I have to agree with AEK on this one. I'd be more scared if I didn't call this in a Hispanic league. To them, handling is any time the ball touches your hand, regardless of intent.
I don't know why I'm replying to you as you obviously do not know the game and do not know refereeing. You think you are very clever by lawyering and piercing every word that is said here and taking it out of context and making it bigger than it is. No one is here to engage in technicalities except you. When I said about players putting their hands behind their back everyone that knows the game and has seen it at a high level knows what I'm talking about except you. I didn't say or mean for players to run around the entire field with their hands behind their back. I hope you knew that and you were just trying to be a smart ass and get all technical. Every decent fullback/defender almost always has their hands behind their back when they are in a situation like the one the Seattle defender is. They are one on one with a winger/attacker who is trying to cross the ball and they are trying to prevent themselves from conceding a penalty and prevent the attacker from drawing the penalty. The handling rule is fine just the way it is. All the top defenders do it. you see Puyol, Maldini, Nesta, Cole, etc. it's no different than when a guy is dribbling in the box and defenders are not putting in rash challenges. It's just smart soccer. In regards to the U12 girls comment, you know exactly what I menat and what reference I was trying to make. If not, then you are just a bigger idiot than I thought or the quality of U12 girls soccer is so much higher than everywhere else in the country that you don't see girls OR BOYS flapping their arms and trying to protect their face. If you really believe that my comment about U12 rec soccer was sexist than I don't know what to tell you, other than you have bigger issues than not knowing what handling is.
This statement could be said about the level of play of the MLS. proven time and time again. If were going to correlate match officials to other countries. Some people would say your great at comparing apples to pears.
Here's a question for you. Let's assume that the ball didn't hit his right hand (just for the sake of argument). What would be a more natural position for his left hand? From my point of view. His left hand is at his side, no more than a foot away from his body. I don't think that's unnatural.
Presupposing he's only a youth referee and using it as a putdown is an attack and I know you're smart enough to know that. You could make every single point you make about the merits of the individual decision and the larger arguments about this sort of call without attacking the background or abilities of others. This stuff has to stop. People are reporting posts and they are PMing moderators asking for it to stop. They are flat-out saying that it's making the forum less enjoyable for them. So it will stop or there will start to be sanctions, which is something that no one--myself included, perhaps more so than anyone--wants to happen. This has always been a welcoming forum, with rigorous debate, largely devoid of the personal attacks and putdowns we might see on other boards. And it will stay that way.
You're right, Geiger has handled quite a few contentious matches....and still doesn't know what the players want called. The only person that expected a penalty called in this case was Keane, and that's because he whines about every little thing all game long. Do you really think the players (for either team) wanted him to call encroaching on both penalties in the two DC games when the kick was made, and the encroacher had hardly any bearing on the kick being made? No, they don't. But then we have other referees, such as the game earlier this season where the encroacher actually put the ball in the back of the net, and nothing was called. It's just incredibly inconsistent, as is this penalty. What about Gonzalez doing the same exact thing 15 minutes into the first leg? http://www.mlssoccer.com/matchcenter/2012-11-11-la-v-sea/highlights/205926
The still photo is completely worthless for purposes of evaluating this call because it lacks context. The left alone was completely sufficient for the deliberate handling call for the reasons that have been discussed -- his arm away from the body made him bigger and took away the passing lane. (Even without gettnig into a debate as to whether he moved his arm to the ball or not.)
I'm not sure the still photo really tells us a lot. Johansson was throwing his arms around a lot (IMO, putting them in unnatural positions) while defending Keane from the moment Keane got possession of the ball, taking away space. I imagine that had an impact on Geiger's decision.
Man, I hate when it comes to this. I should not need to carry my cred around on my shoulder. But I have been playing for 31 years. I also have a mother from Rome and spent much of my childhood going to Serie A matches. When I was home I used to wake up early to watch the one game PBS showed every week. I have been watching this game, domestically and internationally, for almost four decades. Further, although I stopped a number of years ago, I refereed for about a dozen years and did hundreds and hundreds of games. Is that good enough for you? I really hate that. I know exactly what you're talking about. In fact, I believe I was the first one to bring it up in my post on page 3 of this thread. And I brought it up in the context of how it is both ridiculous and a disadvantage to the defender. I know lots and lots of players do it. I have had coaches coach me to do it. But the reason it's done is because the handling rule is called differently than how the handling rule is written. I never suggested that players do this all over the field. My point is that when you do this, you are more vulnerable to being beaten on the dribble because simple biomechanics (something I studied, by the way! since I seem to have to explain my credentials to you) indicate that you cannot be as agile with your hands behind your back. So, a defender plays with his arms behind him in the PA, winger fakes a cross and then cuts in. The defender cannot possibly react to this properly with his arms behind him. This is my point: because of the way the rule is applied (differently from how it's written, mind you), the defender has to put himself at a disadvantage. Right! They are putting themselves at a disadvantage because of the way the rule is commonly applied. It is the application of the rule that is forcing the defender to do something that makes it harder for him to move his feet. Agreed! It is the way the rule is commonly applied that is problematic. They do. They should not have to. Great. Then you could have left the "girls" part out of it, couldn't you? But you didn't.
MassRef, Since I have a great deal of respect for your input/contributions and the job you do here as moderator, I will cease responding to the Sounder troika. nonetheless, allow me to make the following point(s). While you are correct in ascertaining that nobody likes to get attacked, you would also be correct in concluding that this is a referee forum comprised primarily of very experienced and high quality officials who want to discuss issues/ideas without "troll" or "partisan" interference. I would venture to say that most refs have a very sensitive bs/troll/partisan sensor and when it goes off, as it has in this thread and a few others (ironically most involving Seattle), said refs get mighty perturbed. That's what has happened here. This forum has always had a way of policing itself without much moderator intereference but every so often when we get an influx of partisan/troll/newbies either the moderator steps in or the vets police it themselves. If some of us have overstepped our bounds then I apologize, but the intent has always been to discuss issues without the rose colored "fan" glasses on, and when supposed seasoned refs start making arguments like some that we've heard here, well.....usually one of the vets steps in and sets things straight and if nothing else ferrets out bias. In my opinion, if you want this forum to continue in a productive manner, you also have to police the trolls/fans and point them to other more appropriate threads. Just my humble opinion.
Thank you. I am just going to walk away now, I guess. I realize that I am a Seattle fan, but I think I have tried to be fair here. I think Geiger got a number of calls that didn't go Seattle's way absolutely right. (During halftime over beers I was actually defending his offside call on Hurtado.)
I think Wienckowski, based on what I've see the last three years, is our best AR. I do not think he was guessing nor do I think he "forgot" to leave the flag down if there's doubt. He didn't see the defender, period. He got it wrong, but he was completely shielded. Luckily Seattle got their goal soon after so it doesn't matter too much, but that guy is not raising the flag if he isn't 100% sure based on what he sees. On the PK, it was a tough blow sure, but how does he not call that when the defender threw up both arms in very unnatural positions? As a defender, just keep your arms down.
But I doubt that he was doing this deliberately to take away space. The motions of his arms coincided with what you'd expect in terms of maintaining balance. I certainly don't think it's unnatural to have your arms at a distance from your body. It would be unnatural if they were moving in a direction that didn't correspond with maintaining balance. If Johansson had been leaning to his left and he threw his left arm up, that would be unnatural. The fact that he was leaning to his left and he threw is left arm down is much more natural, as that motion is necessary to keep his body upright.
This is unfair, IMO. Try handcuffing your hands behind your back and defending 1v1. You'll loose every time.
This is a really good question and one that came up on the drive home. Fans scream for "consistency," but we all know that no two referees see the game the exact same way (as this thread makes clear). Would it make sense to have the same crew do both legs of a home-and-home so that there is at least some consistency within the series? Or, if there's not consistency, at least in that scenario it can be said that the inconsistency was real and not the result of different officials seeing things differently. Just a thought we had last night.
Thanks. See post #32 in this thread: https://www.bigsoccer.com/community/...rs-2nd-leg-wcf-r.1978277/page-2#post-26799286 When it's obvious or over-the-top, it's going to be addressed. But fans do get some leeway here--probably more so than you personally want--because it's part of a larger site and they are encouraged to come here for clarification and discussion. Many, it should be noted, concede that their opinion might be colored. Bottom line is that when it's obvious and persistent, it will be handled. If you don't think it's being handled aggressively enough, please report a post or PM me, rather than going on the attack. Thanks.
Oh boy, here we go. see what I mean MassRef? You're right. Not one of the remaining 10 LA players on the picth wanted a pk called here. Gotcha! LOL! I would bet my last dollar that EVERY single DC player wanted the encroachment called on Coopers initial pk. Just a hunch. LOL! Any bearing on the kick? Virtually NO non keeper encroachment has any bearing on the kick. For Gods sake, all the remaining players are BEHIND the ball and at least 10 yards away. Are you saying we should never call non keeper encroachment if the encroacher doesn't subsequently touch the ball or somehow affect ensuing play? FWIW, there were at least THREE NYRB players that encroached on that kick. THREE.
Look, I'm as critical of the way we have to hold our noses as we throw the newbies to the wolves as anyone, but that is far from the case here. Barkey has been to a World Cup, Geiger very well may go to Brazil, and Wienckowski, I think, deserves a shot at a World Cup too. I see abysmal refereeing in every league I watch. I sat at a Bundesliga match last Spring that featured ARs who looked like they never ran a line before and seemed to only hit the SLD by accident. This was three very experienced referees. An offside decision was missed by accident. It doesn't have anything to do with BS talk about soccer culture. It frustrates me when I sit in PPL Park and I see referees struggle to manage a pro games, but there's no real alternative. Let's not paint our experienced guys with the same brush and act like referees in the long established soccer countries don't make mistakes. Also, we have a soccer culture in the US. What we do not have is a long history of stable pro soccer leagues churning out players, coaches, and referees suited to that level of play. We do not have a geography or demographics right now that allows us to have 150 pro clubs surviving and playing 30+ games a year to provide a referee or a player with the sorts of experiences they might see somewhere else. It's a huge country with lots of other popular sports. You don't just snap fingers and jam 100 years of experience into 18.
Your thought works under the assumption, I believe, that Geiger would have called the handling incident in the first leg. I don't think you can necessarily say that's true. In the first leg, it looks like the defender is attempting to tuck his arm behind himself and doesn't get it out of the way in time. Maybe Geiger calls it. Maybe he doesn't. I think it all comes down to what he sees and believes in the heat of the moment. But extrapolating what two referees might call in general based off of single handling incidents (or two of them, in Geiger's case) isn't very sound logically. It's not like referees go into matches with two totally different approaches to handling. Angles, proximity, and a number of other factors can affect decisions. Maybe Marrufo gives the one last week from a different angle. Maybe Geiger doesn't give last night's from a different angle. It's impossible to say. All that aside, having the same referee on both legs is a recipe for disaster. The scrutiny on them for any controversy from the first leg would be unbearable. It's not done for a reason.
Actually yes, I think that would be a great idea. Just as there is no offside violation just because you're in an offside position, there should be no encroaching violation unless you become involved in the play. Obviously we shouldn't call it that way now, but I think that would be a good change in the law.
Yeah, I realize that it could be seriously problematic. And I know that every call is different. So often people are asking for consistency when they perceive two plays as the same when, in reality, they are never the same. Point conceded.
I couldn't agree with you more CKRef........and great, great post to include the no call in the first leg at Los Angeles. An argument could be made the Gonzalez play was more "deliberate" given his distance from the server (Zach Scott). As a first time poster on this board, I respectfully apologize to MassRef (moderator) and other "regulars" that my initial posts stating my belief that situations do dictate approach for coaches, players and referees (as it related to the handball call) were not well received. I was over the top in the passion of the moment and once again I apologize. Question: In an attempt to establish consistency, does it make sense for the same crew to officiate both legs of a playoff series? Lol...I see some have all ready offered an opinion on this topic in previous posts...still interested to hear from others...thx