the lead was ruled out for offside.
“Forty years I’ve been yelling at the TV. Forty years, nobody listens. Then the one night they listen, I’m wrong,” said Terry Wojcik, 58, who watched the match from a recliner in his living room, roughly 2,050 miles from the stadium. Wojcik acknowledged that he had shouted “OFFSIDE” at the moment of McKenzie’s goal. “I yell offside at everything,” he said. “I yell it at the mail. I didn’t mean that one. That was ours.”
The Reporter set out to verify Wojcik’s account and, with the assistance of his daughter, reconstructed all 58 instructions he shouted between kickoff and the final whistle using a recording from his doorbell camera, which faces the living room for reasons the family declined to explain. Most were addressed to the referee, whom Wojcik calls “Ref” for the first half of any match and “Buddy” thereafter. Of the 58, 41 were carried out on the field within four seconds. When Wojcik shouted “Sit DOWN” in the 36th minute, the entire stadium sat down. When he shouted “Somebody get in there,” somebody got in there. In the 90th minute, he shouted “Just let them play,” and according to the review, the officials let them play deep into stoppage time, during which Türkiye scored. His final instruction of the night, “Oh, come ON,” was carried out by every person in the stadium simultaneously.
Dr. Marjorie Teller, director of the Center for Measured Outcomes, said the Center has studied fans who shout at televisions since 2008 and had never previously recorded an instruction being followed. “Until Thursday, the compliance rate was 0.00 percent across 11.4 million observed shouts,” Teller said. “It is now 0.0004 percent, all of it from one recliner. We do not know whether the effect is caused by Mr. Wojcik, the recliner, or the television, which is a 2019 model. Further study is needed.” The Center has applied for a grant to move all three to a laboratory and has been told by Wojcik that the recliner does not leave the house.
Wojcik said that he does not hold himself responsible for the result, that the U.S. had already advanced, and that “we’ll learn from this,” a phrase the Reporter asked him to explain. He said it meant that he would be watching the knockout round from the same chair. Asked what he had learned, he said, “Not to say offside,” and then, after a pause, “unless it’s offside.”
His daughter, Kristen, 27, said the family had asked him to try watching the next match quietly. Wojcik said he had agreed to try. He said he would also be moving the recliner about 3 feet closer to the television, for accuracy.