Maybe that's part of it. And maybe Bradley just recognizes that minimum contact there, with a deliberate swim move, is always going to risk the penalty call. But the replays we got seem to show almost no contact. Having watched Bradley for years, in that moment and that situation, if he truly felt he barely touched the attacker, I just expected a much more animated reaction. Either way, it is kudos to Kelly on that aspect of the call. Because either he caught something that the cameras don't easily show or he fooled Bradley into thinking the foul was more severe than it really was.
Scandalous is too strong of a word because it doesn't match with public perception. And if the public doesn't think it's a scandal, then it's not. However, if everyone truly understood the laws here and thought about it, then yes, if Toronto plays a man down for 80 minutes and that man is Bradley, I'm pretty sure most simulations would put the odds of Atlanta progressing in the 95%+ range even with the missed penalty. So to understand the law and simultaneously say the decision didn't very likely allow the outcome to be changed is naive. But back to public perception. People see this as a soft foul. It's early on. The DOGSO rule has changed so there's confusion. There are all sorts of reasons why a yellow card is the expected or publicly acceptable call. Kelly likely made an LOTG error (in judgment) by going yellow but if he is giving everyone what they want and expect in this situation, is he really wrong? We talk about error of omission vs. commission and how the commission one is always perceived worse. A corollary to that is that sometimes the error of omission can be more publicly acceptable than a correct application ("non-error of commission?"). I'm not defending Kelly from an LOTG perspective. But I also don't think he, Howard Webb, or many Atlanta fans lost sleep over the decision last night.
I can get on board. I would need to see the replay again, but I've also heard some people say that Bradley also made some leg contact with Martinez. Not sure how legit that is, but if it's the case Kelly could sell a DOGSO-caution much more easily. This is definitely a play where the "push, pull, or hold" part of the DOGSO-send off protocol could result in a harsh decision. Bradley was definitely making a soccer play. It wasn't like he was yanking Martinez back by the back of his jersey to prevent a 1 v 1. In terms of "what football expects" or spirit of the game, yellow does seem like a fair outcome (and why Kelly is a FIFA in ability, if not currently in rank because he's an expat while I'm just a humble grassroots referee. ).
The quality of the picture is bad, but watching this video, in the 32nd second it looks like Bradley's left leg contacts the right foot of Martinez.
That would explain the muted protest, justify the yellow, and make the lack of VAR intervention perfectly reasonable. Now, I harbor some serious doubts that Kelly would have been able to call that leg contact when the arm action is so blatant, but that really doesn't matter. You can at least argue he got it right if there's leg contact. And, most importantly, it explains why both of the other important actors here (Bradley and VAR) more or less accepted the decision.
https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2019...-against-atlanta-instant-replay?autoplay=true How does LAFC not get at least one penalty kick here? Marrufo, as usual, just refuses to get involved in a game and make any affirmative decisions. Doesn't call obvious fouls and clear penalties which leads to frustration and dissent. Then he pleads with the players that it's being checked with the VAR and the VAR does nothing and it just becomes one giant charade. There were elbows thrown in that game and just extremely hard bordering on violent tackles and nothing called. It obviously works for him as he keeps getting big games, but it's so frustrating to watch and not a good advert for quality officiating and quality soccer.
I guess they have a clear angle showing that leg contact? That still image doesn't really seem to show much of anything
Even with leg contact, it was from behind with Bradley having no realistic opportunity to get the ball and therefore a huge stretch to conclude that it was a legitimate attempt to play the ball. It's a red card in my games. But then in my games, Josef buries the PK. p.s. On third thought, wouldn't an upper-body push/pull/hold translate to a red card even if there is also leg contact resulting from an arguable attempt to get the ball? Don't you penalize the graver offense?
I thought the translation from the LOTG legalese to lay terms was that lower body fouls are a yellow, unless the defender is just swinging at the ankles from behind, and upper body fouls are a red
Right. This one fell in the "just swinging at the ankles from behind" category, in my humble and utterly unbiased opinion.
ATL lost because they couldn't score, Toronto scored two golazos that were mostly lazy defending (you can teach a 7 year old pressure cover), and the Toronto keeper had a great game. I also agree with Webb's analysis that this decision was well within the spirit of the law change. Grey area? Sure. Hence the discussion. But yellow is the more correct decision. https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2019...-against-atlanta-instant-replay?autoplay=true
In my opinion as well on this, I think that any time there's doubt about yellow or red on a DOGSO that the referee will go with a caution. I know that when I'm on the field, I'll want to be 100% sure that all of the requirements for a send off are met before going that route. Not saying it's right, but if I'm doing that in my youth games, I'm 99.9% sure the professionals are going to do that as well.
While I think you can defend that position in an assessment setting, from my view, I see Bradley take an abnormal stride trying to get around the back of Martinez to be able to make a better challenge.
Sure. But again, let's not be naive in what playing 10 v 11 away from home without Bradley for 80 minutes while already down 1-0 would have been like for Toronto. Anything can happen, but it's a much different scenario than 11 v 11. I said Webb's statement was well done because it was absolutely founded in what current instruction is and quite detailed about it. When this law change was first made, there was a lot of confusion on where the line was between red and yellow based on how the text was constructed. The instruction has now been very consistent and it is essentially that if you have a justification to go yellow, you do it. It's not a situation where you punish the "graver" offence as if there are two different offences. If there is an upper body foul and a lower body foul, you give the attacker the benefit of the doubt and go yellow (notwithstanding the obvious exceptions, alluded to above, where the lower body foul is just a deliberate kick with no attempt to play the ball). Look, given my first post here this is a mea culpa on my part. The right call--or at least a perfectly defensible call--was made. In situations like this, I will always harbor some doubts that a referee saw things perfectly and made this call accurately based on a correct observation of the facts as presented later on video (I know that I would be focused on the arm movement and have a real difficult time being certain about leg contact) but with VAR, you can check the existence of leg contact so it's safer to go yellow and then have to upgrade if you're clearly wrong. Of course, this does lead to a big and unanswerable question. Webb's explanation concedes this was DOGSO, which was a conclusion some doubted initially. So if the leg contact was non-existent, would VAR have actually sent this down for a clear error? From reading Webb's post, you would have to infer that the VAR would deem that a clear error. But given we've had 12 playoff matches without a single OFR, I have my doubts!
I'm also at AUFC fan, so far from unbiased, But while I get the yellow justification for Bradley, he had 2 if not 3 more professional fouls in the open field later in the game. There's really no point in giving any cards if they are meaningless and don't force a player to clean up their act. Similarly, while Seattle was the better team, it really felt like there were several cards worth of repeated fouls and uncarded professional fouls in that game as well. What is the point of bringing a Vela or Barco to the league, if like the NHL back in the 80s they can be negated by unattractive play by lesser players? While the "man's game" end with 11 yielded a lot of good earlier games, it really feels like we're likely to end up with a dreary scoreless bus trip to PKs for a final based on the way the conference finals were played and called.
This is almost stated policy for the MLS and especially in the playoffs. Bradley was never going to get a second yellow in a semi-final and I doubt there's a player who could unless they assaulted the referee. And that would still be a yellow!
Because in both cases it was ball-to-arm with the defender have zero reaction time. In case #1, Diomande was trying to flick the ball up to himself, and it hit Arreaga's arm, which was entangled with Diomande's arm. Zero reaction time and no intent. In case #2, both defenders are jumping in the air to try and clear a cross. The ball goes over Kim's head, and Arreaga heads it against Kim's arm before he even has a chance to land. Again, zero reaction time and no intent. Outside of MLS those are both PK's under current FIFA rules, since intent is irrelevant. But FIFA rules do not take effect in MLS until next season, because they were modified after the current MLS season had already begun.
To be fair, most of it was just quoting Webb. Doug does an OK job but he's too kushy with the team and never asks the difficult questions because he's too scared to lose the access he's currently provided.