Match Thread - ECSF - Toronto FC vs. New York Red Bulls - November 5, 2017 (R)

At this point it depends who you ask

 

Altidore alleges in an interview that NYRB players invaded the tunnel leading to the TFC dressing room after it splits. If that is the case, NYRB should have three points deducted in the standings next year. That's a significant protocol violation, particularly when the intention was to fight.

 

Comical dive aside, I loved the passion and intensity from Jozy. That's what's lacking in today's modern sports. And I know he misses the next game, but situations like we saw yesterday almost always bring the locker room closer together.

 

^ Either way, I'm not impressed with his card history. I get that he's passionate and it's part of his game to play aggressively. That said, he's a professional. He takes too many avoidable cards. We had a similar situation last year where NYC goaded him and he almost took a yellow that would have caused him to miss the first Montreal game.

Not that he's prone to it, but the same thing for Giovinco at the moment. When he took the yellow in game one for time wasting I was worried he'd succumb to yellow card accumulation, too. So now he's out with one for time wasting and one for dissent. Both are avoidable.

This isn't a defender stopping a scoring chance with an aggressive tackle or even, say, Altidore bulling his way forward to try to score himself and getting called.

I guess we'll get to see how well our vaunted team depth holds up under pressure.

 

I would just as much prefer that the club took its punishment and moved on......suggesting Jozy is some sort of innocent party is silly.

 

Seba's yellow last night was the most disappointing.....like you, when he took the first yellow in leg 1 I thought that was a bad "omen".....but last night he had the whole situation in front of him......the first yellow in NJ had happened, the whole Jozy tunnel thing had happened.....by that point in the match last night (probably too late) the cards had started flying......and even then he could not control his emotions and stay out of the book.

 

You guys are lucky Vasquez didn't get tossed as well. He bumped the ref when he lost his mind after that goal was disallowed. Letter of the law says he should be gone.

 

I had the same thought.

 

My thought was .....why was it not a goal? No one was building a wall, ref gave no signal to hold the free kick and no one on TFC asked that the RB players be moved back.

The entire match was a shit show and no one knew which letters of the law this ref was applying......so to pull out that and say “you should have......” seems strange.

Within 5 minutes of that play TFC had two more set pieces (one the retake of that free kick and one an Osario one on the other wing) where 3 RB players were well inside 10 yards.....both times TFC asked that the players be moved.....both times ref denied it and angrily gestured for them to get on with it.......so, in the context of this match, I have no idea what “letter of the law” means really.

 

Yeah I remember him getting a red card in the first half of a must win match for Hull City way back in 2010 or something like that. Totally unnecessarily clobbered an opponent, got sent off, Hull lost and got relegated.... fans weren't too please at all with that. Too bad he hasn't learned his lesson from way back then...

 

Just saw this tweet with decent video of the incident.

Free kick awarded.....ball tossed to VV by ball kid....RB player a few yards away....but VV does not ask ref to move him....ref makes no signal that he wants kick delayed to move RB player....ref does not reach for his canister to mark ball placement to start marching off 10 yards.....VV sees keeper is woefully out of position....places ball, takes kick and scores.....seems a goal to me.

927940919734816768 is not a valid tweet id

 

I didn't say he SHOULD have been tossed. I said he very easily could have. He DID bump the ref. Physical contact with the ref (and wagging your finger in his face) is, by the letter of the law is enough to get you tossed. Especially with the new emphasis on protecting the refs.

The fact that the ref likely realized he screwed up the call on the goal (which looked perfectly good) & that caused VV to lose his mind may have saved him.

Or the ref was totally incompetent

 

I got your point....but taking the whole match into consideration....I am still not clear why/how anyone could look at that one play and say "by the letter of the law"....there was very little done on Sunday night that was "by the letter of the law".......

.....case in point....the yellow card that Bradley Wright Phillips got.......challenged TFC defender in the air for a ball (can't remember but it was Moor I think)......at full speed to me (and it happened right in front of me) it looked like BWP jumped into the challenge (ie. not up) and led with his elbow........I am sure, however, that any reasonably articulate RBNY supporter could argue that I am wrong in what I think I saw and it was just BWP challenging for the ball and Moor's head accidently hit his elbow......point is, if the RBNY supporter is right, there is no card involved.....if I a right....straight red is what the letter of the law demands......but, no, the clown in yellow gave a yellow card and, actually, laughed over top of the TFC player at something a RB player said.

Notice how at no point in this discussion have I suggested the ref was to blame for TFC losing on the night....I don't think he was....the ref was not (IMO) anyway biased.....he, within the limitations of his own abilities, called the match as fairly as he could.....but the limitations of his own abilities were far to much and the ability to manage that match was well beyond him.....incompetence does not equal bias....but it doesn't make for an enjoyable match either.

So, again, not sure why/how anyone could pick out one moment of that match and say "by the letter of the law........."

 

He gave a yellow instead of red on that play because it was consistent with letting too many fouls go, particularly early in the game. Yellow-card incidents were ignored or merely called as fouls and the message was sent that players could get away with anything. I told my wife that this ref was going to lose control of the game about 20 minutes in. It seemed he was following that old hockey mentality of just let them play and call only the blatantly obvious penalties but that doesn't work in a tense soccer game. He didn't even make it to halftime without losing control. If both teams got deserved yellows in the opening 15-20 minutes, that halftime fight doesn't happen.