Well, if you saw the FSW match, you saw a referee unwilling or afraid to use the plastic. In particular, how on God's green earth does Rusty Pierce not see yellow for the hogtie????? So, what happens? The players start mouthing at the refs, start glaring at each other. Finally, Bobby Convey unceremoniously ends his MLS career with a boot to Jay Heaps' stomach. To me, the worst part was Max'n'Allen slobbering all over Stott for "letting them play." I told my wife, someone's gonna retaliate and get sent off. At that point, of course, we were treated to the lovely ritual of the referee regaining control with a cheap yellow card. My point? Referees who "let 'em play" are NOT necessarily doing a good job. If the referee won't protect the players from injury, they'll do it themselves.
I'd have to agree. Things got out of hand once Kevin didn't book Rusty Pierce for the body slam on Ali Curtis. Convey was getting hacked all night, and he finally had enough and booted Heaps. Not one of Stott's better games.
Considering the hash he made of it in his last match, when he sent off Brian West for tripping over the ball and even Bradley conceded he was simply nuts, I'd say this isn't one of stotts' better years.
After the match they were supposed to have one of those referee clinics where the match referee crew does some sort of Q&A with local refs. DC United called during the week to invite me, but the idea of spending another hour at the stadium after the game wasn't especially appealing. Altho after that match I think it might have been an interesting experience. Did anyone attend?
A Socref-L list member attended and posted this: http://pete.uri.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0308b&L=socref-l&F=&S=&P=4518
"On the Rusty Pierce arm-lynching of Ali Curtis (34th M), and no card. At the time KS felt there was an imbalance in fouls called, and was looking for an opportunity to 'even' things up a bit. He used up a lot of "player management" by not booking at that particular time, but it was a considered, calculated risk." Interesting.
Assuming this guy is legit, there's the problem right there. A referee should not think about the number of fouls "called," because that makes him part of the game. It puts the blame on him. He should think about the number of fouls "committed." That puts the onus where it belongs, on the players.
I agree. I've been to games where the number of fouls are unbalanced, but if it's the fault of the team, then there's nothing to say. I also went to a college game once that had over 60 fouls called, which drastically interfered with the flow of the game. But it wasn't the ref's fault that college players didn't know how to execute a shoulder charge without stiff-arming or grabbing an opponent's shirt, or that forwards were constantly standing in offside positions, or that there were countless slide-tackles mis-timed, etc. It was a crappy game to watch, but it would've been worse in the long run if the "let them play" philosophy (which does have a place in the game, so long as it's consistently used and doesn't let really really bad stuff slide) had been in effect.
I saw a tape of the game. On the Pierce/Curtis play, Rusty was trying to get around Curtis to get to the ball (and probably fouled him in the process with a jersey tug). Ali was shielding the ball, pushing on Pierce's chest with his back. As Ali pushes Rusty away from the ball, at the same time Rusty's wrapping his arm around Ali, Curtis had him hooked with his left arm, and was lifting Rusty's leg while he pushed back, insuring that A) Pierce would land on his back, and that B) Ali would be on top of him when he hit the ground. Rusty kept his grip longer than he should, but Curtis took a swing at him when they were getting up. If you were looking for a clear cut card that Stott missed (and, I agree, he was awful), look to Ivanov taking out Cancela while making no effort at all to play the ball, or maybe Olsen shoving Cancela down on the sideline after Jose kicked the ball past him.
The Pierce play almost certainly should have been a card. Simple as that. The game started to get a little nutty after that decision, so it appears the players realized this as well. It was a tactical foul. Pierce knew what he was doing and his body language after the whistle indicated he expected the card. It was the jersey tug that was whistled. The rest of the play really doesn't matter. There were also a couple of other incidents that could have been cards. The referee's tolerance level was set pretty high Saturday and we could see things snowball a bit. After the Pierce play, me and a friend that is also a ref looked at eachother and said there was going to be a sendoff in this game. Sure enough, there were two. As a referee, there's a lot to be learned from watching this match.
When Pierce tugged on Ali's jersey, they were in DC's half, facing away from the goal, and neither the ball nor the player were past Pierce, or even headed towards the Rev's goal. Why would you card that?
Sorry. You've been completely unbiased, perhaps a little too critical of the DC players. The game was on FSW. It'll probably be on again. Watch the play again. When I watched the match, it was on a local station, so I don't know if you get the same angle on the replay I saw, but it showed Curtis upending Pierce when he hooked him with his left hand. Also note Curtis taking a swing at Pierce when they got up. While you're at it, check out Olsen's foul on Harris, or Ivanov's foul on Cancela, and post about why these plays aren't as deserving of cards, or why they had no impact on the tenor of the match.
Pierce would be cautioned because he cynically killed an attack. It's very simple. Both Pierce and Stott know this. Evidently, the rest of the players knew this as well and they took advantage of the referee's decision. The first contact was Pierce holdind Curtis back and preventing an attack. That's a caution. Pierce knew what he was doing. The referee blew for the hold first. The rest of the incident is of no consequence since the decision was made on the hold. Curtis' actions could certainly be misconduct, but that does not excuse Pierce's desire to kill a DC counter illegally and mean he gets off without punishment. I don't recall the other two plays as clearly, but you may be right about them. As referees we are told to look for a "moment of truth". That was a moment of truth in this match. Stott didn't show a card there, so the game became much harder to control. If he does pull a card, the game probably would have settled down a but.
Sorry. The original post was more about the aggressive nature of the challenge, and that's what I was responding to. I'd have to look at the tape again, if the tape even shows enough of the field to see who was ahead of Curtis. My recollection of the play was that by typical MLS calls, it wouldn't have been a yellow for breaking up an attack, but I could be wrong. Usually you see yellows for plays like Ivanov's (Kamler kicked the ball past him, was going past him, so Ivanov dumped him), or Llamosa's (someone was about to blow past him into open space). I didn't think that Curtis was even facing the goal when Pierce grabbed him. There was one play in the second half (I think after the ejections) when Rusty committed a foul to stop a give and go which would have seemed more likely to draw the yelllow, but that wasn't much different from Olsen shoving Cancela over the line when Jose kicked the ball into space behind Benny, and there was no card at that time either. But, again, I'd have to watch the play again to see if you're right about the yellow to Pierce.
Speaking as an observer of the game who didn't really care who won, I thought that not giving a card to Pierce was absolutely ridiculous. When it happened I concluded that Stott simply must not have seen it. Apparently he did but decided not to give a card for game management reasons. Bad, bad decision. As previous posters have pointed out, there were several other plays later that probably should have drawn cards as well, but didn't. I don't think these ideas about evening out the calls ever really work out. If something deserves a card, it deserves a card.
I agree completely. It isn't about balance. If one team is fouling more than the other, too bad that's how it is. You call it as you see it. The game should be kept fair. The implication of making things even is a scary thought. There are other ways to manage a match. I would not choose this one. I would call this the Neville Chamberlain approach to refereeing. It does not yield positive results.
Agreed Bill, you could see it coming and then after the send offs the match settled down quite a bit only to see a flurry of activity near the end. For the sake of the USMNT I hope to never see rusty Pearce called into camp. He is a hack and I was quite surprised not to see him sent off or at minimum cautioned for persistent infringement. A horrible, horrible player.
If I'm reading this correctly, of the small number of people on this thread, *3* of us predicted a sending off before it happened, at least two of us based on this one play, the Pierce foul on Curtis. That's interesting.
Given what must have been some pretty hard lingering feelings over the match the week before and the fact that each of these teams has its share of hacks, the referee certainly should have been on his toes with respect to the possible violence. I'm a little surprised he wasn't tighter with the discipline for that reason. I'll agree with the rest of you. If a player does something that resembles rugby more than soccer which deserves a caution it shouldn't matter whether it's his team's first foul and the other team has 10 already. I'm a little surprised by his explanation. And I also think Ivanov deserved more than the one yellow he got for his tactical fouling, but I think I understand that a little bit more since he was on a caution and referees are a little reluctant to send off for another play like that, especially when it occurs in the player's offensive half of the field.
Maybe it's just me, but I'm a little uncomfortable seeing this degree of candor being distributed across SOCREF-L and then internet boards like this one. While we may not agree with Stott's thinking, the referees at that post-match clinic benefited from hearing his unedited comments. He may not be nearly so forthcoming at future referee clinics if he knows that his "confessions" about a specific real world call are going to be broadcast for all to second-guess.
pkCrouse, Stott is a very experienced referee who's not only been around at the top level for a long time, but he's gone through a few of these such post-game sessions. My take is--having personally heard him on three different occassions--that he would not say anything in such a session if he did not find it fit for public consumption. So, repeating what was said in an informal session like this is acceptable, in my opinion, because it was pretty much done in the public domain anyway. Are there even requirements that all participants be USSF referees for such sessions? And, if so, who's checking? Now, for those with access to the game recommendations on the USSF Pro site, repeating that information--which is private amongst referees, and password protected--would be completely unacceptable.
[Devil's Advocate] Visit the Revs boards. Of course, they are biased, but some of them have watched the Pierce play in slo-mo, and it looked more incidental than intentional. [/Devil's Advocate] That said, I don't think we should be criticizing the players, Alberto. Again, this is from a biased point-of-view, but that's not why we're here. Imagine it was unintentional. You're completely writing him off as a hack for something that may or may not have been deliberate. Personally, I don't think that's particularly fair. Of course, if it'd been Dema, I'd agree.
Not criticising players? Well, that's the nature of sports and just because I am a referee and because I don't do MLS matches there is no conflict of interest. I'm not bias. That what I perceive of Pearce's skills as a player. He is a hack. So is CJ Brown and numerous other players that I hope never to see again in a USMNT uniform.
I totally agree with this. It's like life in general, if you don't address problems early on then they're only going to get worse. I played in an indoor game that a ref terminated early because of rough play, only to see the two teams remain on the field and continue playing against each other harmoniously for their alloted time. Usually when a ref is not present, players are going to recognize when a foul is committed and make the call themselves or not be upset when a foul is called. Of course in a competitive match a player is not going to stop and call a foul, because that's the referee's job. I know that being a referee is one of the hardest, least rewarding jobs out there and sometimes there are going to be problems no matter what you do. But, I think if you lay down the law early (and correctly) players are going to respect that and focus their energy on just playing the game.