57th minute of the NY @ NE game 2. Juan Pablo Angel takes an accidental knee directly to his chin. He immediately goes down and does not move. It takes 20 seconds before the players go to put the ball out of play. Perhaps the referee should have stopped play immediately, but he did not. Its likely the contact went unseen. However, if you can find a clip of this siutation, I think it should be reviewed by refs to see exactly when a referee should halt a game when a player doesn't end up screaming in pain. Sometimes the players can't scream when they get really hurt. But I think that MLS should adopt the same injury policy as the EPL - allow the referee to make a decision to stop the game. In this situation it was evident the referee was trying to convince players to put the ball out of play instead of stopping the game himself. I think it makes better sense not to rely on the sportsmanship of one team and allow the referee to take control of these situations.
I thought this was addressed in the "Game First" initiatives where players were encouraged to not kick the ball out unless they thought there was a serious injury, but the referees were supposed to stop play in the case of serious injury.
Where does it say that the referee can't stop the game in the MLS? Not being rude, but I had never heard that... ANR
I'd say that it was more than 20 sec. before the ball was put out of play. As much as I think think that JPA is a diving duck, this incident appeared real and serious enough to require a referee to stop play. It is likely that Abby did not stop play because of the possession by NJRB. Abby did add 5 minutes to the second half; three to four minutes could be attributed to the JPA incident. (Yes, we were screaming for the ********ing whistle before two minutes were gone. )
They can. I'm just saying, I would like to see the MLS adopt the same policy as the EPL where teams aren't going to be expected to kick the ball out of play ever, instead the referee should make all these determinations to stop the game or not. In this case I felt the referee appeared to want the ball to go out so he could attend to the injury, if that is truly the case, then I would advocate that he just simply stop the game and restart with a dropped ball. I could be reading the situation incorrectly but that is what it appeared as to me. I'm not saying this referee did anything wrong here, I don't think he realized how bad the head injury to JPA appeared (we have the benefit of instant replay) so he did the right thing by the laws and the game. BUT I think MLS should do away with having the players stop the game and just tell the referee to do it, and I also bring it up because I think if we can get a clip of it somewhere, we could look at it and learn what a good situation to stop play immediately would look like.
Why "do away" with the players stopping the game? The referee shouldn't be waiting for the players to stop the match - he should take action and stop it when he needs to! Allow both the players and the referees to take the correct step... Part of soccer is the idea of fair play! Why tell the players if they stop because an opponent is hurt that they lose the ball?!? Codify, codify, codify. Pretty soon we'll have a "rule book" instead of our pamphlet of Laws.... Yep, old granitehead here again....
This has been discussed before, but the evolution of this issue in the past one-plus year has been interesting. My view of the pronouncement that players are not to put the ball out of bounds was recognition that (1) the traditional practice was being abused in certain respects and (2) the tradition was causing problems between the players. The team with the player down "expected" the other team to put the ball out. The pronouncement takes a significant step to avoid retaliation or other problems if a team refuses to do so. Unfortunately, this has become necessary given that teams were finding it easier to break up a counter-attack or to preserve a lead and waste time by simply going down when they lost the ball. Similarly, when teams respected tradition and played the ball out, they were often being disadvantaged by the ball being tactically returned to them deep in a corner (and sometimes with fairly immediate pressure). Bottom line is that teams were feeling "compelled" to follow tradition, but (at least at times) being taken advantage of and placed at a disadvantage for doing so. Nothing sporting or gentlemanly about that. The pronouncement removed the pressure from the team, and moved it to the referee. 1. It has always been with the referee, but the referee has largely been spared from having to make any tough decisions because tradition stopped play before the referee needed to. But, the referee has always had the ability to handle this, and now has been told/reminded of the need to do so. 2. Even with the pronouncement, is there anything that stops a team (even in the EPL) from playing the ball out if a player is really injured? Mind you, you now clearly have no guarantee that you're going to be given the ball back after the stoppage, but if a player plays the ball out, is there any action that the referee can take against that player? I can't believe a player could be punished for not following the pronouncement - unsporting behavior for not playing on when a player is hurt? A player on the opposing team ought to play the ball out of bounds if an opponent is seriously injured - not because tradition compels it, but because it's the right thing to do. It also reminds the referee that this is ultimately the referee's decision to make.
Isn't it FIFA/USSF that makes these decisions, and not MLS? Do you have any evidence that MLS or USSF prefers having players kick the ball out of play as opposed to having the referee stop play? I suspect players have either been told not to kick the ball out of play, or they watch the EPL or the latest World Cup or other international soccer, and this is their understanding of currently accepted appropriate play from FIFA. It probably has nothing to do with MLS. I would argue that this case and the one in the Dallas-Houston game where Bobby Rhine lied on the ground in his own penalty area with his hand up for over a minute calling for a stoppage make the opposite case. If the referee is not aware or for whatever reason is not willing to stop play, players should be allowed to make a decision to kick the ball out if they believe a fallen player is not faking injury. Commentator Dave Dir was totally unaware that FIFA has indicated that players should not kick the ball out of play for injuries, and wondered what happened to the tradition of kicking the ball out of play for injuries. Of course the case he is making is completely opposite of yours. The problem for the referee is that if he sees the contact, he has to make a judgment call about how serious the injury might be. If he believes the player is not likely to be seriously injured, he lets play continue. However, if the player continues to remain out of play, and calls for play to be stopped, etc, the referee now has to counter his original decision in order to stop play. Most referees are loathe to do that. One option would be to encourage referees to reverse their original decision to play on if necessary. Referees could be encouraged to stop play before the players themselves decide to by kicking the ball out. If you let the players kick the ball out, you are basically letting them make a decision (to stop play) that the referee should be making. On the other hand, players could still be allowed to stop play themselves, by kicking the ball out, if for whatever reason the referee is not stopping play and but the players believe play should be stopped. They should not be castigated by FIFA for demonstrating a sense of fair play. What makes the whole thing more difficult is the word "serious". According to FIFA, this might mean "near death". To a soccer coach, it might mean "any injury that doesn't allow my player to play at full strength (assuming he wanted to) for longer than 10 seconds". Perhaps a good rule of thumb would be that play should be stopped for any injury that is expected to disable or has disabled a player for more than 30 seconds, since it might take that long for the player to re-enter to the field and regain his proper place on the field anyway should play be have to be stopped by the referee. I think FIFA has the attitude that play should only be stopped when medical/trainer attention is needed. If the injury does not obviously require medical/trainer attention, should play be stopped anyway? This may be the heart of the issue. A sense of fair play would suggest that yes, it is not fair to take advantage of a team playing a man down, even if the injury is not "serious". If the injury is not "serious", do you let the referee "bend" the rules and stop play, or do you let the players make their own decision to stop play, and "bend" the hegemony of the referee? The obvious advantages of having the players kick the ball out is that the injured player does not have to leave the field and the restart, a throw-in, is less of a circus than the alternative, a dropped ball. As to this case in particular, I don't know why the Okulaja would feel the need to ask players to kick the ball out. He must have believed Angel was only "slightly injured" and not "seriously injured". If he is only slightly injured, Okulaja is bound by Law 5 and the Additional Instructions to Referees to let play continue until the ball goes out of play. He must have felt that the ball should be kicked out for fair play reasons. Oddly, there doesn't seem to be any mention in the Laws that the referee or the players may delay a restart just because a player is "slightly" injured. So the whole premise of kicking the ball out so that an injured player can be given time to recover seems to be a false one. If the ball goes out and play is not allowed to restart because of an injury to a player, then the referee has in effect stopped play due to an injury, and all relevant rules should apply.
No evidence, aside from what I saw in the Red Bull Game. In that case the referee waited for the ball to go out. I'm wondering if he already thought that the player needed to be treated, so he encouraged the ball to be played out, why wouldn't he just stop it right then, that would make the most sense to me. I feel the EPL has gotten better in my opinion for the change, so I would like to see it adopted here. You may disagree all you like, this is the USA.
I don't watch the EPL. If a player is down for a long period of time without play being stopped, possibly from no contact with another player, what is the general sentiment? That the referee should stop play, or that the referee should not stop play? If the player's team gains possession of the ball, do they ignore the desire to kick the ball out of play so that their player can be treated? Or do they steadfastly carry on? Was the EPL able to wipe out kicking the ball out on purpose entirely?
Here's the game summary: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JnwO86ExOc Angel gets hit around the 2:48 mark. The ball is kicked out about 12 seconds later. It looks like the ref puts the whistle to his mouth a couple of times and glances over his shoulder a couple of times (I couldn't tell for sure) before the game is stopped.
Aside from the discussion going on here, did Arena then compound all of this by waiting 8-9 minutes before subbing him out? (I didn't see the game). Arena was let go today, with two years left on his deal.
Wow... I'm not sure I agree with this sacking, er firing. Arena was making positive changes in a laughable organization... yes we fans of the Red Bulls do laugh about it now, cuz crying seems pointless anymore. Nonetheless, yes, he did wait a while before deciding to sub JPA out, and just before the stoppage that would have allowed the 11th player back on the field, the NE Revs scored their only goal of the match.
Don't know if anyone saw the Chicago-New England game, but Kevin Stott stopped play about 7-10 seconds after a Chicago player went down. If I remember right, New England actually had possession in their defensive third. I don't remember what the restart was - I was trying to write a 30 page ecology paper at the same time. Kinda vague, I know, but I thought it was useful based on this thread. No one, even the Revs player, seemed to mind that he blew play dead. It was also like 10 minutes in, so nothing had really happened yet.
I was flipping back and forth to the game, but if this was the play when wolfe took a ball in the face, Stott let the game run on until the Fire got the ball, then he stopped it.
A vaguely related question... instead of the blue team playing the ball out and then the red team sending the throw-in to the blue team deep in the blue team's defensive third, would it make more sense for the red team, in the spirit of sporting behavior, to simply perform the throw-in holding one foot up so that the whistle would be blown and the throw-in given to the blue team?
Red doesn't want to give blue an advantage so they throw the ball toward blue's goal. If they were to intentionally make a foul throw then blue could start an immediate attack with the throw-in. It could be a huge advantage if the throw is near red's area.