Nice gol by Martha.. She didn't shine today, it looks like she was doing a lot of tracking back to get the ball up field.. A win on the road is gold tho.. Go Sol!
She and Abby were going for the ball and slided right into each other at speed. It looks like their knees collided and the knee hit the plate in Abby's. From I think, it might be a broken leg.
Bad. Reckless. Stupid. Those are some things that come to mind. First Daniella, now Shaner. Not a good thing.
Two players going all out for a loose ball, no one to blame, injurys happen. Could have happened to either of them. As to the severity of the injury, I would say 9 out of 10, she will be out well for the rest of the year. The replay clearly showed her lower leg right above her right ankle dangling about limp after impact, not for the squeamish. Looked like a clean break, both tibia and fibula.
I went to a local sports bar to watch the game - only a few others were watching the couple of screens that were dedicated to the game, but a bunch of other people came over to watch when we exclaimed about that horrendous injury - the ones that knew about soccer wondered why Abby wasn't carded (especially when you consider what fouls did merit cautions during the game.) Abby has a nasty habit of just getting late to the ball... Once again, the coach only subs for someone who is so injured that she cannot continue. Who else was on the LA bench besides Makoski? And once again, Marta saves his bacon with another individual effort only made possible because 2 DC defenders made the mistake of backing off at the same time within striking distance of the goal (something that Sol defenders haven't been guilty of so far this year.) This game should have ended in a tie, as the Freedom had more & better chances to score - they were certainly unlucky today to not have earned at least a point. I wonder if their change in formation put the Sol off their game early on (and the new players in the LA lineup couldn't have helped LA, their passing looked as shaky as I have seen since early in the season.)
I watched the replay a number of times and the ref made the correct call, no card necessary, they both got to the ball at the same time and there was no apparent malicious intent. Its just an unfortunate part of the game, players get hurt.
Shaner got to the ball first, you can see the ball leave her foot and rebound off of Abby's leg before Abby's leg plows into her planted leg. It wasn't a late malicious tackle, but it was late and another instance of poor judgment on Abby's part - and it puts another player out for a long time.
Sorry, it couldn't have been either of them. One of their legs was already there (Shaner) and one came it a split second later (Wambach). The person who's leg is already there is always going to be the one that gets injured in that type of a situation. It's the one that's exposed. So while you may argue over whether it deserves a card or not, there was no "it could have been either of them" nor was there no "they got there at the same time."
I think anyone looking at this objectively can see that while Abby wasn't trying to hurt anyone she went in recklessly for the ball. There was no reason to leave her feet the way she did and this late aggressive attempt to get the ball is responsible for the 3rd broken leg which involves her in less than 3 years. She needs to use better judgement, she can say rough play isn't her game but clearly she has a history now being involved in these sort of injuries. Abby is a better player than this, she is smarter than this, she is more professional than this shows her to be and hopefully she takes this as an opportunity to mature as a player hopefully before anyone else including Abby season is ended by this sort of nonsense.
But this isn't the first time we've talked about Abby and her recklesness and someone getting seriously hurt.
Abby left both her feet to go into this tackle. It was late and her left leg, while the cleats weren't showing, was still off the ground. It was a reckless tackle and she should have been red carded IMHO. It was the same type of play that got Bradley red carded in the Confederation Cup, except he tackled the ball, Abby got the player.
With a patchwork defense we were very lucky. Falk controls so much of the play and was sorely missed (injury). DO NOT like Larkin on defense-Makoski the better defender by far and should have started. In fact, when Shaner was injured...oooh ugly.....Rogers should have subbed Larkin and brought in Sanchez. I don't know who was on the bench as that is a WPS state secret but I did see Henderson, Bogus, Sari, Frisk on video after the game. I did not see Sanchez...maybe she's injured/ill?? Larkin on Wambach was comical. Zerboni's first touch on the ball is great & she made some nice passes into space. (A young Wagner). Washington played a solid game until their coach subbed De Vanna for Long...why? Big mistake. How many yellow cards does Boxx have? That's the biggest concern.
I thought Makoski did well. I believe Boxx now has three yellow cards, putting her one away from a suspension. That will have to be a consideration going into the final games. Best of luck to Shaner. What a shame.