Rockchester/KC fight, etc.

The fight would not have been bore then the two guys going at it if the KC guys didn't involve themselves by going after randon Rhinos players. It was just like a brawl in baseball, people get hurt. Legal action possibilities are horrendous, it just wont happen, or stand up. Racial slurs, KC can talk but the person accused of these slurs is of the same race as the person it was directed at.

But beyond that, it was a REALLY good fight. Man on ground puts cleats in another guys stomach and flips him over his head onto his back. It was an all out brawl. But i dont see any need for legal action, or for KC to see that Rochester deserves the blame.

Emotions boil, cheap fouls, huge comeback, it was odvious to everyone at the game that the fight was coming from what i hear.

 

I was listening to the game and about 15 minutes before the fight the commentator made the comment that if the ref didn't get the game under control that something was going to happen.

 

This is actually a consistent problem with the Rhinos when playing MLS teams. They go so hard that they go over the edge. It's not as bad now as it was about 3-4 years ago, when every game with an MLS team seemed to be an ugly, chippy, fighting affair. I remember Lubos Kubik getting red carded in a game that Chicago lost to the Rhinos, and it was so bad that I didn't really want to watch the Rhinos any more for a while. This was when they had a player named John Ball, who was talented, but evil. I was so glad when they waived him, and this behavior hadn't been around much since then.

It's not surprising. MLS players seem to want to play these games like friendlies, and are outraged when they get fouled the first time. Meanwhile, the A League players want to win more than anything else, and go full-out, which results in hard tackles. If a ref lets it get away from him, it's a disaster waiting to happen.

 

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/sports/soccer/mls/kansas_city_wizards/3729177.htm

This is completely unacceptable.

The Rochester players who sucker punched Diego should be banned from US soccer of any sort for life. I don't care what KC did or did not do. If the Rhinos felt so aggrieved, they can protest to the USSF. I know this is like pissing in the wind, but there's no excuse for sucker punching a player from behind after the game like a bunch of junior high school cowards. This is utterly uncalled for and these apes should be kicked out of soccer for good.

The Rhinos should be banned from the USOC for two or three years to teach their organization that its players must act like civilized human beings and not a bunch of fucking monkeys.

 

as was the KC punk who sprinted from the goal line all the way back to the center line and just dove in and threw a flying punch at anyone with no regard to who he hit. For all we know they flying hit was the one that did the damage. Who could tell with the KC bench just grabbing anybody they could.

 

Bullshit. It's obvious what happened and if you want to go into denial that's your cross to bear, not the rest of the world's. I'm not even a Wizards fan but the Rhinos threw the first punch, they ganged up on one Wizards player like a bunch of pussies and they should pay the consequences. Period. The Wizard's player involved should be fined or suspended for a game but this is not the first time the Rhinos have pulled this kind of crap and they need to be taught a lesson.

 

From my vantage point in the stadium, no one was ganging up on anyone.. It was a brawl.. Some players were fighting, some were trying to break it up.. I saw a couple of your KC players join in the fight with leaping kicks.. Both sides are equally to blame, and KC is absolutely trying to spin this to make them seem like the victims, which in no way they were.. Makes me sick..

 

They're not "my" KC players. "My" Fire lost to the Rampage in a hard fought but clean game during the same round but, unlike the Rhinos, the Fire players didn't feel the need to cheap shot anyone after the game.

The news stories say it was the Rhinos who sucker punched Diego first and not a Crew player, not the Rampage mascot, not the Dalai Lama or anyone else. The Rhinos threw the first punch so they should be banned. It's not like this is the first time they've been involved in something like this either. I can understand they have a big chip on their shoulders about playing MLS teams but they need to learn some self-control.

The sad thing is that I doubt the chickenshits at USSF will do anything about this no matter what they find. That's what makes me sick. It's just a shame the Rhinos will probably get away with injuring Gutierrez so bad with a sucker punch. What a bunch of girls. If they're going to act like animals and start fights they could at least fight like men.

 

What we need to get straight is that what you are reading is from a Kansas newspaper. It has the perspective of the Kansas players, what are they going to tell the national media 'well i was clipping the whole game, and they Rhinos knew i was playing cheap, she the guy punched me'. No! They say what makes them sound good.

There was atleast eight players from each side who were involved with the fighting, there may well have been a couple '2-on-2's, but there was no 'multiple Rochester players on one Wizard'.

And for Klein to say stuff like 'this happens in Rochester' is rediculous. It happens when tempers flare. I dont condone fighting at all, all im saying is that the blame cannot go solely on Rochester, and beyond that it is rediculous to say 'The rhinos should be banned' if you weren't even at the game to see what happened.

 

Nice try shooting the messenger. Here's a Rochester source. Of course, it's from Rochester so it must be totally biased and can therefore be dismissed out of hand, right?

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/sports/rhinos/0726story1_rhinos.shtml

Anyway, I've said it before and I'll say it again: I don't give a flying monkey's ass what happened during the game, there's NO EXCUSE - Got that? NO EXCUSE! Get it through your head - for sucker punching someone after the game. If the Rhinos felt so aggrieved they should have protested to the USSF. I don't hate the Rhinos (any team that has a guy named Lenin Steenkamp on their roster can't be all bad!) and I admire what they've done on and off the pitch in the A-League but despite Economides's protests to the contrary the Rhinos do have a rep for playing dirty when playing MLS teams and it seems earned. I didn't mean to brand every single Rhinos player a "girl" (just the one(s) who sucker punched Gutierrez) but this incident is disgusting and unfortunately it's not the first time the Rhinos have gone over the top when playing an MLS team. The difference is this time they could have cost an opposing player his eye.

It sounds like the benches cleared after the initial attack. That's the way most stupid bench-clearing brawls end up. I supposed you're going to tell us next that Diego hit himself in the head just to make those poor defenseless Rhinos look bad...

This would have more weight to it if the Rhinos hadn't been involved in other incidents with different MLS teams and if the injury they caused this time around wasn't so severe. I'm fully aware that nobody, including me, wants to think of their team as "dirty" or "thugs" and we all bristle when such a charge is levelled at our team but there does seem to be a consistent pattern emerging here with the Rhinos when they play MLS teams and it needs to be stopped before an even more serious injury happens. Until I see some credible report that says a KC player threw the first punch, I think the Rhinos need to be sat down for a while and need to reflect on the line between being fired up for a big game against a higher division opponent and being out of control.

I know the wussies at the USSF well enough to know better, but I still hope the inquiry finds whoever hit Diego and bans him/them for life. This incident is too serious to let the guilty get off with a mere warning or a suspension. I hope that any other players from either side who used racial slurs during the game or engaged in the brawl after Diego got decked get fined at least and possibly suspended.

I'm not a Wizards fan and I'll be rooting for the Rampage when the play KC in Milwaukee on Aug 7, but I will say for the Wizards that I was there in Chicago when KC lost to the Chicago Sockers D3 team in a brutal USOC game where the Sockers bunkered after scoring and fouled a lot of KC players. The Wizards didn't go around after the game calling Sockers players racial slurs, cheap-shotting anyone, starting brawls or nearly taking someone's eye out. The Rhinos seem to need to learn how to keep their self-control, dignity and pride in similar conditions when playing MLS teams and a ban would hopefully drive the lesson home to them. If an MLS team develops a similar pattern of incidents, I'll say the same thing about them. I know you don't want to hear all that but that's what I think based on the info I have from KC and other sources. If the reports change, then I'll reconsider but I doubt the story that we've gotten is off base. I still think the Rhinos need to get a better grip on themselves when playing MLS teams. It will be interesting to see if USSF wusses out on this incident like they usually do.

 

More KC running dog propaganda to confuse the minds of the masses:

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascitystar/sports/3736345.htm

Of course, this is a KC source so nothing in this article can possibly be true...

 

A message for whomever said this "Anyway, I've said it before and I'll say it again: I don't give a flying monkey's ass what happened during the game, there's NO EXCUSE - Got that? NO EXCUSE! Get it through your head"



One word for you - DECAFFIENATED - Try it sometime. Maybe getting away from the computer for awhile would help, too.


And actually being at the game wouldn't have hurt, either, loser. Don't bother responding, either. Myself and everyone else doesn't care anymore, move on. I am - have a nice life, loser.

 

Talk about a classic case of someone who needs to follow his own advice.

When people stop trying to excuse an unacceptable assault on a player with "Yeah, but..." I'll stop pointing out to them that their excuses don't matter.

 

pakovitz, I'm a Rhinos fan but think I'm fairly level-headed.

However, you're still basing everything on a Kansas City paper's report. You linked the Rochester article that basically says that there was a fracas and Gutierrez is considering suing Wilson. Nowhere in there does it say that a Rhino threw the first punch.

The severity of the injury is unimportant unless we know how it happened. If (I'm not saying this is what happened, just saying if) Gutierrez punched Wilson and Wilson punched back, breaking his eye socket, then Gutierrez is more to blame than Wilson is IMO. We don't know who hit whom first.

I wasn't there, so I won't go overboard screaming about what little girls the Rhinos are or calling for the team to be banned or anything. Let's see what the USSF investigation concludes and then react. They'll have access to a lot more information than any of us will. Hopefully there will be video footage.

I agree that the Rhinos have a history of heated games with MLS teams, as I said earlier in the thread. Nothing ever went anywhere near this far before, though. And Wilson is a player who doesn't foul much, doesn't take many fouls, and generally isn't a player that opposing teams hate. He wasn't on the team for any of the earlier heated games.

That said, if USSF finds him guilty, I agree that severe punishment is warranted. Not against the team, but against the player.

 

Look, I'm not quoting a Wizards press release here. The US news media may have its faults but this "If it's a KC paper, it must be 100% wrong" argument belongs in a New Jersey landfill. Face it, the overwhleming probability is that your team's players lost control and started a brawl by jacking Gutierrez in the face, almost taking his eye out. I mean, what are you gonna claim next? That Diego hit himself in the head just to make those poor defenseless Rhinos look bad?

Well, we all know that Rochester papers are completely incapable of anything resembling objectivity in any local story...

Seriously, though, your own boy Economides has promised fines and suspensions. Obviously, he knows that some of his players did something really bad and he's trying to head off the USSF justice by promising them his own brand of vigilante action. Typical corporate damage control tactics.

The severity of the injury is directly relevant here because it comes after a series of incidents that form a pattern and it may lead to legal action that USSF desperately wants to avoid. This would bring outside forces into the game and so it is very different from if he had just gotten a bruise, as totally wrong and unacceptable as that would have been anyway.

And obviously it was Martians who flew down from a UFO and jacked Diego. Damn those Martians! I knew they were dirty bastards ever since I saw "Mars Attacks!"

I wish I had more faith in those spineless jellyfish over on Prairie Avenue to actally find the culprit and administer justice. The sad thing is I know better. But who knows, maybe the threat of legal action by Diego will finally do the trick for once.

This is exactly why I buy the "Rhinos hit first" story. They have a history and Rhinos management apparently has done nothing to stop it. Now the Rhinos organization is in damage-control mode although Economides's quotes do not inspire confidence of real change. The fact that it is several players over time from the same organization who have set the pattern makes it an organizational issue, not just a coincidence or a "few bad apples" deal.

Even if a KC player did initiate this particular fight, I still think whoever hit Gutierrez should be banned for life as an example to others - with the KC player also receiving copious amounts of bad-ass justice as well. The circumstances surrounding his/their action(s) are too serious for there to be no consequences.

Will banning the Rhinos from the USOC for two years as I propose if their player is found be guilty of punching Gutierrez be fair to all Rhinos players or their fans? No. Then again, banning all English teams from the continent after Heysel wasn't technically fair to every single English team or supporter either but, to be honest, it had to be done because sometimes a wake up call has to be issued to prevent further problems down the line.

Given the Rhinos' history in games in which they play MLS opponents, I think a wake up call is in order unless it can be proven that a KC player initiated the violence. Even then, someone from USSF needs to sit down with the entire Rhinos team and staff and make it clear that the next similar incident will have very serious repercussions and then the USSF needs to make that warning stick. If making an example of the Rhinos is what it takes for Economides to get his team under control, so be it. If it was an MLS team or even the Fire, I'd say the same thing. The last thing professional soccer in this country needs is this kind of violent, injury-causing incident getting press here and this makes it bigger than any one team or player.

I admire your willingness to stick up for your team. In this case, however, I think you're trying to deny the obvious.

 

This is turning into a classic case of he says, she says. Until we all see video of this i think we need to settle down.

http://www.rochesterdandc.com/sports/rhinos/0719story1_rhinos.shtml

If the KC player punched him first and he hit back then the KC player deserves more punishment. joseph pakovits seems to think that no matter what, Rochester deserves all of the blame which is rediculous.

The Rochester players involved do deserve some kind of punishment, as do the players on KC, who are we to decide what those punishments should me. And to have the audacity to say that this is Rochester's fault, Meola was starting crap the whole game. It is the ref's fault for not calling fouls, and then both teams lost any sense of maturity, but lets not blame ths solely on the Rhinos.

 

Nice straw man but I thought Guy Fawkes Day wasn't until autumn. Go back and read what I actually wrote and then comment on that instead of the voices in your head.

I do think the Rhinos seriously need to check themselves because it's them, not KC or any other MLS team, who has the bad rep in this case. If KC had a history of thugging up on A-League teams the way Rochester has with MLS teams, the story would be different. But it's not, is it?

Also, my comments have not been based on this incident alone but on the history the Rhinos have of precious incidents which cannot be ignored or pooh-poohed away anymore. At some point enough is enough and I think the disturbing nature of this incident and its possible legal repercussions signal that we have now reached this point. It's just a shame it was allowed to get this far and it took a guy almost losing an eye for something, however weak it will likely be, to be done.

Since you didn't seem to catch it the first time, I'll say it again. If the Rhinos did start the fight, they should be banned from the USOC for two years. I'll add that this would be for not only what happened this time and for their cumulative history of incidents.

Even if they didn't start the fight, the USSF needs to sit down with the whole team and tell them to stop the string of incidents in A-League/MLS games that only seems to happen with they are the MLS opponent.

If the Wizards started the fight, which I highly doubt although I could be wrong, I think they should be banned from the USOC for one year.

If this was a Rhinos player who'd been punched like that I bet you'd have plenty to say about possible punishments. You'd be screaming bloody murder for all the Wizards players to be taken out and shot.

Regardless of what happened this time around, I suggest you try looking at your boy Economides and the utterly boneheaded and classless remarks about Meola he made well before this game and then ponder the old Russian proverb "a fish starts to stink from its head" before you go around trying to blame Meola for what your boys have done and trying to excuse them of any wrongdoing in this case. Nice way to set the tone there, Mr. Economides.

As it is, it's too bad for you that Meola wasn't the one who almost cost Diego his eye. One of your players was. Period. No "yeah buts", no excuses, no whining about what Meola said or what the ref did or did not do. Even if Meola personally went up to every Rhinos player on the pitch and insulted them to their faces and even if the ref gave your team the finger, if a guy can't take a verbal taunting or a disappointing game result without starting a fight, he doesn't belong in professional sports. It's that simple. Maybe if Economides would keep his big yap shut and provide a positive example of sportsmanship to his team then his boys might be better able to keep their cleats and fists to themselves.

It will be interesting to see what the videotape shows and what the USSF does with it. Since they'll probably wuss out and not take any real action regardless of who was at fault, I can at least hope they'll keep a really close eye on the Rhinos in their next USOC match, assuming there is one next year.

PS. I'm not putting much into the "racial epithet" thing. Did it happen? Given the circumstances, I'm inclined to believe it did. Can it be proven? Only if one of the sideline mikes caught it. Of course, the player accused is hardly going to 'fess up and say "Hell yeah, I said that!" unless he's knows he's busted somehow.

 

Pakovits, we'd all like to go back and re-read what you wrote, but we'll wait until it becomes a 3 part novel.

 

Now I enjoy going at people on these boards, but this is the most unintelligent, asinine, shameful thing I have ever read on these boards.

The Rhino player(s) must be banned from US soccer.

 

OK, friends of ours who were at the game as members of the media (i.e., not the team, nor fans) tell us that Diego was sucker-punched, then jumped by at least two guys. Your FELLOW fan (Rhinobhoy21 or whatever) then comes to our board and brags that two Rhinos dragged Bo Oshoniyi to the ground, and proceeded to throw him a boot party. That's at least two documented 'multiple Rochester players on one Wizard' incidents. Rochester started this, and should have to pay the price. The Wizards had more than enought right to jump in and prevent a mauling of one of their own.

 

Pakovits, I admire your passion, but you did you see the game. Did you see what transpired? No, I didn't think so.

KC gave as good as they got. The real issue is the referee crew was in over their head and were incapable of keeping control of the match. It just boiled over. I wouldn't cry to much for for the victimized Diego, he had two definite "intent to cause bodily harm fouls" during the game. Maybe kharma cold cocked him?

 

"I would imagine they wanted to do anything to hurt our organization, so that was the best way," Wilson said.

Yeah, the Wizards I'm sure have been obsessed with discrediting those sterling Rhinos for years.

This kind of mealy-mouthed weaseling says it all for me.