El Traffico (groan—the LA-LA game) has had two VAR moments. PK DOGSO yellow becomes DFK sendoff early in the first half. Ball appeared to go over the goal line at the Galaxy’s attacking end, and LAFC scored to break the 0-0 tie.VAR found it inconclusive. (While the announcers seemed to think it was conclusive that it was out, I was unconvinced—seems there wasn’t a camera close enough to the goal line to really be conclusive. I think it was probably out.)
And LAFC loses a goal to a VAR reversal on a very close OS call. Announcer moment of the day several moments later p: “if this was in the Premier League, they’d still be drawing lines on the screen.”
So on the MLS site highlight, the red is shown straightaway. Then the OFR leads to a free kick instead of penalty and the red is shown again. I presume the red was changed to yellow before the OFR. If so, via what prompt?
Switched to yellow very quickly on the initial call, but it happened during a replay, I believe, or otherwise wasn't shown on the broadcast so I'm not sure what happened. I would think yellow would be the correct color had the foul actually been committed inside the penalty area.
It’s interesting because there’s a leg foul and a grab. I think by the way the law change was initially explained, red is right no matter what because there was no attempt to play the ball. But at the professional level the instruction has been to always go yellow if it’s a leg foul (barring something like SFP). So yes, yellow correct if that leg foul was in the area. Wonder if Stott did it himself or got help from AR. Either way, it’s less than ideal to change a red to a yellow and back to a red. But seems like everyone understood and if someone could sell it credibly, it is Stott.
The entire thing was shown. He fairly quickly showed the red followed by a yellow. It wasn't completely clear to viewers that the red was overturned or inadvertent, but it was all shown before replay.
As for the first goal, I'd actually lean towards the ball being just in play. I certainly don't think it's clear enough from that angle to say that it's definitely out of play. AR would have had the best possible angle and said it stayed in. There needs to be more compelling evidence to overrule that decision IMO.
Just watched. Stott talks a little to a teammate, likely the lead AR, before changing from red to yellow. Definitely not inadvertent (I mean, Stott has kept the same cards in the same pockets for like 25 years now). Good help from team to get that it was a leg foul and, therefore, a yellow... if it had been in the penalty area.
A very interesting component of this is that there was no misconduct issued at all, from what I read in the box score. I'm speculating a little here, of course, but... My read is that Touchan opted not to go misconduct and then allowed the VAR process to play out, possibly assuming he'd have an OFR to sort it all out. Then the VAR doesn't have a clear red card or missed incident and everyone gets away scot-free. Again, I could be wrong, but it feels like one of those situations where a referee defaulted to VAR as a crutch and got burned insofar as getting anything close to the right answer goes. How Johnson, at minimum, doesn't come out of that with at least a yellow is difficult to comprehend. I think you could have anything from yellow/nothing to red/red and almost all the combinations in between, depending on match context. But you need at least one card there. In the pre-VAR era, there's no way that incident happens without a card.
Yes, actually. And I would have put Chapman in the category of referees who might deal with it, but I was clearly wrong about that. As @ManiacalClown points out, the league did address this somewhat recently. And I know PRO has told referees to not put up with this garbage. Penso had a red card for something similar last year, right? And I still go back to an incident a few years ago in the playoffs with Marrufo where I am absolutely sure PRO said after-the-fact that it wanted a send off. This is not 10-15 years ago where MLS would want the referees looking the other way. Sure, there are powers that be in the front office that probably want that, but PRO has been clear that it has its referees' backs on this sort of stuff. The problem is the referees don't seem to be hearing and carrying out the message, barring a few exceptions. I would posit that this isn't necessarily an MLS problem, but an engrained acceptance of certain behaviors that many referees in our country have based on their developmental experiences. Old dog, new tricks, etc. If you've dealt with some of this for ~10 years doing competitive amateur and even some of the highest level youth, are you suddenly going to start treating it more harshly in the top professional league? Probably not. Agreed. The referees are failing themselves in this regard, though. I wouldn't put this on anyone else.
I think your points are fair. I definitely do agree that PRO wants this sort of behavior punished and I think MLS does do, but when this type of conduct occurs multiple times a year and the referees aren't doing anything about it either isn't stressed enough or not that high of a priority for PRO/MLS. The problem isn't with PRO or MLS it's with the referees themselves. You have to do your job and uphold the laws of the game and they aren't. The list of referees that I think would deal with that are Penso, Toledo (is he still considered an MLS referee), Elfath and probably Saghafi. I wouldn't have Chapman on the list. I mean he watched on video a violent kick out while the ball was out of play and only deemed it a yellow.
I thought Chapman might because I think you can treat or assess referees a little differently on tolerance for violence against players versus tolerance for interference with the way they do their jobs. I was wrong (then again, it's only a sample size of one) but I just wouldn't think Chapman would put up with this based on how he carries himself on the field. I think there are probably more than the four you listed who would have reacted with a red card for Nani, but given I was wrong about Chapman I wouldn't be confident in my referee-by-referee guessing! I would add Stott, of course, but then again I don't think anyone would do this to him. And Fischer, given his smooth and instantaneous reaction at the Orlando tournament to the ball being kicked at him. Conversely, I think there might be situations where Saghafi or Elfath tried to look the other way on something like this, though I do agree they'd be more likely than not to take action. Beyond that? No idea.
In FC Cincinnati vs Minnesota United, the lone goal came from an incorrectly given corner-kick that should have been goal-kick. The players appealed for me and the replay was clearly showing it should have been a goal-kick and bam... cuts to a goal off the corner-kick.
Yes, I think it's clear from the video that the restart should have been a goal kick. That said, the decision is not reviewable in this case so the VAR is absolved of any responsibility for that one.
My guess is that in the next couple of years, VAR review will extend to GK/CK decisions. They can be very significant and the check should be very quick except in very unusual cases. (I'm not an advocate for this, I just think it is a natural step. But probably will take an incident in something higher level than MLS to generate the angst to make it happen.)