2014 MLS Referee Assignments and Discussion [Rs]

A sixth was a former MLS referee as well, and a seventh had experience in MLS as a fourth official.

 

But the trolls won't let that ruin a good story.

 

A fitting post for #1000 in the board's marquee thread

 

The kinda/almost skirmish was the most bizarre part for me. At first I thought DC attempted a quick restart since the ball ended up in the goal, but then I saw the ball was at the spot and that it was actually a Crew player who kicked it.

 

Oh BTW. I've been busy as hell lately with working two jobs and preparing to move, but I'm planning on getting everything in the dropbox updated tonight before I probably lose internet for a little while.

 

Curious what folks think of this. Sounders are on pace to be fouled 700 times this season. Do the refs take this into account as they prepare for matches?

Http://www.seattletimes.com/html/sounders/2023423161_sounders21xml.html

 

Sarkodie grabs the ball at 80:02 and is finally carded at 80:58. That's a long time to be holding the ball for a throw in, so I'm not sure how any Houston fan can be complaining about the second yellow. Maybe the player who has already been cautioned should use his brain and oh, I don't know, throw the ball in perhaps. Just stupid from him. Villarreal did nothing wrong.

 

Yea, they start training themselves to not fall for all Seattle's diving...

(In case you thought I was being serious, that was a joke. I just couldn't help it.)

 

Ding: https://www.dropbox.com/s/6z7tw2qp7ml4a7y/2014.txt

 

Well, PSRA did a heck of a job with their "scab" document to discredit every official who worked the first two weeks. Are you telling me that PSRA put out a bunch of half-truths?

 

That would be true if accurate. Might want to watch the match reply on MLS Live or learn how to tell time. Sarkodie gets the ball at 80:42. Waits a few seconds. No one is moving to the ball. Waves his hand for movement. Whistle blown at 80:51. While just starting his walk/run-up at 80:59, ref blows the whistle again and gives him a second yellow, but clearly doesn't know Sarkodie was already in the book.

So you have maybe 16-17 seconds wasted, far less than defenders who run up and stop free kicks from being taken on restarts quickly. Or the time that any goalie takes to place the ball, repair divots, read the putting green, then take a goal kick in the final 15 minutes of a game while leading.

 

My post should have said 80:42, don't know how I put a 0.
As for your final paragraph, it seems you feel that time wasting is a problem in MLS. So why are you not praising Villarreal instead of slamming the entire PSRA group? Just seems like you're a little bitter that it happened to a Houston player, who by the way, was obviously time wasting. Throw the ball in and none of this matters. Simple as that.

 

4O said something almost immediately, watch Jurisevic, he stops following the ball, turns, pushes the ear piece in for a second, then continues on. He played advantage and came back. Now what was said is a good question. I would think the "call in" was for VC, he wasn't sure he agreed and the game didn't need to be stopped, so he kept going, then went and had a chat.

As for the foul itself. Hard time pulling red there unless the game needed to be calmed down drastically which it didn't appear to from the 15 seconds in the clip. It was shoulder to shoulder, just different heights. Part to most of the shoulder hit shoulder.

 

So I am confused why was the ball even on the penalty spot? Guzman clearly says it is out of area when he is trying to get Gonz attention for the card.

To me Espindola is delaying the restart and create this problem

 

he and penso were the only ones with 2 years of experience the year he was appointed

 

To give context, that card was only the third one given in the game, and the only one given in the second half. It was a very sleepy, calm game that was certainly not heating up. Jahn had just subbed on about 2 minutes before he got the red, and this was his first foul.

I think the fourth must have thought he saw an elbow, because a soft red just made no sense in the context for that particular game. There was another play earlier in the game where a Colorado player got his forearm/elbow in the head of a Quakes player when going up for a header, and it resulted in nothing more than a DFK. I think Jahn's height worked against him more than anything here, and it seemed strange to me that in a game that was going so calmly, a referee would decide to go straight red on a play that was borderline yellow/maybe orange for a player that had just come on, unless the fourth saw something that really wasn't there.

 

This doesn't account for all of it (especially since he missed two games), but Dempsey has always been an oft-fouled played due to his style of play. He holds the ball, he tries to make unpredictable moves, and that leads to being fouled. In his last few years at Fulham, he was among the five most-fouled players in the EPL (if I'm not mistaken, he was #1 in his last year there).

That said, there has always been a tactic by teams in this league to get into the heads of star players by hitting them early and often. Some more PI cautions would be nice throughout the league. I found it curious that Gonzalez received a card for PI after a second foul* (which he deserved, I believe; the report says "foul," but Elfath clearly counted the fouls on his fingers as he was issuing the card), but there were no PI cards on the other side. I also thought that the red card was pretty harsh, although, as others have said, at full speed, it looked and sounded pretty bad. I thought the yellow on Toia at the end could have been a red**.

*http://matchcenter.mlssoccer.com/ma...sa-vs-seattle-sounders-fc/details/video/14348

**http://matchcenter.mlssoccer.com/ma...sa-vs-seattle-sounders-fc/details/video/14387

 

Finally got a chance to watch this sequence. It will be interesting to see what the DisCo does with Anor. In addition to the two-footed tackle, I think he might get a game or two for the shove on Espindola during the earlier fracas. The whole thing was ridiculous, but Anor is the one who really escalates things by flying in and shoving Espindola into the net.

Finally, like others have said, how Gonzalez doesn't see red for DOGSO there is baffling. That's as easy a DOGSO call as there is.

 

The Rapids apparently want the attention of the DisCo
http://www.coloradorapids.com/video/2014/04/21/when-line-crossed-physical-sport

 

To me the live version of the Johns foul looks like he finishes with an elbow. Another angle makes it clear the elbow comes out after shoulder to head contact, but I can see how the 4O thought elbow to the head.

 

Looks like there could be a solid case on the Gordon incident.

 

Either way, in live action, that's late and with excessive force.

 

Yeah, his own team was hacked at him. Ricardo Clark was telling him "why didn't you just throw the ball?"
And who was that announcer? Yea gads. Right after Villarreal did warn him about time wasting, the announcer says, "he hasn't warned anyone on either team about time wasting."

That said, the red card did look horrible, just because he obviously didn't know it was his second. If you are going to run someone for timewasting, you have to sell it way better than that. Like a hard whistle for the warning, then a super hard whistle, followed by both cards about 1/2 second apart. The way he did it just looked confused.

 

I'm confused as to how we're not convinced that this is an easy Red Card for the San Jose player. We're justifying it by saying he's taller, he didn't get him with his elbow, the game didn't need it, etc.

NHRef & sjquakes08 - "It was shoulder to shoulder, just different heights" / "I think Jahn's height worked against him" - That makes no sense. Absolutely none. The SJ player forcefully made contact with the Colorado player on his temple. Where does it say that it has to be Elbow-to-head contact? Are you advocating a shoulder-to-shoulder "no foul" here because we can't fault a tall player? Should Ploeger lean over and tell the Colorado player to get his ass up and grow 6 more inches? Do we not call handling on a tall player because, if he was normal height, his hand would have been 6 inches lower and therefore not made contact with the ball? The irony here being that Ploeger is 8'3" and he's not having any sympathy on the SJ player's inability to control his body properly. What if he cleated him in the temple/head? Would we say that the SJ player has longer legs and that a normal player wouldn't have made contact with him? I'm absolutely going to extremes here because I just don't understand this rationalization of this amount of excessive force.

Others are assuming that Ploeger thought that the SJ player made contact with his elbow. It probably looked like that in real life, especially when you're looking through the player a bit. However, by stating that, you guys are similarly implying that a shoulder to the head can't be SFP or VC. Like Ploeger got the color of the card wrong if he told Edvin that he hit him in the head with his elbow. Above-the-shoulder contact was made and excessive force was used. Red Card.

I know I'm coming across strong in my wording, but I'm just more than little baffled as to how this isn't a cut-and-dried red card all day, every day.

Thank you.

 

Well, actually, the ATR does say this about that:

Now admittedly this usually has more application in the case of 13- and 14-year-olds (I've had cases where one player comes up to the waist of the other, and they're going at it tooth and nail), it's not limited to that in terms.