ASOC, I don't disagree with; I thought Mullan should have seen an even longer ban for his act, but as he didn't have a track record of a thug, they set the ban at 10 games. But I'm not sure how you can assert that Marquez' actions were not purposeful. That would mean we could read his mind for intent. We can't. I just think it ODD that his ban is as long as another's players for using a homophobic slur to a ball boy in the heat of the moment that would normally have gone by the wayside if a mike had not picked it up. But, again, I agree with your post whole-heartedly, I'm just questioning where they come up with the criteria for the length of suspensions.
Is the DC a two-way street? Can they "undo" a red card into a yellow or no call? Or waive the one game suspension for a red card?
They should reverse decisions of reds and yellows but they don't and probably won't in the future. It makes no sense though because if they rule against a certain action,play or foul,then they should also rule in favor otherwise why even have a Disciplinary Committee?
the notion that the dc's punishments are going to modify players' behavior imo is unreasonably far-fetched. there is a reason why we see some messy challenges in mls games: at this point the skill level is what it is. players bang into one another because we're not at the point of seeing crisper play. if that's the material you're working with, it's naive to expect the dc's decisions to change to map of mls soccer. to the extent that players can be taught, i.e. are coachable, the committe's influence still would not be what some are expecting. the cd does not train the players. at best, you'd have an effect at one remove, where coaches are prompted to train their players with more emphasis on clean tackling etc.. but even here you run into problems. the dc doesn't train coaches any more than it trains players. so we're just as likely to find that coaches stick to their own philosophy and take an adversarial position to the cd's decisions. after all, criticizing the dc's decisions is pretty much like arguing with the referee. and the level of coaching in the league, just like the players, being what it is, the messy soccer isn't likely to be cleaned up by the coaches either. these things take time. imo the play will clean itself up as better soccer develops in the course of the league's organic growth. hot house efforts like tasking the cd with changing the face of the league, just aren't likely to have much effect, while opening lots more spaces for controversy.
Unless the DC has new abilities that they didn't have last year, they can't rescind red cards. There were a few questionable red cards last year that surely looked like they could have been rescinded, but they didn't. And for some reason, I think they've said at some point that they can't.
I read something a while back during or after a WC Finals that FIFA didn't want to undermine the referees decision. Its a contradiction though because if they are reviewing the plays afterwards and handing out suspensions or whatever, then they are already making the ref look bad. I mean they are proving that he didn't do his job or call what he should have in the first place so IMHO, they are already going against the refs judgement.
Just reds. Each team can appeal at least 2 red cards. If they lose the appeal, they lose the challenge, but if the win, they get to keep it. http://www.sbnation.com/soccer/2012/3/1/2835928/mls-clubs-appeal-red-cards-2012
No, I don't realize that. I do draw that line. All his actions count, and the last one is the most important. OK, fair enough, but I don't see that as an achievable goal. (So we each have our own kind of skepticism.) We don't actually have a general sense of fairness, we have a set of highly individualized senses of fairness. And our senses aren't logical or consistent (definitely not with each other, but often not with ourselves across incidents), so that we can have a sense that's completely different. And the moral question that arises from that way of doing things is--suppose roughly the same event happens two different times to two different guys, but for whatever reason we're more outraged about it the second time. Does that make the event any different, or would it make varying the punishment fair? That logic is going to strike us as odious, but if it's really all about us and not the participants, why? It might not be possible to dissuade behavior, but even if not, it would still be a more convenient fiction than to assume the primary purpose is to assuage our own feelings of injustice, due to the consequences of each of those two assumptions.
i think we're two ships passing in the night, because you can't imagine i said that some part of what marquez did, didn't count... but marquez post-game in the playoffs and marquez on a corner kick in the sj game aren't the same type of incident, except in the more general sense that there's an 'idiot' factor in both. so imo 'dissuasion' doesn't carry from one to the other like you suggested. if you don't want to accept that 'post-game' is a relevant tag in describing a player's actions for disciplinary purposes, imo you're committing a slight case of ignoring categories. heck, even a punch to the gut away from the ball, in game, is different from what marquez did here. tell me he may have thought he could get away with more by disguising it as a soccer play, and i'll agree. use that as aggravating his case, and i'm with you. just don't say that the 3games for the post-game actions should have taught him not to do what he did now. it's not a big thing to nitpick over, except i'm interested in the larger point of how we might expect the dc to affect player behavior, and imo a lot of people are overplaying that hand. you sound like margaret thatcher. 'there is no such thing as society. there are individual men and women, and there are families.'
The commonality is that the player involved is not playing soccer at the time, which is bigger than the difference of whether the clock is running. And this is almost definitionally true, as the reason the clock not running would matter is that the players are no longer playing soccer at the time. I'll take observation from wherever it comes. What I'm saying is that construing the purpose of punishment to assuage our sense of injustice throws us down a bigger rabbit hole than construing it as dissuasion of behavior, even if the two premises were equally true or false.
but i think you're stretching 'not playing soccer at the time' in this latter case, or at least giving it a conspicuously different sense, which could lead to a slippery slope where any foul (hand ball) might become 'not playing soccer.' simpler to say that marquez did this latest crap while playing, and the playoff crap after the game was over, fwiw. btw, this kick isn't even the same as if he had walked up to a guy and just kicked him. this was a kicking out as he tumbled. even that might be relevant in the assessment. and yes, there are lots of rabbit holes out there.
Found this interesting compared to MLS suspension for repeat offender Marquez. http://www.usatoday.com/sports/hockey/nhl/story/2012-04-21/raffi-torres-suspension/54455286/1 Also nothing called in game....
hmm, i guess it was a total accident both times then? its interesting that you are able to make a definitive statement on a player's intent like that. didn't realize just watching a game gave people that power.
I'm interested in what you all think of Olave's red card and how it happened. If you have not seen it you need to. It is minute 69 of the game. I personally think the DC needs to act based on what the video replays show.
Really? I think that's a bit extreme. I was at the match and sat almost parallel to the play. From my vantage point, which was identical to the AR's, it absolutely looked like a by-the-book, last man red card. I can only imagine what the play must have looked like from behind at full speed (the referee's position). If the DC overturns this red card, they're setting a really dangerous precedent viz the autonomy of a referee to make important decisions as they happen. Again, no league in the world uses video replay on red cards (in game). Retroactively taking away a red card in a very questionable situation is going to extremes, imho, and would make a lot of referees in this league question the integrity of the DC.
Your right about the problems with overturning red cards. That is not what I think should happen. Have you seen the replay from all sides? I saw the same thing as you in real time. I beleive the referee called what he saw. When I watched the replays I was shocked to see what actually happened.
That will be an interesting early test for the DC. Do they overturn the red card, despite it being a nearly impossible call for the ref to make? Do they punish Lenhart for a dive, even though he was just making a smart play? Here is where the DC can really get in over their heads. I think they need to ignore this one, and let it all stand as called because the precedent could be too dangerous.
I remember a couple seasons ago where some dude at Buck Shaw took a ball that went into the stands, stuck it under his shirt, and tried to run out of the stadium with it. The camera followed him, and he looked a bit peaked. It struck me as very funny for whatever reason.