Game: Atlanta United FCvs FC Dallas Date: Wednesday, September 23rd Time: 6:00 pm [Local] | 23:00 [Universal] Location: Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Atlanta, Georgia, United States of America Weather Forecast: Partly Cloudy; H 73, L 61 Competition: Major League Soccer Live TV: Fox Sports Southwest Plus [DFW] | Fox Sports South [Atlanta] | ESPN+ [USA] | DAZN [Canada] Radio: FCDallas.com/radio [English] | 1270 AM [Spanish]
I only caught the last 30 minutes of the game. For that stretch, FCD looked like the better team, but they ran out of gas in the last 10 and gave up a couple of chances. Looking at the replay, Hedges was really unlucky on the handball. It was the right call, but he didn't know much about it. Atlanta gets a badly-needed win and Dallas can console themselves that they had a bunch of players out.
PK was unlucky. Not sure why Atlanta was able to cross so much for most of the game. Nelson was kind of bad especially at moving the ball out of the back. He gets pinned on the sideline and loses possession a lot. For some reason Hollingshead wasn’t much better on the right. When Reynolds came in and Ryan switched to LB things were fixed. I think teams will real start keying in Nelson in those spots. Tessman was mostly really good with some youthful crap mixed in. He’s starting to show things I thought he might be able to pull off like hitting long switching passes with either foot. Took a blistering shot that was blocked. Knocked people down, mostly made good decisions offensively and defensively and it sure looks like he just needs more time to put it all together. He’s passed Servania as he was subbed out while Tanner played 90. I think he could become the rare mix of player Berhalter seems to want as a 6 while still playing good defense. Speaking of Reynolds he has become a must starter for me very quickly. Sealy looked good again in limited minutes and I wonder how he’d do at left winger? Feel for Ferreira as he really didn’t get much help up top and neither did Pepi and Jara once they entered. Ricaurte had his first meh game. Think the fake grass made things off just enough as it often does.
was it? the replay clearly, at least to my eye, shows that the ball bounces off the ground and then Matt attempts to head it, making contact with his head FIRST, where it then hits some amorphous area that is his arm, shoulder, pit, chest... If we can agree it hit his head first, it is not a penalty. LotG, Law 12 clearly states: Except for the above offences, it is not an offence if the ball touches a player’s hand/arm: directly from the player’s own head or body (including the foot) It was not called a PK initially, so what I found stunning was the ref overturned himself based on the different angles we saw. it was far more clear it'd came off his head than anything else. Should have stood on his original call. But here we are again, slo-mo'ing video to a frameXframe exercise that colors everything.. In the end, that's not why Dallas lost, they just sucked against a sucky team, and these calls balance out - but I'm still bothered how this went down.
I'm sure you've seen it since we read all of 3rd's content but Buzz had an interesting quip about this exact situation in the SKC game. Starting to look like a trend. Maybe it's just a mental pressure thing for a young player. That's a bad place to lose the ball and Luchi's system really desires a ton of technical ability in the defensive third.
One of the "above offences" excepted from that sentence is when "the hand/arm has made their body unnaturally bigger," and his arm is very far away from his body. Also, re-watching the replay after reading your comment, I'm not sure it hit his head first. I'm not 100% sure it DIDN'T hit his head either, but I don't think it matters. His arm is way out to the side to provide balance for the ball he was expecting. The split-second deflection meant he didn't have time to adjust.