And you are correct about fans, coaches and fans at the lower level who do not understand the game and may I add the Laws of the Game. But we are talking about the highest level here and regardless of what opinion some may have of MLS, it is the top in our country. And the referees who do those games are suppose to be the best we have too. And while fans can cheer them team to victory, coaches decide on tactics and players play the game, referees should not decide outcomes. The job of the referee is to let the game flow and not get out of hand.
But who is going to decide if that foul in the box is a dive, trifling, careless, reckless, or violent? SOMETIMES, the referee has to make the decision! And help decide outcomes! The reason we have referees in the first place is that the players couldn't discern the difference. We (the referees) may not always get it correct, or at least get it right for your team, but it's the best system we (the soccer world) has been able to come up with.
Referees rarely decide the outcome of the game and they didn't in this case either. Referees do try and let the game flow and not get out of hand. They are there to make sure the LOTG are followed. If by "decide outcomes" you mean they catch a player breaking the LOTG and call him on it, it may call back a goal, or create a scoring opporatunity or PK, then so beit, the ref did NOT decide the outcome, he kept a player from cheating to decide the outcome.
Message for intechpc: If you want to disagree with me, go ahead and post your opinion. Do not hide behind sending a negative rep. And don't make assumptions about me when you know nothing of me. You have no idea what involvement I have in soccer or the soccer community.
Ok, so what is your point? Not trying to be argumentative there, just not sure what you are getting at. Are you making a general statement that MLS fans, coaches, players understand the game and the Laws? If so, I would agree with respect to the coaches, GENERALLY agree with respect to the players, and GENERALLY DISagree with respect to the fans. Sure, there are some diehard fans of MLS and fans of MLS teams who understand the game very well, but I do not think that it is anywhere near a majority. For what it's worth, I think the quality of MLS has improved noticeably in the past 5 or so years. 5 years ago, I couldn't stomach watching MLS on TV -- the level of play just wasn't good enough for me to want to watch. Nowadays, it has changed and I am willing to turn on the TV and watch an MLS game and actually enjoy it most times. This statement, often made by various people in and around soccer, annoys me more than just about anything. It implies so many things that are not true, such as... NOT blowing the whistle is somehow less of a 'decision' than blowing the whistle. I'm sorry, but it a key play happens at a key time in the game, in a key part of the field, the referee needs to make a decision. A no-call is just as much a decision as a call. The referee is part of the game. There's no way around it. The referee will affect and influence how the game is played and in some cases, the final score. There's no way around it. I did not watch this whole game; missed probably 20-25 minutes of the 1st half. I saw the whole 2nd half. From what I saw, these were my 2 main impressions: 1. This was a great game to watch! Very exciting stuff. 2. The referee did very well overall. Did he get a few things wrong? Probably. Nobody is perfect. In this game, I felt the referee DID let the game flow but did NOT let the game get out of hand. He could have called a tighter game and done some things to slow play down, to get players to relax at times, etc. But I think this would have been BAD for this particular game, and it is a credit to the referee that he did not need to employ such tactics; he was able to maintain control without doing so. There was so much emotion, intensity, and excitement and I was glad to see the referee for the most part did not pop a hole in that balloon.
These are not black and white decisions. Smart referees can spot this sort of thing; how they decide to handle the situation is another matter entirely. Do you give the free kick even though you think the player 'wanted' to get fouled? If he got fouled, does it really matter if he 'wanted' to get fouled? How far out of his way or outside what you would consider 'regular' playing behavior does the player need to go, in order NOT to get the call? Does it matter if you think the opponent 'wanted' to foul the player? Example: The player beats the GK and is in the process of jumping over the GK to continue chasing the ball and try to slide it into the empty net. Rather than make the leap over the GK, the attacker doesn't lift his knees up, so his legs and feet stay down low enough for contact to occur between him and the GK. The player loses control and falls; because of the contactn, there's no way he can stay up. Is it a foul or not? These are not easy decisions. I have many times NOT given this sort of foul because I felt the player was looking for the contact. Technically, an argument could be made that a foul occurred. There's no black and white guidelines on this; it is always 'in the opinion of the referee.' And may I add that these sorts of decisions, especially at the professional level but even at lower slower levels, are often very difficult to make. You aren't going to make any headway with this stuff in this forum. I browsed DC/Chi forum and it seemed that even DC fans were disagreeing with you, saying the handling call was correct. I didn't see anything worth calling against the defender and I think most of the refs in this forum feel the same way. So you are a DC fan and you aren't happy with this call. I wouldn't be, either. But to make the leap that the referee "referee shows lack of understanding how the game is played" and he 'does not understand what is going on between players' ??? This is not something you can determine based on the fact that he called a handball on this play. Maybe he didn't think there was any pushing foul on the play! Obviously there was contact between the 2 players but if the ref doesn't think it is a foul and he also sees what he feels is a handling infringement...he called what he saw. That doesn't mean he doesn't understand the game.
Unfortunately, it is not as rare as it should be, at all levels. That does not mean that all referees are bad. But the bad apples (or incidents) do give the rest of us a bad name. Look, I put a lot of the blame on Sepp Blatter, who has changed the role of the referee drastically over the years. It use to be that referees had more discretion and were able to control a match without having the rules tell them how to do so. Now with the automatic yellows, which have made yellow cards worthless, more pressure is put upon referees. Maybe I am too old school. I remember the days that when a referee said something to you it was serious. And if you got a yellow card, even more so. With Blatter's attempt to try to regulate everything, it has made things worse, not better.
Bluedevils - We are here to express opinions. And I am glad you have done so. I am not trying to win a debate. Just express my views, which may not be in agreement with others. That is fine. Too often, people try to take things to serious around here. My intent is not to make some kind of headway with people. Just hope that they can see things from a different perspective. You bring up a good point about whether a player wanted to get fouled and do you still call it. One problem is that we tend to look at fouls usually committed by players who are not in possession of the ball. In basketball, there is offensive charging. Well, as the Laws are in place, nothing to prevent those type of calls being made either. For instance, if a player pushes the ball to one side or the other, or even nutmegs a players, why is it that he has a right to run through the defender? Often, the call is made against the defender. In your example above, maybe the attacking player is at fault. Or maybe it is just unavoidable contact, which happens a lot in this game. Not all contact is a result of a foul. But there are referees who do not see it that way. Look, I responded to a comment here about coaches, players and fans not understanding the Laws. I see it both ways. If some find it as criticism, it is. Don't take it personally because I have not seen any of you referee (and if I have, I do not know who you are here), so it is not intended towards anyone here. But I have seen my fair share of bad and good referees during my years and that reflects upon my opinions.
I agree. I played on a 1st division men's amateur team for a few years. We had 1 player, an attacker, who did something CONSTANTLY that I NEVER saw him penalized for... when he had the ball in his possession and was stationary, while the defender was nearby...rather than keeping his body in between ball and opponent, he would lunge/jump at / charge to knock the defender away. Most times, he did this in a very physical manner, sometimes near violent. I hated it and if I had ever refereed him, I would have called it repeatedly until he stopped doing it. Not once did I see him penalized for this. I guess the refs just let him get away with more contact because he had the ball. That's not right.
Bluedevils...are you syaying your teammate, while in playing distance of the ball, failrly charged the opponent to keep them from getting the ball? And this is a penalty??
OK, I'm going to put the proverbial cat amongst the pidgeons ... lets switch the player roles. Now Gomez is a defender in his own box and instead of shooting when the ball hits his arm he clears it out for a corner ... are you going to call a PK on him?
I guess it is a 'you had to be there.' I'm talking about a LOT of contact -- way too much. The guy would launch himself into the opponent, sometimes knocking the unsuspecting opponent to the ground. If the opponent, who did NOT have the ball, had done this to the player with the ball, it would be an automatic call every time. The same should apply if the player with the ball does it. In other words, the player with the ball should not have more privilege to do things than the player without the ball.