MLS & WUSA refs - Week 2 [R]

[nsa]

Will Terry Vaughn ever get another MLS match?

First half (43rd minute) PK call when screened. Replays showed ball hit Heaps full in the face.

Joe-Max Moore re-enters MLS in the 70th minute; sent-off in the 74th. Trip? Yes. Trip from behind? NFW.

Ten minutes later Beasley takes down Twellman with a push from behind on a breakway...Yellow. :(

On the up-side, watch a tape Rachel Woo in the WUSA PAX game. Free kicks within 25 yards of the goal got the full 10 yards. The result was two gorgeous goals by Atlanta's Maribel Dominguez. Closer wall == no goals. I may be a sea-blue Breakers fan, but I loved seeing a referee give a true ten on free kicks. (Replays showed that Ms. Woo may have been let down by her AR on a blatant jersey tug on a breakaway, but ...)

[Scott Zawadzki]

I'm sure that the referee was feeling a little embarressed when he had his post game debriefing aand looked at the video tape. The Heaps call was just poor. Moore rightfully deserved a yellow. Maybe Vaughn thought that JMM was some rookie out of college and he wanted to teach him a lesson about fouling stars like Justin Mapp!

I agree with just a yellow on the Beasley foul. Too much distance to goal to be a clear red, yellow was the smarter call.

**Everyone try to take a peek at the Beasley goal on replay today. Does Vaughn clearly signal for a penalty kick and THEN change to advantage...Seems he was a little quick to pull the trigger on calls last night. Hopefully he will be spared an appearence at Foxboro!

Hey nat...Do you woo Woo? ;)

Scott

[Dan B]

If Terry Vaughn works the middle of another MLS match I hope that it is not in the Big Razor.

I agree with Scott on the Beasley yellow. I believe that Curtin was positioned properly, but just out of the camera view. Otherwise Twellman would not have taken his foot off of the gas. Besides it was a just a push from behind, and if the tables were turned, I would have been upset at a Red on a Rev player in the same circumstance.

The closeups of Refferee Terry Vaughn showed that he was sweating profusely all night. The combination of a small pitch and a plastic surface created a tennis match approach to the game. He was clearly not in shape for this game, and it seemed to affect his calls. I can't tell if he was out of position, but it is telling that both calls were in the same corner of the pitch, away from any help an AR could have given him.

Nat ... do you have to turn in your badge now for critisizing another Referee?

[nsa]

Who's Nat?

[billf]

Hey NSA, do you do some C or C++ programming? That == seems like a dead giveaway? :)

I saw at least a little of every game last weekend. I didn't see much of the controversy last night though, so I can't comment on that other than to say that Twellman was definitely a target last night during the 45 minutes or so I watched.

Overall, I thought there were some things that we can learn from during this past weeks MLS matches. Refs seem to be slow to show the plastic so far and that's not what I expected to see as a season starts. The officating hasn't been bad, but nothing has really jumped out at me yet as something I should file away for future use either.

[wjarrettc]

Originally posted by nsa
Will Terry Vaughn ever get another MLS match?

First half (43rd minute) PK call when screened. Replays showed ball hit Heaps full in the face.

Joe-Max Moore re-enters MLS in the 70th minute; sent-off in the 74th. Trip? Yes. Trip from behind? NFW.

Ten minutes later Beasley takes down Twellman with a push from behind on a breakway...Yellow. :(


I hadn't watched the game yet, but through the miracle of TiVo I was able to check it out...

JMM's challenge for very fast and hard, but his feet never made contact with the player. The player tripped over his shin/knee. Surely a yellow, but not a red. My guess is that Vaughn was overly sensitive to JMM's pace on the play and acted rashly instead of gauging exactly how severe the foul was.

After watching the replay of the hand ball on Heaps, I can see how he missed that one. Vaughn was positioned on about the 25 yard pointy-ball stripe (35 yards from the end line) directly behind Heaps. Heaps did have his right arm up in an unnatural position at the time the ball impacted his face (I would too, probably if the ball was about to break my nose). I think Vaughn was out of position on that one, plain and simple. He should have yielded that call to his AR.

In another example of acting before thinking, he definitely pointed to the spot before Beasley knocked the ball into the goal. Realizing this, Vaugh throw his other arm up and ends up in an extremely awkward "Play On" motion. Good thing he wasn't running with his whistle in his mouth or I bet he would have blown the play dead before the goal.

[kevbrunton]

Originally posted by wjarrettc
After watching the replay of the hand ball on Heaps, I can see how he missed that one. Vaughn was positioned on about the 25 yard pointy-ball stripe (35 yards from the end line) directly behind Heaps. Heaps did have his right arm up in an unnatural position at the time the ball impacted his face (I would too, probably if the ball was about to break my nose). I think Vaughn was out of position on that one, plain and simple. He should have yielded that call to his AR.
There is no way an AR is going to flag a penalty kick from 60 yards away regardless of the angle of his view. He'd get crucified for doing that. It is WAY out of his quadrant of responsibility.

[soccertim]

I thought Vaughn did a bad job from early on until the end. There was at least one play that he could have given out a yellow card to a Fire player but rather gave him a "stern talking to". Also, a few minutes after JMM got ejected, Andy Williams upended Twellman near the sidelines by sliding in front of him after the ball was played forward, with no call.

Did anyone see the Dallas LA game? There was a play where a Burn forward charged an LA defender who was clearing the ball, and the ball hit the Burn player's hand (which was down by his side). The ref didn't blow his whistle as it was clearly inadvertant, but then whistled the play dead because it looked like the Burn player might get the ball. Should he have let play continue?

[O'Dubhghaill Rules!]

Originally posted by Dan B
If Terry Vaughn works the middle of another MLS match I hope that it is not in the Big Razor.
I do.

:D

[wjarrettc]

Originally posted by kevbrunton
There is no way an AR is going to flag a penalty kick from 60 yards away regardless of the angle of his view. He'd get crucified for doing that. It is WAY out of his quadrant of responsibility.

At the angle the play happened, I think the lead AR would have had a clearer view of whether or not it was a handball, although it was on the referee's side of the pitch.

Of course then Vaughn would have probably felt like I did this weekend when my trailing CLUB linesman tried to call handball on a goal scored against his team at the other end of the pitch (in case you're curious, I allowed the goal :))

[ProfZodiac]

Originally posted by O'Dubhghaill Rules!
I do.

:D

Hah! I'd want to see that one!

Prof

[Scott Zawadzki]

Originally posted by wjarrettc
Of course then Vaughn would have probably felt like I did this weekend when my trailing CLUB linesman tried to call handball on a goal scored against his team at the other end of the pitch (in case you're curious, I allowed the goal :))

Well done grasshopper. A club linesman can ONLY let assist you by telling you when the whole ball has crossed over the touch line or goal line.

Scott

[nsa]

Originally posted by kevbrunton
There is no way an AR is going to flag a penalty kick from 60 yards away regardless of the angle of his view. He'd get crucified for doing that. It is WAY out of his quadrant of responsibility. Subject to the pregame instructions, the ARs are encouraged to make that call (or non-call) on the far side if the referee is out of position or screened. This resulted from the mugging of Johnny Torres by Francis Okaroh in Foxboro several years ago. The referee was trailing 25-30 yards directly behind Francis and had no chance of seeing the jersey tug and shove that took JT off the ball.

[KidRef]

Yup, it was Noel Kenny trailing and Roger Itaya the SAR on that match to be exact and it was a long clear and Noel had no clue, and although Roger called a PK earlier in the match using his beeper flag, he chose not to there...so yes, the AR is responsible for things like that now, and with beeper flags, it makes it much easier to not attract the attention to yourself too.

On a positive note...Jair Maruffo did an amazing job on the Quakes-Rapids game!!! My favorite point was when there was about 15mins left in the match and two players were battling for the ball on the touch line opposite the AR about 20 yards from the corner, the ball goes out of play, the two players both look behind their backs for the referee with their arms up claiming it's their ball, and then (whether or not Jair actually said this or not I don't know, but something to the effects of hey guys, I'm over here (he was on the sideline right next to them and they had this oh $hit look on their faces like where did he come from)) and he pointed which way the ball was going and the players both had their mouths hangin wide open. He was on top of play the entire match, had relatively good foul selection, and his cautions were well issued. I liked how he got waibel for persistent and used the signal (it could have been UB on that play too, but he gets brownie points for the PI). Oh, and the AR's looked pretty good too, talking to players, taking control of the match, etc...

[MassachusettsRef]

I'm not surprised at the backlash from fans about the Joe-Max Moore red card, especially considering MLSnet lists it as a 'tackle from behind', which it wasn't. But, I am a little bit confused about other refs lambasting Vaughn so readily.

It's certainly up to a matter of opinion, but no one here thinks that Vaughn might have been in the right in determining that Moore's tackle was a foul tackle with "excessive force" and therefore worthy of a red card as serious foul play? I admit, on replay, I'm not sure if it's a yellow or red, but at first glance (live) and with the sound of the force of the tackle, I don't think anyone can fault Vaughn for going with a red. Remember, it's not just tackles with raised legs or studs exposed that warrant reds--otherwise "simple" tackles with brute force can be worthy of a red card as well.

Again, I'm not saying Vaughn was definitely correct--I'm just finding it hard to believe that so many are sure he was wrong.