Death by Stupidity: Central American version

Let's start with Steve Cherundolo. A yellow card for slamming the ball down on a throw-in. Another yellow for grabbing the foot of an attacker slipping away from him. What the hell? Are those good cards? Enjoy the bench, Stevie. And be glad the even stupider Guatemalan kept you from being the goat.

Clint Dempsey draws a yellow for something that looked, to me at least, like a near elbow. Given the Olympic situation, you would think that wouldn't happen again in a WC qualifier within a week.

I don'[t quite know what to think about Howard's card, but it would have been better avoided.

Credit to Mike Bradley, because he seemed to be in the cooler heads camp tonight. Good to see him learn his lesson.

Whether or not the coaching staff has any blame for the rash of stupid cards, it's now their duty to clean it up.

I think you mean it IS the coaching staff's duty to clean it up, right?

We have to stop these dumb ass cards. And yeah, Dolo was really really stupid.

If Claudio Reyna would have had the presence of mind to do that, we probably don't lose to Ghana

Cherundolo was righly sent off.
Mastroeni should have been sent off.
Dempsey could have been (would have been very harsh but not unprecedented) sent off.

The only card that doesn't bother me is Howard's. At least he got his with some passion and emotion and not outright stupidity and laziness.

Maybe I didn't get a good enough look at at, but I didn't think Dempsey deserved the yellow. Looked more like a half-slap/push to the chest - nothing that serious. I definitely agree about 'dolo. He should sit a couple more than the alloted suspension for that.

Yep. I meant "now" instead of "not."

Yeah, 'cause Dolo was all alone at the top of the box when he grabbed the guy by the ankles. I hate that eye-roll emoticon so I'm just going to type [/sarcasm]

This is a great thread. I was incredulous watching us pick up cards right and left. After agonizing over the US/Nigeria game for the past week, I was looking forward to a solid performance from the full Nats. I was shocked to see that we played with far less discipline than the U-23's, and without even half the courage and heart. Michael Orozco's red card elbow was no different from Clint Dempsey's yellow.

Stevie is supposed to be a leader and should know better in hostile territory. You save yourself for criticial situations - like when you have to tackle a player after you get beat. Grabbing his foot was stupid, but acceptable, as long as he doesn't have to be kicked out of the game for it. He should send the Guatemalan player a card thanking him for channeling his inner Rodney Harrison on Eddie Lewis, because that might have saved the game for us.

Just stupid, stupid cards. We can't write that off as being young or naive though, because Dempsey and Cherundolo have been around the block. Same with Mastroeni and Howard. We dug ourselves into a hole, and thankfully Guatemala didn't display any finishing skill whatsoever.

At least we got the three points, in probably the worst stadium to play in (after Azteca). But totally agree, there were silly fouls all over the place today. I guess that is the nature of the game though, the Guatemalans were dishing it left and right... so you would expect some sort of reciprocity (although, I'd much rather see us keep our collective cool).

It looked to me like he possibly led with his elbow. It was close. Others may have a different opinion. But it was risky.

Remind me, guys, what was Mastro's near red? It slipped my mind.

Dolo deserved his red. He was a moron.

Pearce deserved to be called for the penalty. I won't go so far as to call him a moron, but he needs to be aware of where he and his arms are at all times.

Bradley, as you said, was refreshingly composed tonight.

Mastro was Mastro. He was always going to be on the verge of an early urine shower.

Howard should have restrained himself a bit. Ruiz got exactly what he wanted.

Silly late challenge in the second half while on a yellow. If we had our boy from Germany 2006 against Italy, we go down to 9 right there.

Why anyone still reacts to Ruiz amazes. Doesn't everyone know his game by now...and speaking of that, why hasn't anyone broken that guys leg by now? I'm a Ricardo Clark fan for the simple reason he went after Ruiz. I follow the Galaxy, and I always hated Ruiz. He's a cheap, dirty, player who creates nothing - he lurks around the box and taps in the trash.

Howard should never have slapped him. A professional should know better.

In these types of games, the US players have to learn to simply walk away.

Perhaps Bradley has matured - that alone makes the game a huge bright spot.

The only good thing is that Mastroeni won't be available to play against Cuba. Bob can start Edu or *gasp* only go with ONE D-MID (the horror!)

Considering we finished the game with Spain with THREE D-midfielders on the pitch at the same time, something tells me Bobby can scrape up a DM from somewhere.

I don't have any problem with Tim's yellow. It's very similar to a basketball coach getting a technical on purpose. It was nice to see the passion and the drive to stand up to that diving, hacking, dirty, sorry excuse for a human being.

Plus, Tim's disciplined enough it won't happen again. I almost think he did it on purpose.

LOL!!! Cuba's attacking is lethal. We NEED the two dmids.

You act like the ref wasn't biased.

The ref was the fairest to us that I've seen in over a decade of watching the USA in central america. He was incompetent at times, but not biased.

Uh we caught some lucky breaks from this ref. On the foul that could have been Mastroeni's second yellow, he should also have allowed Guatemala to play the advantage. Then there was the offside call that wasn't against Guatemala. The refereeing crew wasn't great, but I thought their mistakes mainly favored us.

And there is the problem. Is there any responsibility here? Exactly what actions of ours are you trying to defend? The elbow? Throwing the ball away? Grabbing the guy's foot? Getting up in Ruiz's face? Help me out here.

It's time to stop blaming refs for mistakes that we make. Period.

Not to mention the no call on Pearce's hand ball.

Agreed. One of the better officiated games I've seen involving us in Central America.

I think Howard's yellow was well played, and I think he got into the Fishe's head with it. He basically told Ruiz "You close to the goal mouth you better protect yourself" and Ruiz spent the lst 10 minutes trying to figure if Timmy meant it or not.

I think Howard has the discipline not to get the 2nd yellow, but he scared the shit out of Ruiz, who was innefective for the time after.

Piffle.