The assignments for Week 13 of the 2018 Major League Soccer season: 05/25/2018 Toronto FC v FC Dallas BMO Field (8PM ET) REF: CHRISTOPHER PENSO AR1: CAMERON BLANCHARD AR2: LOGAN BROWN 4TH: ALEJANDRO MARISCAL VAR: GEOFF GAMBLE Houston Dynamo v New York City BBVA Compass Stadium (8:55PM ET) REF: ALLEN CHAPMAN AR1: ANDREW BIGELOW AR2: CHRIS WATTAM 4TH: DANIEL RADFORD VAR: JORGE GONZALEZ LA Galaxy v San Jose Earthquakes StubHub Center (11PM ET) REF: KEVIN STOTT AR1: ADAM GARNER AR2: MICHAEL KAMPMEINERT 4TH: HILARIO GRAJEDA VAR: ALEX CHILOWICZ 05/26/2018 Seattle Sounders v Real Salt Lake CenturyLink Field (5PM ET) REF: BALDOMERO TOLEDO AR1: APOLINAR MARISCAL AR2: JEFF HOSKING 4TH: MALIK BADAWI VAR: SILVIU PETRESCU Vancouver Whitecaps v New England Revolution BC Place (5:30PM ET) REF: JOSEPH DICKERSON AR1: COREY PARKER AR2: JEREMY HANSON 4TH: JON FREEMON VAR: EDVIN JURISEVIC New York Red Bulls v Philadelphia Union Red Bull Arena (7PM ET) REF: TED UNKEL AR1: KATHRYN NESBITT AR2: ADAM WIENCKOWSKI 4TH: GUIDO GONZALES VAR: DAVE GANTAR Orlando City v Chicago Fire Orlando City Stadium (7:30PM ET) REF: NIMA SAGHAFI AR1: PETER MANIKOWSKI AR2: JOSE DA SILVA 4TH: MARCOS DEOLIVEIRA VAR: KEVIN TERRY JR Minnesota United v Montreal Impact TCF Bank Stadium (8PM ET) REF: ALAN KELLY AR1: MATTHEW NELSON AR2: ERIC WEISBROD 4TH: LUIS GUARDIA VAR: CALEB MENDEZ Colorado Rapids v Portland Timbers Dick’s Sporting Goods Park (9PM ET) REF: SORIN STOICA AR1: JEFFREY GREESON AR2: CRAIG LOWRY 4TH: FOTIS BAZAKOS VAR: YOUNES MARRAKCHI Los Angeles FC v D.C. United Banc of California Stadium (10PM ET) REF: ISMAIL ELFATH AR1: IAN ANDERSON AR2: OSCAR MITCHELL-CARVALHO 4TH: HILARIO GRAJEDA VAR: ALEX CHILOWICZ 05/27/2018 Sporting Kansas City v Columbus Crew Children’s Mercy Park (6PM ET) REF: ROBERT SIBIGA AR1: JASON WHITE AR2: KEVIN KLINGER 4TH: DANIEL RADFORD VAR: JORGE GONZALEZ
Big week for the development group. Badawi, Freemon, and Guardia all have their debut as 4th officials. Guido Gonzales has his fourth assignment as fourth official.
LOS ANGELES FC vs. BORUSSIA DORTMUND (GERMAN... REF: BALDOMERO TOLEDO AR1: CAMERON BLANCHARD AR2: EDUARDO MARISCAL 4TH: MICHAEL RADCHUK Thought some would find these assignments interesting.
Genuinely impressed with Stoica who gave a Team PI in the 4th minute against Colorado. 4 fouls in the first 4 minutes.
Rapids just lost a goal through VAR. Correcrly based on the one in-stadium replay I saw, though the fans are ready to revolt.
I'm so confused by VAR in the LAFC/DC game tonight. Especially that Mattocks/Ciman handling incident that wound up being a foul coming out on Mattocks. I rewound the play several times and I am still not 100% sure where the foul on Mattocks was.
This has been a very weird game. Gave a good red to LAFC for a tackle that probably doesn't get red often enough in MLS. Second half has been...interesting.
That's an interesting one. If you have ESPN+, the angle at 63:42 and 63:49 on the game clock shows the very subtle contact on the left foot of the LAFC defender. Now the LAFC player clearly sells this contact and then lands on the ball and deliberately handles it. That subtle contact on a defender who's running towards his own goal line is almost always called a foul and I believe the correct decision was made by Elfath and Chilowicz. Still a very interesting scenario for VAR.
Here's a GIF that shows the contact on his left foot with 63:49 on the game clock. Subtle but it's there. https://i.imgur.com/kWghQkO.gif
Who would consider "subtle" to meet the "clear and obvious" standard, though? The only thing that's clear and obvious from the replays I watched, and that gif, is the Ciman dive and deliberate handling.
That's what makes this such an interesting situation. One of my biggest complaints about VAR is the standard to call a foul on the attacker that takes away a goal or PK is a lot lower than giving a PK. So in terms of how VAR has been applied in MLS and around the world, I think it was absolutely correct to give the free kick to LAFC. Do I think that lower standard for fouls on defenders will continue to cause VAR controversy? Yep. It'll happen in MLS again and it will likely happen at the World Cup. But as we saw with Atlanta and NYRB it doesn't take a whole lot of contact by an attacker on a defender to call back a goal (or in this case not give a PK).
Saw a late replay with Craig Lowry playing 4th official in Colorado. What's the story? Did Fotis have to run a line?
For anyone who is watching/watched the SKC-Columbus game, how could have VAR and Sigiba not sent off Martinez for the attempted strike on Sinovic? Law 12 says that a direct free kick foul can occur by "striking or attempting to strike", and even if the strike didn't connect it sure was intended to be around the head and neck area. I can only imagine that the reason for not sending Martinez off was because they felt there was no contact. Full disclosure that I'm a SKC fan, but I'd be asking the same question if it was Sinovic attempting to strike Martinez.
That may be the oddest non-use of VAR (e.g. a VAR check but not a review) that I can remember in MLS if not the entire VAR experiment.
That one's up there with the Mattocks elbow from week 1 in my book as far as "what the hell was the VAR thinking."
REF: JOSEPH DICKERSON AR1: COREY PARKER AR2: JEREMY HANSON 4TH: JON FREEMON VAR: EDVIN JURISEVIC This crew gets the best hair award.
There was a weird VAR moment in the Red Bull Union game. Around the 60th minute, the Red Bulls were through on goal and Blake came out to challenge, and for me clearly got the ball. However, it didnt matter anyway as the Red Bull striker was correctly called offside. Where it gets strange is that VAR wanted to have a look again as the restart was delayed. Assuming it wasnt something else they were looking at (red card offense off the ball) I thought VAR could not be used after that point as the offside call stopped the game. Is that correct?
I was able to find it and watch it. The whistle was blown for offside after the goalkeeper committed the challenge on the Red Bull player. This allows the VAR to look at the play to see if it was a penalty kick (which it wasn't). If it was a PK committed by the goalkeeper, then it would have been awarded if the RBNY player was onside (which he wasn't) since the whistle came after the challenge.
Utterly baffling. Did they have equipment trouble? Weren't able to see a replay? If not, there is 100% no excuse for not giving the RC. https://www.si.com/soccer/2018/05/2....com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=si-soccer
There had to be some communication failure between the VAR and Sibiga - he had his hand to his earpiece for quite a while but never went to the monitor for this one. He had sent off Higuain in the first half on a play he missed but VAR caught, and he went to the monitor for that one. I cannot fathom the VAR seeing the incident and concluding that it was not VC. Someone dropped the ball here.
Blaming this on VAR is one thing--and its true, they dropped the ball big time. But also, the 4th and trailing AR should have been able to see that in real time. I get that JAR has play coming to him, and has his eyes on the ball, but the SAR and 4th should have had this. Like Geiger's send-off last week (and Grajeda's two weeks ago) that VAR got correct...I'm glad VAR bailed them out but these things really should be seen in real time. I wonder if the trailing AR and 4th just aren't watching off the ball anymore because of VAR?
This lack of VAR review on that is really baffling. Did Sibiga and/or PRO offer any sort of explanation for this?
This past week just shows how difficult this sport is to officiate at the top levels. We have handling decisions that range from not a PK to probably a PK to absolutely a PK. Then we also have about a half dozen orange card tackles.