The assignments for Week 32 of the 2018 Major League Soccer season: 10/06/2018 Montreal Impact v Columbus Crew Stade Saputo (3PM ET) REF: Alan Kelly AR1: Joe Fletcher AR2: Matthew Nelson 4TH: Chris Penso VAR: Kevin Terry Jr Atlanta United v New England Revolution Mercedes-Benz Stadium (3:30PM ET) REF: Kevin Stott AR1: Brian Poeschel AR2: Andrew Bigelow 4TH: Rubiel Vazquez VAR: Edvin Jurisevic Toronto FC v Vancouver Whitecaps BMO Field (5PM ET) REF: Jose Carlos Rivero AR1: Adam Wienckowski AR2: Nick Uranga 4TH: Chico Grajeda VAR: Younes Marrakchi Philadelphia Union v Minnesota United Talen Energy Stadium (7:30PM ET) REF: Allen Chapman AR1: Jason White AR2: Oscar Mitchell-Carvalho 4TH: Marcos DeOliveira VAR: Jorge Gonzalez FC Dallas v Orlando City Toyota Stadium (8PM ET) REF: Nima Saghafi AR1: Kyle Atkins AR2: Jeremy Kieso 4TH: Alejandro Mariscal VAR: Ricardo Salazar Sporting Kansas City v LA Galaxy Children’s Mercy Park (8:30PM ET) REF: Jair Marrufo AR1: Jose Da Silva AR2: Adam Garner 4TH: Sorin Stoica VAR: Caleb Mendez Colorado Rapids v Los Angeles FC Dick’s Sporting Goods Park (9PM ET) REF: Armando Villarreal AR1: Cameron Blanchard AR2: Logan Brown 4TH: Joseph Dickerson VAR: Alex Chilowicz Real Salt Lake v Portland Timbers Rio Tinto Stadium (9:30PM ET) REF: Robert Sibiga AR1: Eric Weisbrod AR2: Corey Rockwell 4TH: Drew Fischer VAR: Guido Gonzales Jr San Jose Earthquakes v New York Red Bulls Avaya Stadium (10:30PM ET) REF: Baldomero Toledo AR1: Mike Rottersman AR2: Frank Anderson 4TH: Daniel Radford VAR: Rosendo Mendoza 10/07/2018 D.C. United v Chicago Fire Audi Field (1PM ET) REF: Ismail Elfath AR1: Eduardo Mariscal AR2: Corey Parker 4TH: Fotis Bazakos VAR: Mark Geiger 10/08/2018 Seattle Sounders v Houston Dynamo Centurylink Field (10:30PM ET) REF: Drew Fischer AR1: Chris Wattam AR2: Ian Anderson 4TH: Alejandro Mariscal VAR: Allen Chapman
Marrufo's getting roasted for his penalty call against SKC, but I think he probably got it right. Something caused Kamara's stride to change just before Melia gets there, and I think it was Besler clipping his heel. Regardless, the video is inconclusive IMO so check complete. Later on, LA had a goal controversially disallowed for offside via review, and I think the peanut gallery is probably missing an interceding LA touch on the cross that made the offside obvious. I don't think Marrufo is going to blow another offside review back to back... I mean, I hope not.
How does Sibiga and Gonzalez get it so wrong? No look at the Beckerman foul on Guzman, no review of Rimando's studs up tackle. Good thing he was quick to double down on his crap reffing and give out yellows for dissent
Exactly. The rush on Twitter—some of it from otherwise reasonable people—to condemn this call without even considering (never mind assuming, as I have) that there’s an interceding touch from an LAG player is baffling to me.
Turns out there didn't need to be a touch. Steres is off by inches on the cross, and it's clear and obvious because you can use the penalty area boundary line as a reference. There's no question that Steres is closer to the line than all of the defense. So that @LAGalaxy goal by @dsteres44 vs @SportingKC that was overturned by VAR? So the model shows off by ~4". The behind-the-goal shot probably shows it the best.Can def. understand why the AR keeps flag down here, but VAR doing its job. pic.twitter.com/0zOrSBnpuw— SoccerPhotogrammetry AKA "A Nice Gentleman" (@OffsideModeling) October 7, 2018
I was at the SKC game last night and to say the crowd was hostile against Marrufo is putting it mildly. There were a few things he probably missed but it wasn’t terrible by any stretch of the imagination. The penalty got called right in front of me and I thought it looked correct but I was pretty far from the video board so I couldn’t really tell anything from it. He didn’t seem to have a great presence regarding the dissent from players. SkC also got very frustrated with the LA players staying down and there were several time when they rushed in to shout at the players on the ground. I personally would have liked to see him stepping in to stop that. He seemed almost too relaxed, like his intensity didn’t match the intensity of the game.
Every team has a referee that they seem to struggle with, although some coaches/fanbases are quicker to notice. Sometimes they never seem to be able to win, sometimes they seem to rack up a disproportionate number of cards, sometimes both. Marrufo is definitely that referee for SKC right now. SKC has a very poor record with Marrufo, particularly in the Vermes era, and are booked at a somewhat higher rate than most teams when he has the whistle. But of course, 26 games is not a particularly significant sample size. Anyway, for the curious: SPORTING KANSAS CITY REF: Jair MARRUFO 26 g, 1.88 Y/g, 3 R, 3 pens OPPs: 1.15 Y/g, 4 R, 3 pens SKC RECORD: 6 W - 9 D - 11 L (Includes playoffs)
Yeah, nevermind on that penalty. Definitely no contact where I thought, but it's still fairly inconclusive IMO, although I think penalty is probably not the preferred call...
I'm most upset about VR not getting involved in Bingham clearly punching Rubio in the head in the penalty area in second half stoppage time.
Yesssssss. It was open-handed so I wouldn't call it violent necessarily, but like the Rimando tackle, I think it's a clear penalty regardless of whether or not you think it's a red.
The video of the Rimando play is here: pic.twitter.com/zyJzLI9tKP— @proprietarysean.bsky.social (@proprietarysean) October 7, 2018 Sibiga didn't end up reviewing the play. Isn't this the sort of foul that merits a VAR review?
But on this play, we go back to what "football expects" per the IFAB and how we reconcile that with VAR. A goalkeeper striking a player's head with an open palm after said player headed the ball is, per the text of the LOTG, absolutely a penalty kick (if it occurs within the defensive penalty area). There's really no wiggle room. Yet, how often do we see it called? Short of something that appears premeditated or exceedingly violent, goalkeepers have been given much latitude on plays like this for decades. If a player gets a header off and the goalkeeper clatters into him immediately after, we very rarely see a penalty called. Right or wrong, it's hard to argue that hasn't been the reality. In the VAR era, some people now expect it. So we go back to the question of what context the "clear and obvious" or "is this clearly wrong?" question should be asked. Is VAR fixing things that are clearly wrong per the literal text of the Laws? Or is it meant to fix things that are clearly wrong viz-a-viz how a game has been "correctly" called in the historical context of the sport? In other words, is VAR intended to give football what it should "expect?" My observation is that referees are being instructed consistent with the latter approach while fans--ironically--now expect the former approach.
The only reason I expect it to be reviewed is because the league had increasingly shown very little tolerance for hits involving the head. Concussion lawsuits are an existential threat to several sports - mainly the various football codes. MLS itself has focused on reducing head impacts and punishing those that are fouls - like this one.
I don't disagree. I'm more implicitly suggesting that it's a call that needs to start happening with regularity on-the-field, without VAR intervention, before VARs can then say the lack of such a call is "clearly wrong."
Beckerman headlock #1 https://thumbs.gfycat.com/LiquidEqualGoldfish-mobile.mp4 Headlock # 2 😡😡😡😡😡😡#RSLvPOR #RCTID pic.twitter.com/EI5LsQ2bMn— Portland Timbers (@TimbersFC) October 7, 2018
Almost two seasons in and MLS still has not come close at all to any consistency with VAR. Goals getting disallowed for off the ball fouls that many would classify as slightly more than 50-50 plays (I have a foul on the DC play), then one of the most obvious penalties all year not sent down via VAR in Dallas. Seriously, why did Salazar not send down that penalty kick in the first minute? Is it because Sagafi is three yards away? I genuinely think that might be the worse VAR miss I have seen in MLS. Bar for SFP via VAR is all over the place week to week. Not a good week for VAR. It's just not getting better in MLS, but I think the overall officiating (if you don't include VAR) is actually getting better every year. The referees in MLS are just managing the games in a much better manner than before. I have been paying attention to it in Spain and it seems that the Spanish have a much better handle of things. I have been relatively impressed with how VAR has gone in Italy and Spain. It seems they are trying to get the call right more than focusing on "clear and obvious," "what football expects" or meeting some vague threshold of involvement that MLS seems to change on a week to week basis when it comes to SFP and violent conduct.
The further we get away from the World Cup the more impressed I am about how relatively smoothly VAR went in Russia.
Well, not using it at all to make VC decisions or to confirm identified fouls in the APP sort of helped, didn't it? As @RedStar91 has said many times, FIFA got lucky that there was nothing truly close to "clear" SFP and no VC that fell into the category where the whole world felt that no red card was an injustice. The principle about an error of commission being worse than an error of omission simply extended to VAR. Look at Ronaldo's elbow; the VAR actually flagged it as a red card but only a yellow came out. We debated that for a day or two here on a referee forum. Imagine if it went the other way and the referee sided with the VAR? A world where domestic leagues use the protocols as written but FIFA does not at the international level is untenable with new technology. This is one of the reasons there was recently a VAR instructors seminar in Spain (Geiger, Barkey, and Cahen attended from the US). FIFA knows it needs to streamline things. The real question is what direction everything is going, because Geiger came back and literally a couple days later he's the one who flagged the foul in the DC United game... a foul that I truly don't think would have been given at the World Cup.
Interesting end to Minnesota-Colorado. Colorado scores to go up 2-0 at the very end of stoppage. Rapids CB Tommy Smith runs over in the area of the Minnesota bench (but not actually in front of it or looking at it) and screams at the stands. Couldn't tell from TV if he yelled something specific or just generally screamed. A Minnesota player comes off the bench and shoves Smith, setting off a general melee. After everything settles down the CR goes to VAR, comes back and shows Smith a red and two bench players for Minnesota a red. I don't know why Smith got a red, unless he said something specifically abusive or insulting. While letting off some frustration in the general direction of the stands is crass, it doesn't seem to fall into a red card foul on its own. Or am I wrong?
This will need to be moved into a new thread for week 33. I think Smith was sent off for something that happened in the scrum after he returned to the field. He was pushed several times by a MIN coach, but he never made any return physical contact that I saw at that point. MIN sub was sent for a hand to the throat of Hairston, I think. Not sure that all of the VC was actually caught by the review. It was chaos.