After the Twellman goal, the referee blew the whistle to restart play at 23:11. For the next seven seconds, the main camera focused on Twellman. As a result, we don't get to see where the New England players were standing at the restart. Were they in the right positions? Were they just ball watching? What happened? When the camera picks up the action at 23:18 Mullan's cross is already heading into the box, and Ching is pulling away from Heaps and Parkhurst. (It's a shame that Parkhurst got burned on that play because other than that he played a great game.) ABC showed four replays of the goal, but no replays of those missing seven seconds. Both Arena and O'Brien said that New England "fell asleep." But is that really true? I'd like to see for myself.
I doubt that they weren't anywhere but in position. They were celebrating mentally. Nothing more. Pure conjecture, of course. But I can't imagine a ref starting a match w/ the players off the field.
Good thread. I asked the same question on the Revs post-game thread on the Revs boards - (I like your title and individual thread much better), but really got no reply as I am guessing everyone(Revs fans) in the stands were still celebrating. One Rev fan eye witness account said when they got home and watched game on tivo, they could at least see that the cross was deflected which they never even saw at the game. The only thing I can guess is, Houston kicks off, Mullan sprints forward, and gets behind Smith and is played a pass. Avery John starts to close down and the cross is taken with the deflection. So, the only question I have (and what I asked on the Revs boards,) was where was Smith? Did he try to intercept the pass to Mullan, was he just standing there, did something else happen to draw him away from Mullan? If he started the half in the left mid channel, he would have been in position to see Mullan get forward. It is hard to figure out. Agreed that the camera angles and replays were quite poor. This is the reason why you need to reshow the buildup always when showing highlights of goals.
The cross was deflected? That's surprising. It didn't seem that way on TV. I don't blame the director of the ABC broadcast. It all happened so fast.
All the Rev players were lined up (I saw that after everyone in our section let out a groan) and the ref whistled. De Ro nocked it off and the rest is history as they say... As for where the Rev players were....I'd say they were mentally out of the game and celebrating. Even the GK seemed a little out of it (which wasn't normal cause he had a freakin awesome game...mad props). I think it was just a lucky break. It's happened to us a few times this year too after making goals. Just my .02 from the Supporter's Sections....
The cross was indeed deflected by Avery John, and it changed the trajectory. I'd say it was a fluky play from that standpoint, but Ching did so well with the header that I can't call it a fluky goal. I'm not sure what the Revs could have done that differently in those seven seconds, other than to send eight guys sprinting into their own box in anticipation of a deflected 50-yard cross.
Nope. I actually went back via the magic of Tivo and checked on that right after he scored. Ching just timed it perfectly.
How could you tell? ABC never gave us a proper angle to see if he was offsides. The camera work was poor. Do they have soccer novices working the cameras? They stayed too wide angle and far away when the ball was in either box, the cameramen had no anticipation or ability to read where the ball would go. Very poor.
Blame is well deserved. The screw up was another example of the horrible MLS production style. It's what I and other have ranted about for years. They tend to zoom in and linger on players (coaches/fans/whatever) while the game is going on. It's crap production and inexcusable. Think about it. Your watching the Super Bowl and near the end of the game, one team kicks off. Instead of watching the runback, the camera zooms in and lingers on one of the kicking team players. Then, finally, the camera switches and we see the player running the ball back enter the end zone for the tying touchdown. Any blame there? Would the viewers be pissed? Would that ever happen? Yes, Yes and No. But it happens dozens of times in MLS games.
ESPN/ABC should rent a few experienced cameramen- from Mexico for instance- for a big game like that.
ABC's and ESPN's "close-up" obsession really botched this one. You'd think that after 11 years, they would know how to cover soccer games by now.
Look, every camera wasn't focused on Twellman, it's just the view they showed. Blame the guy in the booth selecting which camera shot to use.
Yes, it's whoever is "pulling the strings". The cameras will (or should) point wherever they are told.
They were in the right position, I just do not know how ready they were for an immediate push down the wing. If you think about a typical retsart - pass back - let midfield start the action via short, almost lazy passes. This one went immediatly to the wing and pushed up the side. Within about 5 seconds it was one v one on the wing. As for the thought that Ching was offside - ABC had horrible camera angles but when the ball was struck he was not offside. The ball was deflected (two yards after it was struck) and floated into the box giving him plenty of time to run onto the cross. The best way to verify that with the angles ABC had, is to count the time the ball was in the air and try to mimic the steps Ching made past the NE defense.
But the camera work whenever the ball got into either box was very poor. Usually there is some zooming in, Comcast and whoever does this as does every TV broadcast in good soccer countries. It was strangely absent on Sunday, they showed action in the box from the wide angle midfield view...maybe it is not a problem on your 48 inch plasma TV, on my 20 inch TV it was definitely a problem. Just do it as well as it's done elsewhere, or on other channels. Hire the freakin Univision cameramen.
ABC/ESPN are just like their parent company.. .mickey mouse. If anyone watched the conference playoffs on HDNet, you would have seen what a quality broadcast looks like. HDNet had camera angles galore for every shot. Every camera should be sending its feed to the trucks and wouldn't it be buffered or queued up on some hard drive to provide the feedback? Hell my DVR allows me to pause the action and come back to it. There is no excuse for them not having the restart on tape. FSC/MLSNetLive (whatever it is called on Direct Kick) sucks as much as ABC/ESPN. MLS should have teamed up with HDNet for all games instead. Camera angles were all jacked up for this final. Who was manning the cameras and directing the feeds? Monkeys? There I was cheering and chanting in the Dynamo supporters section and afterwards was looking forward to seeing the match. So after driving back to Houston I fire up the DVR and see a crap broadcast nevermind that it wasn't in HD. Dave O'Brien is horrible and Bruce Arena should never EVER be in a broadcast booth again. I would rather have that guy that does the Argentine/Chivas/Galaxy games. At least he knows soccer. Put on Glenn Davis and (ugh) Marcelo Balboa. Oh well, at least I was there.
I don't think NABET (National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians) or Lou Dobbs would like that idea too much... The idea is a non-starter..
As far as being offside. It was not even close to offside. The thing that surprised me was that Ching was able to get there because both he and Mullan were running all out off the kick off and Mullan crossed almost right away. I realized what they were doing right away and had seen this happen before when DeRo looked upfield and to the right. The thing that made it look offside is probably that Ching was running from midfield and your defenders were standing just outside your box. They simply did not pick him up.
I was on the front row of 123 (the opposite end of the field) so I can't say that I saw with my own 2 eyes that he was definitely onside...its just too far away and the angle sucked...but I can say that the Revs players were in position but they were taken aback by the fact that the Dynamo didn't just knock the ball around after the restart. When Mullan got the ball, you could tell he was aware that NE wasn't completely in the game so he just kept going. By the time NE realized that Houston was attacking with real intent, it was too late.
There was one replay angle that showed the whole play, from just before Mullan crossed the ball. Ching timed his run well and as someone else posted, both defenders were flat footed and facing upfield, not positioned to backtrack quickly. And that fraction of a second was all Ching needed to get behind them....
Clearly ONSIDE...go to www.mlsnet.com and click on game highlights. Reduce the video size to 50% by right clicking on the picture.(This will help with clarity) Click/drag your mouse to the 2:08 time on the bottom. When the video starts, immediately click pause, then play, then pause, then play, you can see that when the ball is in the air Ching is slightly beyond Heaps, but no worse than even with Parkhurst.