I think the team should handle potential suspensions for violent conduct in non-official matches, not the league. That's what I'm used to, and I think it makes sense.
How long will this too-big collection of injuries prevent the full "core" from getting on the field, and how many points will it cost in the standings... ...do Revs end up in a standings "hole" before they even begin to get traction? Hope all/most are very short term.
That's like your boss, rather than your employer suspending you for fighting with your co-worker. The company still has a vested interest that this does not happen again, so they're going to take action.
He's right. Some of his reds were deserved, but not all. And, he did much better staying out of trouble later in the season. As for the "tussle in Tucson", after watching it, I didn't think he actually stomped on the guy - and that was after the other guy kicked out at him from the ground. I think the ref gave them matching reds because it was late in a wet, meaningless preseason game; i.e., just so they wouldn't cause any more problems. Maybe someone got a better look, but from the live view, I thought Imbongo got a tough call.
Interesting, indeed. Heaps and Burns were very clear and explicit last night about his 2 game suspension. Maybe they appealed the decision and won...
Anyone worried about the referee situation? I'm not sure what the fall-back plan is. Do the teams self-referee? Does Jay get out there?
As of yesterday they were reportedly $400K apart in discussions. My guess is it gets done tomorrow early enough for officials to make flights wherever they're going.
On the Ask Garner q&a earlier this week he said they have a contingency plan in place and seemed confident the show would go on. Maybe replacement MLS refs will be better? Not sure they could be much worse...they could keep negotiating until one bad obvious call impacts the result of a game and the league ponies up the dough and an agreement is reached (like the NFL).
Given all the atrocious referee calls we saw last year, I can't imagine what it would be like if they brought in guys who were somehow not considered good enough to be an MLS ref.
If the current refs didn't produce so many game-altering moments of stupidity, then I imagine their bargaining position might be a little better in all this. MLS is probably thinking there's only a small risk that the games could be refereed worse than in the past.
They also probably understand that regardless of how they quantify the risk, there is still a possibility the actual realized risk (the actual incurred impact) could instead be large -- and MLS is apparently willing to accept that outcome. Screwing up some games early on, possibly affecting playoff standings later on -- those seem to be much smaller considerations for MLS, as compared to referee payscale and other issues wound up in the lockout. While not reading too too much into it, it does say something about MLS and how it sets priorities around things like the quality of the games.
As much as we focus on 2013 ref blunders, we may be horrified to see how much worse things can get. If we have replacement refs who have never reffed games which move at MLS pace, a number of games this weekend may be decided by errors.
Ramon Hernandez will be doing the Revs match. He's reffed MLS games for awhile, so not a big deal. 4 yellows/match. 7 matches/red card. 4 matches/penalty.
Here's the crew for tomorrow night: Houston Dynamo vs. New England Revolution, Saturday, 8:30 pm ET Ramon Hernandez – Former MLS Referee Isreal Fernandez – MLS Preseason Marcos de Oliveira – MLS Preseason, NASL I've heard that they do have Fourth Officials booked, but haven't named them.
Houston Dynamo vs. New England Revolution | MLS Match Preview March 7, 2014 MLSsoccer staff MLSsoccer.com
At this rate, well be dressing the academy. I still can't help but wonder the connection between all these muscle strains and stress XXX and practicing/playing on turf On another note... more NAT games announced, none in New England. All we ever get any more are the Ka Ching games