2020 MLS Week 23 Referee Discussion

I’ll be curious to see how this one is explained in PRO’s review.

 

The second angle looks a lot worse than the first angle (on first viewing, I didn't even think it was a foul from the first angle).

It seems that with VAR, the trend has been "if studs go into the ankle, it's red". This play is consistent with that.

But it's an odd play, because the contact comes after he very clearly wins the ball. The action did risk injury to the opponent, but doesn't look like an unreasonable amount of force--it was just unfortunate that the opponent got his leg in there as he was lunging for the ball.

I think any time you're forcefully lunging for the ball with your studs exposed, you're being reckless, even if you win the ball. I think foul + yellow is the right call here. But a red to me seems harsh, and it definitely doesn't seem to be a clear and obvious error.

I've felt for a while that PRO referees have been a little bit too black and white with the "if the studs go into the leg, it's red" standard. I agree that studs into the ankle/leg is usually a red card, but I feel like some nuance has been lost.

 

Here's a mildly interesting one from San Jose: LA attacker is on a counter attack, gets clipped from behind by a San Jose player but stays on his feet. Immediately after, he's grabbed from behind by a second San Jose player, and the foul is called. Neither foul is reckless, but together they break up a promising attack. Tim Ford gives a yellow for the first foul, but not the second.

Arguably, both San Jose players here could have been cautioned for breaking up the attack--but that's not the outcome anyone expects. But to me, it seems if you're picking one, you'd typically caution the second foul, not the first, on this type of play. But I'm not entirely confident on that--thoughts?

In this case, it happened to become relevant, as the cautioned player ended up getting another caution about 10 minutes later.

https://matchcenter.mlssoccer.com/m...os-angeles-football-club/details/video/248023

 

Well, you can't really caution both players. That wouldn't make much sense. The first foul was definitely worse. The first one is the one that broke up the attack, and the second one was just added. The first one was cheap, and the second was just a tug. The first one made the second one possible. The pull was just really to force the R to call the trip. So, if someone is going to get booked, its the first guy.

I do wonder if Ford felt like he had to caution for the first foul when the second player kicked the ball away after the whistle. That sealed the deal that the card was going to come out. Had they left the ball alone, I don't know if he would have carded anyone.

EDIT: I just watched the clip of that player getting sent off later. Oh my goodness, what a dumb foul when you are sitting on a yellow. It actually looked a lot like the VAR red to Nani you linked to earlier. I"m not saying this was a straight red tackle, but it certainly flirted with it.

 

I'm less concerned with the people who think this challenge isn't red than I am with the fact that ESPN's main color commentator thinks this isn't even a foul. Manufacturing outrage as usual.

 

I can definitely see the similarities.Contact was low and on the foot in this case, and that makes all the difference. Easily reckless. Homer commentary team is at least more forgiveable than someone who works national broadcasts, but they should still be able to figure out why this was a foul.

 

You could if you considered the first foul reckless and the second SPAA. But I don't see that here.

I think you can argue either way here as to which should get the caution. Calling the second foul is (marginally) better for the offended team as the FK is a few yards further up. But that means applying advantage to first foul, which can no longer be a SPAA caution. I agree that the better answer is to say that advantage from the first foul never ensued so the foul is called and that miscreant is cautioned.

 

I have no idea what the players heard (Yueill specifically, the first player in the foul situation), but the broadcast thought the yellow was on Judson (the second player in the foul situation). We may have missed that communication, but it seemed like Yueill didn't even know he had a yellow card on that second foul.

 

I'm obviously just watching the short clip, but I wouldn't have known who Ford had cautioned on Yeuill's first card if the clip didn't say that Yeuill was the recipient. At the very least, Ford didn't do the greatest job of isolating Yeuill to give him the card. I sometimes get ahead of myself and don't do a great job of this in my matches, so I'm always watching for this when I watch games on TV.

In a situation like this where two fouls happen in quick succession, it's important to make sure everyone - particularly the cautioned player for obvious reasons - know he's the one getting the card. It would be interesting to know if Yeuill actually knew if he was sitting on a caution.

 

I’m ok with the review in the Nani red card. It’s pretty forceful studs to the upper ankle. It’s pretty much a clear red card for me, I don’t think there’s a very strong argument in favor of a yellow.

 

I believe that THEORETICALLY you could caution both players for Stopping / interfering with a Promising Attack under the 2019-20 LOTG, because the clause that stops you from cautioning for SPA when advantage is played isn’t in those Laws yet. In theory, the first caution would be for interfering with the promising attack, and the second one would be more for stopping it.

Obviously, not recommending this as a good PRACTICAL approach at all! There’s no need for two cards there, but I think it would be theoretically possible.

 

Yeah should still be possible to have two SPA yellows here.

As for the Nani challenge, I am totally fine with red, but I can't shake the feeling that it might fall short of the clear and obvious threshold in the opinion of the people who judge these things.

 

I know stills don't always tell the full story, but it's pretty hard to argue against a red if this is all you see. Nani is coming in with his leg locked and at a downward angle. Definite potential for a serious injury on this type of challenge. If I'm VAR and the referee calls this a yellow, I'm probably asking him to take another look at it.

 

It was very unclear on the broadcast who got the card for sure. It was just as unclear as to whether the players knew. Yeull was over 10 yards away from Ford with Judson in between when the card was shown. There whistle wasn't until Judson pulled on the attacker, but that may have been more of an advantage delay. (Also unclear if there was going to be a card until Yeull kicked the ball away.)

That said, Yeull reacted hard to the 2nd yellow and did not seem to be further surprised when the red came out. I think he knew he was on a yellow.

 

I read that a bit different... a mature player (beyond his years) trying not to impact the team more than he had. But you could be right too.

My only point in this thread was that the Ref's intent wasn't clear and I hope his assessor had that conversation with him.

 

Appeal upheld.

At this point, I will be surprised if PRO supported the review.

 

How many 4th’s for Elijio Arreguin and Lukasz Splaza? Possible trials in the future maybe?

 

This^

The review panel’s lack of intervention on the first incident and subsequent intervention on the second is a joke.

 

That’s fair, but based on the failure of whatever current system is in place I can’t really feel like we need to give anyone on any of the committees a break.

Whatever convoluted system is currently managing all the different variations of missed, incorrectly applied or too severe discipline isn’t working when stuff like this happens.

Keeping the different committees like this straight on what they can and cannot act on is far too complicated.

These are laws of the game questions almost exclusively. It should be referees (and former referees) and ONLY referees making these decisions.

Allowing the other parties to insert their own political motivations into the process removes the impartiality.

 

Whether a player should be suspended is not a Law question at all. The LOTG solely address what happens within the confines of a game.

I don’t disagree that there are significant problems with how MLS handles these, but I don’t know that the solution is to have only referees make those decisions. There may be one, but I’m not aware of a professional league in any US sport that relies on refs to make those decisions. But I also think, f I’m what I’ve seen, that the other sports do a better job than MLS. (Putting aside that no Astros players were suspended for participating in the biggest cheating scheme in recent US professional sports history,)