So do we get to find out if the referee receives some sort of discipline for that decision? I understand mistakes and given the wording of DOGSA, one can say it is purely judgmental, but it still irritates the crap out of me that the referee made that call. I get that it was opening day early in the game in front of a motivated crowd. Those should all have contributed to him taking a second to make sure he wasn't letting emotion cloud his judgement. You're not going to have many games finish with 22 players on the field if that call turns into a trend. Not happy at all with Sene's running last night. Don't know if he has an injury or is out of shape or ..., but needing to come out 5 minutes into the second half was not good. I thought Shalrie's game was good last night. A good turnaround from last week. Thankfully. I'm not at all ready to say the players on the roster aren't good enough to compete for a playoff slot in the East. These would have been two tough matches even without Shalrie stinking up the joint in the first one and El Ref doing the same in the second.
The worrisome thing here is that when Heaps thinks back to his own career he probably thinks 54% is tremendous.
I am still optimistic about the kid. He has confidence and composure in attack and that is hard to find. If he can show the same confidence and effort in his midfield play he will be very good. Having to fight and earn that chance, then hold on to it against Guy will do him good. I suspect he will achieve this, but last night showed he has a long way to go. A more experienced coach than Heaps likely would not have been starting him this early in his career even if his play in practice was promising.
Actually, the center official didn't make the call (well technically he did). If you watch the video, the AR pointed to his back pocket. That's generally a suggestion to the head ref to pull out a red card. I know it's the center official's job to make final decisions, but personally, I've never gone against anything my AR suggested. Thus, I blame that call on the AR.
So I'm bored at work and going through the stats a bit more. If you take out Reis, Tierney, and Guy our team passed at an 80% success rate, which is definitely respectable. I may have been a bit too harsh in saying Sene doesn't do anything well. He was 18/19 passing. Unfortunately only two of those attempts were in the final third, one which was unsuccessful. The rest were because he was coming 40 yards back to receive. Of Tierney's 21 unsuccessful passes, 8 of those were considered "launched". No one else on the team had more than 3 of these attempts. He also turned the ball over on 4 of his 9 throw-ins. If we're going to play the ball on the ground, you can't have any weak links, particularly in the back. Maybe Tierney can improve his passing, specifically under pressure, but let him do it in practice. Polak should be given a shot, he distributed well against SJ.
Consensus in the referee forum is that the call was righteous. I'm not happy and believe that the game would've been better served with a yellow there for the tactical foul. At several advanced clinics I have heard the advice "do the least necessary". Sapong was a half-step past McCarthy when pulled back by a hand on the shoulder. Questions could be raised whether Sapong could get to the ball. It is what it is. Not a call based upon emotion (Petrescu is Canadian and couldn't give a rat's ass about the KC crowd). McCarthy needs to have better tactical awareness. He got beat by the flick on and was unprepared.
Rowe wasn't involved much in the match, but he did well when the ball came to him. He was 9/10 passing and only turned the ball over once. He needs to work on his defensive positioning. He was chasing too much rather than closing down lanes. Though that became a lot tougher once we went a man down. It's tough to compare him to White or Guy, as the 2nd half we were regrouped and SKC was giving us more time on the ball. White didn't seem to be on the same page as Nguyen, which makes sense. Sure would be nice to have the whole team together for preseason! I wouldn't mind giving Guy or White a start, but not because I think Rowe has played poorly. If they're all fairly equal in practice, give them each a start to prove themselves. There's nothing wrong with competition.
A lot of guys on the Revs moved the ball efficiently (Simms was particularly good). Yet the team almost never touched the ball. SKC's backline and DMs basically bossed the game. You can attribute some of that to going down a man. Mainly, though, it speaks to the need to apply effective high pressure. Hopefully the new stats guy is showing Heap the same numbers concerning Tierney that you posted.
I don't know if the US Soccer Referee boss still does a weekly show reviewing calls; I used to download it on MP3 and found it very useful (I've never refereed). A consistent theme was the importance of judgement and not making calls based on the letter of the law. My guess is that emotion played a role. I don't mean to say he was intentionally biased for KC or against the Revs. I just think it was a medium-high intensity start of the game and that might have contributed toward his decision. A very similar incident occurred during the first couple of minutes of today's Phil - Col game. The ref made no call.
It's 50/50 on the referee forum. There's definitely no consensus, as there shouldn't be. That's why it's controversial.
Don't get me wrong, I'm also optimistic about him. I just remember Bill Parcells quote on Curtis Martin (I believe it was) where after one game, Parcells said "Don't put him in the Hall of Fame yet." The point was that one/two good preseason games and all of a sudden this kid was the next Dempsey. I've hated it when we've had people do the same with Schil and many others, I think it puts more pressure on the kids instead of letting them learn and grow.
I thought maybe a yellow. They were both clawing and grabbing. What I do know is that a good sized crowd came to see a game and that was taken away 15 minutes in with a call that didnt need to be made. In the end, its entertainment and watching a team play a man down for 75 minutes is not much fun
I honestly don't get why DOSGO is a red card. IMO, DOSGO should be a PK, regardless of where it happens on the pitch. Red cards should be reserved for serious foul play. Unfortunately, FIFA is stuck in their ways. That game would have been so much better if McCarthy had received a yellow and KC was awarded a PK. KC would have deservedly gone up 1-0, but at least it would have been a competitive match. 75 minutes of 10 vs 11 isn't competition and it certainly isn't a game, regardless of the result.
50/50 means we can't complain to much and neither can the Revs. It means that some folks saw it each way and that it wasn't unreasonable. A more experienced center back doesn't put himself in that position. Annoyed that Causey has already started on the "too early to give a card" theme
The only way this team is going to get credibility is with "excuses"...Haven't we learned anything yet??? LOL
Stats to make me feel slightly less awful from the first two weeks: - Avg pt/game for Eastern Conference teams: 0.9 - Pts needed to accumulate over the season to make playoffs given current rate: 17 - Pts Revs are away from 3rd place: 1 All is not lost!
Totally agree. McCarthy gave the head ref a reason to send him off. That's his own fault. 15 minutes into the game, it's much better to go down 1-0 than jeopardize the match by committing a DOSGO.
Yeah, exactly. Three-quarters of Sinovic's passes were utterly safe square balls to an open midfielder standing 10 yards away. When you're up a man and not experiencing any high pressure, you can really pad your stats this way. Tierney, by contrast, was facing a constant attack down his side, and when he saw the ball, was often under a great deal of pressure with no obvious outlet. I actually thought he did okay as a fill-in LB. To make him the scapegoat for last night seems more than a little unfair. Mind you, he's not the starting LB of my Best XI. Trouble is, I don't know who is. I do think Barnes is better, but don't know how long he's out for. I personally would throw Polak out there next week and see what he can do.
I don't know about that, considering a good percentage of the referees in the referee forums said it could go either way. It wasn't a definite call by any means, it was an opinion call. Regardless, I doubt anyone would say it was completely undeserved.