Is it my imagination, or does every call made in every MLS game result in at least one player expressing anger? Do the refs have to take this? Isn't there a rule that says a player can be carded for 'dissent'? I have actually seen a foul called where players from BOTH teams went after the ref! One team thinks there was no foul at all, and the other team thinks it should have resulted in a card! Offsides are no different: the player involved looks over at the linesman as if to say, "Are you blind? Are you crazy?". Then they show the replay, and it is usually the case that the player was clearly offsides. Do coaches really want their players focusing on this nonsense? Do the fans want their children to see grown men acting like this? I for one am sick and tired of it. In the last Metrostars game I attended, Guevara acted so badly I was GLAD he got carded (twice!) and I am a loyal Metrostars fan. It is time for the league to put an end to this.
I don't care how bad the refs are, there is no place for dissent ON THE FIELD except for maybe the captain (and not him cursing the ref or flailing around in a hissy fit - talking to you Guevara).
I would love to see an automatic yellow for dissent of any kind and especially for the delaying of a restart. Even a player jumping in front of the ball to set up the wall.
Most of the refs in the MLS truly are a joke tho, any1 who keeps up with the MLS can see that, and theres no way to deny it. I think both steps should be combined... improve the quality of the refs, who will in turn step up, make correct calls and hand out cards for decent or whatever.
I'm with this 100%. I would let a captain do all the talking as well. Actually, I'd card a captain if his team got out of line.
I am also all for this. A precident needs to be set that keeps discussion between the players and the refs down to an absolute minimum. The capatain is allowed to jaw at him, but even he has to behave himself. All it ever does it result in a poor performance by the official.
I'm all for this too. But, from playing the game, I've found the reffing seems a whole lot better when the dissent is dealt with appropriately. And from the games I've seen from around the World, the dissent in MLS is way over the top.
In MLS it's a Catch-22. If you didn't have crappy refereeing you wouldn't have all the dissent. Good refereeing would not tolerate the dissent. It's kinda like the chicken/egg thing. Improve the refereeing and everything else should fall into place. It's easy to hand out red and yellow cards all day, but when you're blowing calls for thousands to see on a regular basis then that's a problem that needs to addressed.
I disagree with this. A crappy ref does not directly cause the dissent displayed on the field. Letting players get away with the dissent is the problem. There are so many close calls in all of soccer, that players will always feel cheated at some point. I have never seen a profesional game where there were no players that felt cheated on a call. The only difference between most of those games and MLS games is, MLS games allows too much dissent. The dissent is killer to the flow and feel of the game. Nothing like watching a player swear at the ref for a minute, delay the restart and destroying the flow. This ends up making the refs look worse then they are, as every mistake they make gets magnified. Hand out those yellows to non-captain dissent or anyone shouting and swearing directly at the ref. Lets keep the game moving.
I agree, sometimes the players do have right to get angry because the refs make unusually bad calls. Some of them won't call anything really until the 2nd half and then it seems like sme make up things to call almost. The refs in MLS are a joke though, if they made better calls and learned how to ref then maybe you wouldn't see so many guys blowing up at them every game. Even though I do agree with whoever said it's ridiculous to see grown men acting like this, especially the ones who are over 23 or 24, it's easier to not roll your eyes so much at the younger ones but still most of the guys in MLS need to know when to shut up and it seems like none of them do.
That's why I said that good refereeing wouldn't put up with dissent. I think we all know that the level of refeering in MLS needs to improve drastically. The players and the level of play have greatly improved since 1996, the refereeing has either stayed stagnant or regressed.
Nothing really ever gets accomplished by it, but I think it's pretty funny most of the time. Anyone catch this one game when Matt Reis pushed a ref away from him and the ref said something and Reis goes, "Yeah...yeah, whatever. Is this your game or mine?" I thought that was the funniest ish
How about naming some names instead of making blanket statements dissing all MLS refs in general? I thought Jair Marrufo gave an admirable performance in the Crew-MetroStars game, yet obviously there was still considerable dissent. Chico13 says "If you didn't have crappy refereeing you wouldn't have all the dissent" and "Good refereeing would not tolerate the dissent". So your logic is that even though a player might dissent even with a good referee, he would not display the dissent as a good referee "would not tolerate" it. Yet Guevara had a "good referee" who did not tolerate dissent in Marrufo and dissented both before and after receiving yellow cards twice in the match. In fact, Guevara dissented both times after a Crew player had already been yellow carded. What did he want, straight reds? Guevara seems to refute your logic. He had already received a yellow card for dissent from Marrufo just one month earlier and had earned two other yellow cards for dissent earlier in the season. Yet Bob Bradley chooses to assign the blame for Guevara's behavior to Marrufo and MLS fans like yourself blame MLS referees in general. I don't get it. I will say that just like the teams, individual MLS referees have been inconsistent in their performance from game to game, so it might not be easy to get a read on how well an individual referee performs game in and game out. However, in 17 Crew games I've reviewed this year, I've given good or excellent ratings to 9 referees, average ratings to 4 referees, and below average ratings to only 4 referees. Of the 4 below average ratings, I thought 2 called the match too tight (Yonan and Canales) and 2 called the match too loose and often incorrectly when they did make a call (Kennedy and Vaughn). However, I have reviewed other games by three of them (not Canales), and they have all been better reffed. Interestingly, Guevara has received dissent yellows from only three MLS refs this year, Marrufo, Vaughn, and Hernandez, and I have given each of those refs an excellent rating during a Crew game this year. (Obviously, I rated Vaughn differently in the two matches I watched him.) Maybe Guevara just gets off the wrong side of the bed some days. If you really think MLS referees stink, start naming some names and indicating games. If you'd like to start with Marrufo and the Crew-MetroStars game, I respectfully disagree.
Alex Prus, still mad about all the calls, or lack of calls, he made in that metro galaxy game a few weeks ago. That's the only name I can say because from every game I've seen for the most the reffing was terrible, MLS needs to find some new refs who know the rules and know when to make the calls, I have better refs that ref my games at school. All of the refs are a joke which is why the players can get away with so much. And you can't just name Guevara for getting up on the wrong side of the bed, when I turn on games I expect to see Ruiz acting 10 times worse than Amado.
I agree with most of these posts. We do need better refs. As we get more visibility as a league, I expect these refs to either improve or by pressure, get kicked out of the league as better ones enter. If bad calls are made in the NFL, it makes it all over the news for a week. That ref is scrutinized to the bone. In MLS soccer, bad calls are never discussed or heard about again. I think it is up to us as soccer fans to call MLS headquarters and make our opinion known these subjects. It is extremely frustrating to see blatantly horrible calls being made with which appears no reprecussion on the referee side. There must be more accountability on the refs. Or at least more visibile accountability by the MLS on the refs. When that happens, then you can tighten up the soccer players disputes over calls.
What's funny, is that you are looking for the word "descent"...unless you were thinking they will be the only team in the league with decent players...
Are some of you actually saying that the dissent is acceptable because the refs are not very good? Here's a suggestion: tape the next MLS game on TV. Then replay it, and wait for the first call where a player gets up in the refs face. Then replay it a few time, in slow motion. 85% of the time, you will see that the ref made the right call. So what is the player furious about? How can you blame that on inferior refs? The players react with anger for three reasons: 1) they don't like to have calls made against them. 2) when they screw up (like getting caught offsides), they try to transfer the blame to the official who "blew" the call; and 3) the refs (and the league) allow it. Another point: isn't the idea of professional sports to win games? How does a player help his team when he gets carded for dissent? When enough cards accumulate, he's sitting on the bench thinking how bad the refs are, while his team has to play short-handed and/or without him for the next game. How do the coaches allow this? Bad reffing has nothing to do with it...it's just bad for the team.
How do you get in contact with MLS cause I know just about every week I have something to whine about that has to do more with MLS than the teams that were playing, I may have more issue's with the teams and the players but there's usually one thing that just bugs me and makes me wanna yell at someone at MLS. Usually it's reffing.
1) What player does? The refs in MLS are usually one step behind. 2) The MLS Refs and their sidekicks are poorly positioned and are wrong on half of their offsides calls 3) They have no choice, by the time they've figured out they've screwed up it's too late.
1) What player does what? Argue calls? Answer: Almost all of them. What does the ref being "one step behind" have to do with what we are discussing? 2) You actually believe that half, 50%, of all offsides calls in MLS are wrong? As I suggested, tape a few games and check it out. I would estimate 90%+ of all offsides calls in MLS are correct. 3) Of course they have a choice: argue the call or shut up and get on with the game. Do they really think arguing or yelling is going to cause the ref to change his call? Has anyone ever seen that happen, in any league?
