Prideaux Resolution

Bad precedent. This case was distinguishable from the Fusion/Earthquake game and MLS has now significantly lowered the consequences for such a tremendous error by the officials. I'm not going to presume to judge the crew - that's what we pay assessors and assignors to do. However, who can dispute that 18 minutes of playing down a man could have had a significant impact on the result?

 

Seems odd -- getting probably 20+ minutes with an extra man could make a huge difference. 2 goals can happen very quickly.

Anybody know when the goals were scored? Ie, was it 3-0 before and 3-1 after, or was it 1-1 and then 3-1 after.

Should that make a difference in the decision?

 

from the MLS website, the site states that Prideaux received his second yellow card in the 72nd minute. if correct, it appears that, at that point, the game was 1-0 in favor of DC. the scoring for the rest of the match went as follows:

DAL - Jason Kreis 7 (penalty kick) 74
DC - Dema Kovalenko 2 (Ben Olsen 5, Ali Curtis 3) 78
DC - Hristo Stoitchkov 2 (unassisted) 88

http://www.mlsnet.com/games/03/tracker.php?gamename=07022003_DCDAL&version=recap


i think the score does matter (and distinguishes this situation from the Fusion/Earthquake game). this was a pretty extraordinary decision in my opinion. unlike most referee decisions, there was no judgment or discretion involved, and it's not a situation where you need the benefit of replay (slow motion or otherwise). on the other hand, i'd want to know more about what happened. did everyone there realize who had received the yellow card? did Dallas complain at the time? if not, why not? if they complained and the ref ignored them, they've got a pretty strong case, and the referee needs to be disciplined. but they should have been on the ball also and raised the issue - you shouldn't be permitted to say nothing, and then complain after you find out you lost.

what other analogous situations have occurred? wasn't there a college football (i want to say Colorado) game a few years back where the team got 5 downs to score from the 1 yard line (needing all of them)? that result stood.

 

It was 1-1 after the PK which was awarded at the same time as the second yellow. DCU scored 2 goals after that to win the match.

I think from MLS's point of view they were really put into a tough place. What should they have done? Ordered a replay of the whole match? Ordered a replay of the last 20 minutes only with 10 v 11? What if a player or players who were in that maych are out injured or no longer with their respective clubs? This far after the fact there was not much they could do. I suppose you could say they should take the win away from DC, but who's to say they wouldn't have scored a man down anyway? (This is Dallas we're talking about after all. ) It's not DCU's fault the ref screwed up. Should Brandon have said to the ref, "Hey, isn't that my second yellow?" I don't know how or why the referee team screwed this up as badly as they did, but the fact remains that it was their responsibility to get things right at the time.

Yes, Dallas did complain at the time, however it was not until a few minutes after play had resumed following the PK and the goal that the referee consulted with the 4th official. At that time the referee stated that the first caution was to Namoff, not Prideaux (or actually I believe he said #26 had the first yellow, the field-side mics picked it up). So, according to his explanation at the time that was the situation. Of course after play had been restarted there's no way he could have gone back and fixed the problem at that point, so he may have been not exactly telling the truth there. It's possible I suppose that he wrote down the wrong number, but Namoff and Prideaux really don't look that much alike, and neither do "4" and "26".

 

In my opinion, yes.

 

1990 - almost 13 years ago. Remember it too well.

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Would a suitable alternative be a reduction in points earned by DC? Maybe deduct 1 from DC and give it to Dallas? Course that's probably a question best asked in the MLS forum.

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"however it was not until a few minutes after play had resumed following the PK and the goal that the referee consulted with the 4th official. At that time the referee stated that the first caution was to Namoff, not Prideaux (or actually I believe he said #26 had the first yellow, the field-side mics picked it up). So, according to his explanation at the time that was the situation. Of course after play had been restarted there's no way he could have gone back and fixed the problem at that point, so he may have been not exactly telling the truth there. It's possible I suppose that he wrote down the wrong number, but Namoff and Prideaux really don't look that much alike, and neither do "4" and "26".
Why couldn't he correct the problem? If he knew, prior to another goal being scored, that Prideaux should have been tossed, why not remove him from the field and do the paperwork. I think it's worse to have left him in there for the rest of the game.