Zlatan should be extraordinarily thankful that Onuoha is the class act he is. We have all seen players get wrecked for that type of disrespect on the field. As an RSL fan, I'm proud of Onuoha. However, I have to admit that I wished that Everton was playing. You KNOW he would have taken a large piece of Zlatan home with him that night. Becks couldn't do it because of yellow card accumulation and the other 3 in the back have no desire to enforce. Side note: my brother and I played together for years. I was the fast forward, he was the fast center back who enjoyed contact. Our team used to time how long it would take him to get a pay-back foul in after the other team had wrecked me. His particular favorite was "just barely" losing out on a header and "accidentally" heading the other player on the back of their skull. Ooppss. Of course, the other team got the message and I got to keep my legs. Sometimes, when the referee can't solve a problem for you, you DO need to take matters into your own hands. I'm not talking injury here - i'm talking about sending a very clear message. If Everton plays the next game against the Gals, I propose we set up a betting pool for the minute in which he lets Zlatan know that punking one of his teammates is a bad plan.
From The Athletic: "It took 34 games, but someone finally stood up to Zlatan Ibrahimovic. The latest victim of Ibra’s disrespect? RSL defender Nedum Onuoha, who was guilty of little more than not being as good at soccer as Zlatan (and becoming a traffic cone during his game-winning goal.) Ibra celebrated that goal by swiveling around and cutting Onuoha down to size. Asked after the game why he was such a dick, more or less, Zlatan gave this response to the media in attendance: “I like to feel alive. I like when it becomes duels and that because sometimes, not that I fall asleep, but I don’t feel alive if they don’t activate me. They need to activate me or else it becomes too easy. I know me. When I get angry I feel good.” Zlatan then proceeded to walk into the Real Salt Lake locker room and attempted to offer Onuoha some sort of an apology. It was not accepted. Congratulations, Nedum, for doing what no other player (or MLS HQ employee) has managed to do, and also for giving me a reason to watch RSL’s encounter with the Galaxy on September 25th. I’m sure Zlatan will have forgotten about all of this by then."
As a guy who is a RSL fan through and through, but also a fan of Ibra, this is weird to watch play out. The guy walks the line of douche bag and living this out of life character fairly well. In this instance, I think he stepped over the line. I am curious as to what was said during the game, as well as in the (attempted) apology. To be fair, I don't think RSL is completely clean in this, either. The biggest criticism of Ibra in Europe was that he couldn't handle the more physical leagues/styles of play. His time at United countered that, but not completely. Watching the game, it was obvious the team was trying to disrupt him when they couldn't prevent the ball from getting to him. That is part of the game, so no excuse for Ibra's actions, but also it paints this story with more details that are relevant. It's not like Zlatan just went out there and RKO'd Nedum in the first minute. This was the 60th minute in a game that was back and forth and Nedum was putting in some hard tackles on the ball, and away from the ball doing what CB's do - irritate the forward. Again, no excuse to do what he did, but it's how the game functions. As RSL fans, we would expect our forward to show a bit of frustration in a game that Zlatan was having. Especially if he was that good - we've seen the opposite (pool boy and Yura) and know how infuriating that is. The last sentence of the Athletic quote from above is telling, too. I think it is meant as a jab at Zlatan, but it's also a compliment in that he lets it go. He honestly won't care by then. He's not going to pull an Aaron Rodgers and hold some absurd grudge when it's obvious he's just better than the players around him.
Hey so, your brother was a thug and should have gone to jail for assault. Maybe it was the 80s, but it is now 2019 and youre bragging about your thug brother. You are tacitly supporting that kind of behavior. Disgusting.
Interesting. My point was that teammates will do the best they can to protect each other, especially if the referee is not protecting them. In the early 80s, the game was quite a bit more physical and rough around the edges than it is now. Such contact was actually kind of common. I considered my brother's choices to be questionable at the time and I would disagree with him using his head completely now, as we all know more about the long term ramifications. In 25 + years of coaching after those days, there was never a reason, in my mind, for any of my teams to have to resort to these sorts of tactics. But, back to the actual point. If RSL had an enforcer on the field (someone willing to put in a hard tackle when necessary, like Wingert), a clear message would have been given to Zlatan. As it is, I think he believes his behavior was justified because he got fired up and scored.
Additional context from Onuoha here. He implies it was worse than we thought - and the "apology" was pretty inept, too.
Well, the defenders initiated the dirty tactics. I think the retaliation is justified if the referee doesn’t protect the players. When Bill Walton was a HS basketball player other teams did that to him. His brother, who went on to play linebacker at UCLA, was also on the team and protected Bill the same way. It’s in every sport and is pretty natural and expected imo.
ESPN FC does their take in Zlatan behavior. TLDR they see nothing wrong with behavior or with the refusal to accept apology. My take it is the combination: trash talk + trash talk abouy specific injury + targeting player for fouls + taunting + entering safe place locker room = the problem. IMO that is a second yellow. I also think you make a case injury talk and taunting are also worthy of a yellow. Trash talking, getting into the mind of a player with a little physical play ( horse collar is too much) is part of the game. The taunting after the goal was specific and too long. It would have been fine to trash talk remind the defence they could not stop him. In this case the player he taunted wasn't even supose to guard him, it was Justin's error. If you want to apologize do it on neutral ground: pitch, hallway, parking lot, etc.
There is a lot to be annoyed with here. One thing that doesn't get enough attention is how close the ref is to Zlatan and Onuhoa after the goal and how little he does to interact. Sure, he runs up to the play, but thats about it. It should have been a yellow, without a doubt.
I’m a bit surprised at the quiet surrounding Glad’s mistake that cost us a road point. Had it been Silva or Onuoha fans would have been all over it.
um... what? Typically Glad is the one thrown to the fire. And yes, Glad's mistake lead to the ball not being properly cleared, but RSL had time to recover and fix the error. In fact, lets break this down - Starting at the 2:50 mark (2:50) To start, LA has created a numerical advantage just outside our box and the supporting cast of RSL's defense doesn't seem to care too much. By this I mean Herrera is in a 3v1 with Glad just outside the picture tracking the runner. Meanwhile, Onuhoa, KB, and Toia are all in the space around Zlatan. He's a dangerous player, but we're setting ourselves up to fail with this approach. (2:53) Herrera is shown to be a cone and LA finds their player at the top of the box who takes the space. A sin here from KB is that he doesn't close that space fast enough. In fact, he's so slow in closing that the LA player can size up a chip. The shape from the CB's in this moment is awful - you could drive a truck between them. (2:54) Here is the "error" from Glad. As the ball is chipped in (a great run and ball) he lunges to clear it. He gets just enough to prevent the pass, but it doesn't get out of the area at all. Instead it falls to an LA player and his first touch is good enough to not be stolen by Herrera. (2:58) In the next few seconds RSL has to react well - and they don't. Herrera gets flat footed with the player and allows them to the endline with space for a cross. Equally bad, Onuhoa is floating in no man's land. He never gets close to Zlatan and doesn't pull Glad back to help. I've seen excuses that he is between two players, but that's kind of his own doing - he never once in this sequence yelled to Kreilach to get back (who still isn't in the box by the time of the cross) and didn't tell Glad he needed help with Zlatan. (2:59) Glad lunges unsuccessfully at the ball and Onuhoa simply watches Zlatan pick out the far post. It's a bad sequence for a lot of players but I'm not sure how this is "Glad's fault". Onuhoa's reaction shows he knows he didn't handle the situation well. To be fair to Onuhoa, the time from this play really starting and the ball finding the net is 10 seconds. But that's the life of a player - you play 90 minutes but are defined by a minute or two within them.
And to give some credit to LA, this was terrific from Lletget. Zlatan was offside up until about a half second before the ball was played, but Lletget's quick touch and cross meant our entire defensive line was out of position. I think you've got this exactly backwards. Onuoha's mistakes are always swept under the rug, and Glad is always the one criticized.