But that's the point. The ref did see it - MLS DC admits this. And he was told about the two prior occurrences before this happened. It's a foul, the ref saw it, he should've called it. End of story. Maybe there'd be a few more goals if players weren't "allowed" to foul on corner kicks. Imagine, being able to make an unimpeded run at the inswinging corner . . .
Intent is clear...what was Henry's intent with a 2-footed tackle again? I'm sure he was just trying to win the ball, right? You sure do make a lot of assumptions about me and SJ fans in general... How does that old saying go? "Don't throw rocks if you live in a glass house"
Unfortunately this also contradicts what the league said earlier. Prior to the interview yesterday the MLS line was that Salazar did not see the play and, because of that, the threshold for suspending Marquez was a simple majority instead of a unanimous decision.
Please correct me if I am wrong here. Clark’s 3 games and Mullan’s 10 games were both un -appealed. So there is a chance that both could have been lower. So it could be that Marquez was actually given 4-5 and after an appeal he serves 3. (This could also be the reason for the delay). So, if I’m right, you can see where the measuring sticks we have been using are somewhat skewed.
Its not just Quakes fans that realize how bush league that throwdown was. A foul does NOT have to include a bear hug and a throwdown followed by landing on top of someone and then a kick. Fouls occur all the time in the box, but rarely are they this bad. Very rarely do they cause any injury at all. Marquez didn't get out a tire iron, but in terms of an on the field action, it was pretty bad and with tremendous disregard for Salinas.
Frustration, Anger, Malice? Any of those would do it. Stupidity perhaps. That would do it too. Just because its not a good decision, doesn't mean Marquez didn't make it. Exhibits 1-100 are Marquez's play in the past. Its not a defense.
First of all, thank for your cut/pasting my comments out of context. Perhaps I should have been succint in my quickly posted statement. I also stated the Quakes had complained about constant infringement by Marquez in my same post. Had the ref done his job and given him a yellow earlier for the constant infringement, the "bear hug" would have been a yellow and resulted in a red card. The kick to the face in the same incident is a red card offense. I'll make I send to this an editor before posting so that we can all be on the same page.
Maybe the league should get its story straight. Oh, the web we weave when we bend the rules to benefit DPs.
The foul by Marquez soars over this PK "bar" that you have set. The ref if he saw it was gutless. If he missed it--and as it was in front of goal on a corner kick and neither he nor the AR saw it--then he failed to do his job. He had failed up to that point as the Quakes had complained that Marquez was bear hugging Salinas on corner kicks. Had he warned Marquez, Salinas is probably not going under the knife and having a plate inserted and he's suiting up this weekend.
I tracked this back, and the part that he doesn't quote doesn't add anything. Superdave is saying, and he's right, that bear hugging a guy as you both fall down is not a red, it's a yellow. And it doesn't matter if the Quakes had complained before, it's still only a yellow. Now, you may be saying that since he was doing it all game, they could have yellow carded Marquez twice, but that's still not what the DC means when they say 'red card offense', they mean a straight red card offense, not a second yellow. Yes, that point was agreed upon by the person you were arguing with--the point he was trying to make is that the kick is the straight red offense, and therefore the part that makes this punishable. I agree with this, but it's the sort of thing that is bigger than a ref, because letting stuff go on corners that would be clear, totally obvious penalties in the flow of play is unfortunately something of a tradition in soccer. Refs the world over obviously have too much fear of 'changing the game' by creating a gimme penalties away from the ball like that, and what hasn't been realized is that this fear of changing the game. . . has changed the game.
Agreed on all counts. And to expand on the last one... anyone who says that letting stuff go on corner kicks isn't part of the game in today's climate is delusional. It's always easy to point the finger at the ref that doesn't call it when it's YOUR TEAM that's getting the short end. But on the rare occasion when it actually is called, especially for something marginal, people lose their minds. And then turn right back around and complain about the fact that it doesn't happen more often. And this exposes a dirty little secret: If referees actually did call PK's every time they could on corner kicks, YOU. WOULD. HATE. IT. There would be four and five PK's per match, and that's not really what the game is about, either.
Except once the referees started to call PKs for fouls on corner kicks, the defenders would suddenly find out that they don't have to bear hug the other team's players.
At first, yes, no question everyone would hate it. But if the refs/the league didn't back down after the initial fan and team backlash, the teams would adapt and stop thinking they can get away with crap in the box. You're a hockey fan - until the lockout, teams were regularly hooking/interfering/committing other neutral zone fouls that were never called. Post-lockout, with the rule changes, wasn't the initial fear about enforcing those penalties strictly that it would ruin the game? And hasn't it instead made the game more open and exciting? Cross-sport comparisons are apples to oranges, granted.
Not if there were good video refs, and fouls were called on both offense and defense. The margin for calls could be drastically reduced and the players could focus more on playing well without worrying about thuggery, faking, or getting injured. It could be a clusterfark the first few seasons, but it would be worth it. Course, it won't happen.
which is why they'd give it up. soccer differs from hockey (which implemented a refereeing crackdown) in two important regards: the nhl can rewrite hockey rules to an extent a single soccer league cannot do; and calling more two-minute penalties on things that used to pass unpunished is a lot less drastic than adding a handful of pk's to a single soccer game. all that said, salazar in this particular case should have called a pk. this was that fairly rare case where the ref's call would not have been bashed by anyone. that's how bad this was compared to run-of-the-mill clutching and grabbing. if you look at a full replay, salazar has a good view and there really aren't other pairs of players getting tangled and dividing his attention. salazar was a little too far away, imo, and maybe that's why he didn't feel confident enough to call it.
So on the podcast, the 'ultimate argument' of the mlsdc rep was a flat out lie. He said that "if we pissed off 50% of people on both sides, i think that shows we're right". On their own website, it was something like an 80% vote to suspend Marquez for 5 games, and no option for even more.
Yeah, but people are predisposed to HATE Marquez. They're also making that judgment on Salinas' injury. If Salinas hadn't been injured, no one would be calling for 5 week suspensions.
I'm pretty sure people would still be calling for it. Kicking someone while they are on the ground is one of the most cowardly and dirty things a soccer player can do.
Dirty tackles are predisposed to injuring people. If you're arguing that the injury shouldn't or didn't play a part in the suspension, I personally disagree and continuing certain posters' predisposition to appeal to authority "logic", the MLSDC acknowledged that it did as well - that unlike the prevailing 'anti' opinion here, these incidents do not happen in a vacuum. That's reality for you. People are predisposed to loving Donovan, which is why Marquez got the same suspension length for throwing a ball at him and then flopping on the ground when no one was around. Ultimately, that's why all we can rely on is the rep's acknowledgement that these suspensions will basically be inconsistent. I would bet thousands of dollars that if Stephen Lenhart did the same whole act on Landon Donovan, that he'd get a 5-15 game suspension. If you don't believe that, please send me one of your unicorns.
I agree. It would eventually change if refs changed what they called. There would be a pretty painful period when lots of goals were scored off PKs. Eventually more goals would be scored on corners instead. We can debate whether or not it would be good for the game, but the game would deal with it.
Then RSL fans prepare to have your team get the short end. Because if this is true, and I'm FY, I'm telling my players to bear hug the sh%t out every RSL player in the box. I'm DARING the ref to make a PK call. I mean, if it's "against the rules" but not against the rules, why bother. Nobody from RSL is permitted to jump top meet a high ball. Awesome.
Well then they're being inconsistent. Because I heard the DC -the bureaucrat - say on the SI podcast say, "Salazaar saw it but didn't call it" and that is on top of him being told twice. And as we know, when someone is inconsistent it means they are always telling the truth . . .
In other words, if the incident had been different, people would have different opinions on the incident.
Yeah we would have complained about the pk the ref missed and the fact that the Quakes would have won the game and should have had 2 more points in the standings.....