P/I/P Game 22: L.A. Galaxy @ Portland, SATURDAY 7/27/19, 7:30pm PT

I want the same lineup as last game. Hopefully the Disc Committee doesn't ruin that idea by suspending Zlatlan because his elbow flew mid-celebration and smacked a guy in the head. I really think that was an accident. More so considering this was well after the goal and he wasn't even looking at the guy as he burst out running.

 

That's what I figured. That was a bad one. Zlatan is a great player, but also a major thug. I'll be surprised if he doesn't get a suspension. He's been doing that all season.

 

I really think zlatan’s height superiority makes everything look worse then it is.

That said, I feel like this incident is yellow at worst.

 

I don’t know - in the replay you can see Ibra look right at him twice before he did it. And it isn’t like Zlatan doesn’t have exquisite body control. If the roles were reversed we would be furious.
Sadly I think he deserves whatever DisCom gives him. He’s so damn talented- I just wish he drop this crap. It’s not frequent but it’s also not the first time this season it’s looked intentional.

 

Bet you'd feel differently if you're on the receiving end of that elbow.

Didn't Zlatan get suspended for grabbing a player's neck? This is 10x worse in my book. Though I thought the first suspension was harsh.

 

You always look at the defender before going up for a 50/50 header. I don’t get how people are using that as intent.

The Johnson thing was totally unjust, especially when only he was punished.

 

I think this is really the case. Shaq used to have this happen to him all the time in the NBA whenever he had guys guarding him under the basket. He elbowed the crap out of many a guy because his arms are at just the perfect height to smack you right in the face.

 

I think MLS needs to protect players from head injuries. We can argue intent until the cows come home but Zlatan broke the guys eye socket with his swinging elbow. Accident or no accident if MLS doesn't penalize that with more than a yellow card then it's not protecting it's players.

 

Does it matter to you that the contact was with zlatans forearm and not elbow?

 

Yeah I am not down with all the hand wringing about Zlatan an the head injury. Ibrah is a huge guy and every player does that to protect himself from exactly that kind of injury. Now we make an example of him because of what his size caused to this one player. Zlatan giving people horse collars is one thing I do not approve but this is not right if they suspend him for an accident. An accident.

Suspend him for the Tijuana match. I could not give two craps about that silly wackamole tournament.

Speaking of the dysciplinary folks. Anybody catch the port v seat match? Lots of suspensions are gonna come out of that one potentially.

I am off to the wilds of southern Utah to do some hiking, slotting and canyoneering. See you on the other side hopefully with more points in our pockets. GALAXY!

 

I say he'll be lucky if he gets less than a 3 game suspension. Probably deserves about 6 games. But he is Zlatan, so MLS will want him back on the field as soon as possible.

 

It doesn't matter to my general point that when a player swings his arm and hits someone in the head and breaks their occipital socket that player should probably expect more than a yellow card. I do understand your point that it may have been a complete accident. I also understand that Ibra's height means his arm naturally falls at the level of other players' heads.

But to me it's a bit analogous to a player mistiming a tackle and accidentally ending up smashing his studs into a shin. I think we all accept soccer rules calling for a red card in that case for "dangerous play" even absent ill intent. The fact that refs punish such behaviors makes players a little more careful with their tackles in the future. I think the same principle applies to players swinging their arms in the vicinity of another player's head. And I don't think being tall absolves a player from such accountability.

 

Didn't any of you every play soccer without being a thug? A player should never raise his elbows when jumping up. You don't "use your elbows to protect yourself" like that.

Secondly, one doesn't break another players face bones with "incidental contact" with a forearm. I have to assume there was intent to injure.

 

Well, sometimes shit happens but I guess we'll see what Disco does.

On other subject matter, I thought I read somewhere that maybe Chara was out for our game. That would be helpful. Anyone know?

 

I think Chara is out due to yellow card accumulation. Also heard that Portland hasn't won without Chara in 4 years. That can't possibly be true, can it?

 

I agree that injuries happen in games all the time, be they caused intentionally or unintentionally. That being said, I also don't think it would be a good idea to suspend a guy after the fact for a play which resulted in the injury of an opposing player, if a foul call was not first made by the game's ref immediately post incident. There would be guys getting suspended literally after every game if this starts being the case. The Disciplinary Committee should be only either reversing or increasing a refs actual rulings from the game as far as I am concerned. Now correct me if I'm wrong as I don't recall; but did the ref call a foul in game for that hit? Now if it wasn't called, and the committee still suspends Zlatlan after the fact, then they better also get El-Munir for stomping on Joe Corona earlier in the game because that for sure didn't get a call of any kind; and the fact that Joe was able to play on after that hit should be irrelevant.

Your average player is taught to raise their arms to help get height and/or to push off opposing players to win headers. If a smaller player is challenging a taller player for position, then you it is very possible that the taller players reverse arm wave can result in contact with the elbow. And just because someone gets hurt doesn't prove intent to injure. There are limits on how much a player can be protected depending on the contact level of the sport being played and sometimes harsh contact is an unfortunate circumstance of the game being played. For example, American Football should remove tackles all together if we are trying to protect the player at all costs. I guess we will see what comes of all this soon enough.

 

I completely agee that injury alone isn't a reason to call a foul. A player can break a leg with a 100% clean tackle. If that happens the tackler should receive no punishment.

But certain types of actions in soccer are deemed particularly dangerous and are supposed to be closely scrutinized by refs. One is a studs up tackles. Another is swinging your arm into the head area of an opponent. If you do either and make enough contact to break a bone you should get a red card imo. Blows to the head are being more closely monitored in all sports these days due to increasing awareness of the long term cumulative effects of concussions. Making contact with an opponent's head is also one of the easiest ways to get tossed in both the NBA and the NFL.

Also the fact that it wasn't called during the game doesn't mean it is off limits. The main purpose of the DisCom is to do post-game reviews of controversial calls and non-calls and to take corrective action as they see fit. In this particular case I think the the reason it wasn't called during the game is because the ref didn't see it. If he did, he should have given a yellow at the very least. I also think that even in replay its a bit hard to tell how hard the blow was. I admit that in this case I am influenced by the outcome, but only because the outcome was the result of a dangerous action.

In any case our viewpoints aren't going to matter. It's in the DisCom's hands now.

 

I tried to be physical with my opponents but sadly I often ended up like Blessing after his collision with Ibra.

 

I agree with everything you said accept for the idea of the committee reviewing non calls but that's cool. We will have to agree to disagree on that one. Does anybody know how log we have to wait to know if they are going to drop the hammer or not?

 

I would agree except I didn't see him swing his arm. What I saw was Zlatan lift/position his arms and then jump albeit right towards the defender.

Interesting that you used this example, as El Munir came in studs up and landed on Corona's leg in the 81st minute in what clearly should have been a red card. As we saw from Zlatan at MU, Zlatan is not above taking revenge for uncalled dangerous play. You could argue that El Munir should have been out of the game.

 

Agree the tackle on Corona was a clear red. Interesting hypothesis about it being a revenge play.

 

I feel like GBS is getting a handle on the team. I hope.