I'm interested to hear what Simon Borg says about this when he reviews them. It's always easy to blame the Refs, but in this case, it was beyond ridiculous. Yellow at the most. What puzzles me is that after the call, who is it that decides it is worth reviewing? There are probably a dozen calls a game that are border-line enough (maybe not VAR reviewable) that there will be differences of opinion. Is it some guy in the press box? Lastly, the whole thing about implementing a system like this in the middle of the year is insane! They could have had the video guys in the boof, doing a dry run and hypothetically commenting on what plays they'd review and how, but it would be non-binding and not impact the game. This way, they cold iron out the kinks and the system would be much better at teh start of next season.
These recent red-cards, whether because of VAR or not, make MLS the laughing stock of world football. Kouassi/Angua/Delamea must be wondering what kind of pansy-@'ed league they ended up in. For %'s sake, let the players play.
Of the 4 most recent red cards, this one was the only one that was 100% wrong. Nemeth's was weak sauce, and the KC player embelleshed a lot, but he did throw an elbow, so that's that. The two in the Atlanta game were about 50-50, and there was plenty of debate on them. Tough for us, but the 3 were at least semi-legit. Not this one, though.
Agree on the craziness of putting a half-a$$ed system in mid-year. But, that's so MLS. Regarding the bolded part of your post, according to the press release about VAR, the VAR official (in this case Ribeiro), is supposed to signal that head ref that a review is called for. Of course, on the MLS website, the writeup says that "Petrescu called for the video review," which I would find incredible given that he was 5 feet away and looking right at the play.
It's the head ref's decision. They may get signaled but it's his decision to take another look. When they make the tv outline that means it's time to send off a rev..err..review var.
I'm generally not a fan of handing out red cards after the fact. I'd like to see yellow be as high as the ref can go if a card hasn't already been shown. I also finally got to see the Kouassi challenge (didn't watch the game). Certainly doesn't look like a red, but here's my complaint about Kouassi on that play: he didn't close the space, so he had to do this sit-out leg swing action that certainly could be interpreted as reckless. Prime Shalrie Joseph takes the ball of that guy's foot standing up. So, yeah, bad call, but maybe Kouassi could suck less too.
Card Recinded The Independent Panel, consisting of one representative each from the United States Soccer Federation, Canadian Soccer Association, and Professional Referee Organization, has unanimously supported the appeal of the red card issued to New England Revolution midfielder Xavier Kouassi for serious foul play in the 11th minute of New England’s match against Orlando City SC on September 27. As a result of New England’s appeal, Kouassi will be eligible to play in the Revolution’s next regular season match against the Atlanta United on June September 30. You know what, too little, too late. The game is over, we had any chance of winning taken away and taking it back now can't fix that.. Several things are very wrong here. 1) Anybody that looks at the clip saw no foul at all ..... except the ref. He give a red for nothing. Not like he could have not seen it. He saw nothing during the run of play then on replay, decides it was a red. He could look at it over n over and still blew it. There was NO FOUL. Now what? He was so bad ... or just plain stupid, that it was overturned unanimously. HE NEEDS A RED CARD and should be done for the season. This league cannot succeed until we get refs that have a clue 2) The fans - they paid to see a game and that was taken away from them in the 11th minute. The are owed a refund by the league 3) The Revs - that red card sucked the life out of them and Im not sure it will come back again either. Long term damage on the Revs. How can that be fixed? Dump the VR. It is ruining games and making the MLS a joke