First of all... Again??? When have we discussed something before? Second? The direct correlation? If you think that contact was enough to cause THAT sort of reaction from Henderson then your bias is clearly evident. He sold it just like many others in this tournament. Good thing your opinion is so unbiased. Good thing we are back to matches today so hopefully this thread can just die.
You also said, "the game was a shit show and was horribly painful to watch" As a fan, I definitely think it was a mess for about 15 minutes with the peak being the mass confrontation before the PK. I would not characterize the game as being a shit show or the least bit unwatchable, other than the one stretch where it did appear that Geiger was losing control.
Thanks. I didn't ask for your interpretation of what happened, just what was reviewable. I think Kane had his cake and ate it, too. Sanchez isn't grabbing him until Kane swims over him like a defensive lineman (by throwing his arm over Sanchez and pushing him down). But to be clear, I think Kane is a giant cheat. Amazing at soccer by the rules, but also a giant cheat. England has no moral ground vs Colombia. It's like frat boys vs. gangs. Straight cultural bias. Both sides were disgusting. There, I interpreted, too!
@Rickdog That is not how the system is currently designed. The referee is expected to make the call on the field that he would make in the absence of VR. VR is there to correct errors, not to make calls. If the R believes a yellow is the right decision, but that there may be something he missed, he can ask the VAR to look at it, and to see it himself if he needs to. But when he looks at the video, he is not asking himself what the best decision would be, but whether the first decision he made was clearly and obviously wrong. So many decisions would not be reversed regardless of which decision the referee originally made--many decisions are judgments that can be debated. Many here believe that if Geiger had reviewed the video he would have decided the caution was clearly and obviously wrong and changed to a send off; others believe that a sendoff is debatable, so it would not have been reversed if Geiger saw it himself. (The latter view is supported somewhat by the fact that the VAR did not send it down to Geiger as clear and erroneous to review, but who knows what Geiger would have thought. Perhaps he'll talk about it some day, but that won't necessarily be the same as the view he would have had in the heat of the moment of a tense game.)
@chad From the LOTG: b. Penalty kick/no penalty kick • penalty kick incorrectly awarded • penalty kick offence not penalised • location of offence (inside or outside the penalty area) • offence by the attacking team in the build-up to the penalty incident • ball out of play prior to the incident • offence by goalkeeper and/or kicker at the taking of a penalty kick • encroachment by an attacker or defender who becomes directly involved in play if the penalty kick rebounds from the goalpost, crossbar or goalkeeper http://static-3eb8.kxcdn.com/documents/661/133139_290518_LotG_18_19_EN_DoublePage_150dpi.pdf
The match, to me, was exciting. It had drama, controversy, debatable decisions. It was pretty open most of the time with both sides getting forward. If you're judging his performance on watchability, I am surprised that you thought this was an awful event to witness. Were you not entertained?
I feel the same way but not everyone can be Kuipers or Webb. I much prefer to see a game where the referee is firm, present, and authoritative, and I try to ref that way, I would guess you do too... when I watched Geiger’s first game I was terrified for him- very anxious body language, his intensity bordering on agitation. This game was much better but he still didn’t look the part of the calm commander. But isn’t that mainly a matter of style? And nor does that style guarantee success at this level- brych has gone home but cakir, whose man management historically is cards, is cruising. We’ve mentioned Webb’s swan song... Geiger finally quelled dissent with a couple of cards but to me mostly got the game back by just being right a lot. And subsequently when he did speak with players it seemed to be accepted. He’ll never be a ref that I really enjoy watching, but that’s more my problem than anyone else’s.
I find it interesting that a fair number of non-US based commenters in this thread think some of the defense or perceived defense (defence for some of you) of Geiger comes from pro-American sentiment. As someone who has followed MLS since before the first game, this is somewhat perplexing as while most MLS fans will acknowledge that Geiger had an excellent tournament in Brazil (Brasil for some of you) and his ceiling is pretty high, they've also turned his name into a verb "Geigered" that is not meant as a complement. As in "you've been Geigered" or "The Chicago Fire were Geigered". While there are regular MLS refs that are considered bad, the case with Geiger is that most fans recognize he's got the ability, they just think he gets in the way of games. I just don't see the casual U.S. fans here (myself included) going out of their way to defend Geiger because he's one of our own. If you dig back in MLS N&A to the weekly Play by Play thread that would've coincided with the aforementioned Panama/Mexico Gold Cup game in Atlanta (now THAT was a shitshow), you'll find most of the fans heaping criticism on Geiger and not being shocked at how bad things got. EDIT: https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/mls-2015-week-21-running-pbp-thread-multiple-r.2022449/page-19
For those in the “Kane fouled first” camp, for what it’s worth, I don’t believe the ball was in play yet. If the ball isn’t in play, then there can’t be a foul, the only thing that could be punished is misconduct. Geiger could have stopped the corner before it was taken to sort it out (which he had already previously done and directly warned those two players). The only option he had after allowing the corner to be taken was to punish any further incidents which he did.
Hopefully the last word for this thread' Cartoon from The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...ngland-dark-arts-and-their-world-cup-campaign Funny that he suggests Mark appeared to be school teacher trying to control 9th graders! I wonder if he knew how close he was to Mark's previous career. PH
I wonder how the mass confrontation in the Fra-Uru match, and how it was handled, affects folks’ opinion of Geiger.
umm...I've seen a boatload of blows to the head in the WC that were not given a RC. And many of them were called as fouls, but that was the end of it. Rules (LotG) may be clear, but that ain't what they are going by these days!