07/29/22 Los Angeles FC vs Seattle Sounders Banc of California Stadium (11PM ET) on FS1 REF: Joe Dickerson AR1: Ian Anderson AR2: Chris Elliott 4TH: Brandon Stevis VAR: Guido Gonzales Jr AVAR: Jeremy Hanson 07/30/22 Minnesota United vs Portland Timbers Allianz Field (3PM ET) on ABC REF: Victor Rivas AR1: Jeffrey Greeson AR2: Jeffrey Swartzel 4TH: Lukasz Szpala VAR: Sorin Stoica AVAR: Jeremy Hanson Chicago Fire vs Atlanta United Soldier Field (5PM ET) REF: Timothy Ford AR1: Adam Wienckowski AR2: Brian Poeschel 4TH: Ricardo Fierro VAR: Alex Chilowicz AVAR: TJ Zablocki Charlotte FC vs Columbus Crew Bank of America Stadium (7PM ET) REF: Matthew Conger AR1: Frank Anderson AR2: Chantal Boudreau 4TH: Alyssa Nichols VAR: Ismail Elfath AVAR: Jonathan Johnson CF Montréal vs New York City FC Stade Saputo (7:30PM ET) REF: Ramy Touchan AR1: Oscar Mitchell-Carvalho AR2: Andrew Bigelow 4TH: Silviu Petrescu VAR: Jon Freemon AVAR: Jose Da Silva Philadelphia Union vs Houston Dynamo Subaru Park (7:30PM ET) REF: Kevin Stott - First game this season AR1: Matthew Nelson AR2: Ben Pilgrim 4TH: Natalie Simon VAR: Jorge Gonzalez AVAR: Peter Balciunas Inter Miami vs FC Cincinnati DRV PNK Stadium (8PM ET) REF: Tori Penso AR1: Logan Brown AR2: Gjovalin Bori 4TH: Rubiel Vazquez VAR: Guido Gonzales Jr AVAR: Joshua Patlak Nashville vs Vancouver Whitecaps GEODIS Park (8PM ET) REF: Marcos DeOliveira AR1: Jeff Hosking AR2: Kevin Lock 4TH: Sergii Demianchuk VAR: Ted Unkel AVAR: Mike Kampmeinert New England Revolution vs Toronto FC Gillette Stadium (8PM ET) REF: Ismir Pekmic AR1: Corey Parker AR2: CJ Morgante 4TH: Adam Kilpatrick VAR: Carol Anne Chenard AVAR: Corey Rockwell Sporting Kansas City vs Austin FC Children’s Mercy Park (8:30PM ET) REF: Fotis Bazakos AR1: Cory Richardson AR2: Meghan Mullen 4TH: Greg Dopka VAR: Daniel Radford AVAR: Jeremy Hanson FC Dallas vs LA Galaxy Toyota Stadium (9PM ET) REF: Pierre-Luc Lauziere AR1: Lyes Arfa AR2: Brooke Mayo 4TH: Luis Guardia VAR: Chris Penso AVAR: Fabio Tovar San Jose Earthquakes vs Real Salt Lake PayPal Park (10PM ET) REF: Nima Saghafi AR1: Micheal Barwegen AR2: Felisha Mariscal 4TH: Brandon Stevis VAR: Alex Chilowicz AVAR: TJ Zablocki 07/31/22 D.C. United vs Orlando City Audi Field (5PM ET) REF: Armando Villarreal AR1: Kevin Klinger AR2: Diego Blas 4TH: Matt Thompson VAR: Ismail Elfath AVAR: Jeremy Hanson
In solemn news, this may be why Robert Sibiga has not appeared this season. Condolences to him and his family.
Victor Rivas and crew really did well in the Minnesota-Portland match. To say that was wild is a massive understatement. 4-4, a Portland goal 13 seconds in, Portland scoring three in the first 20 minutes of the 2nd half to come back from 3-1 down, then MNUFC equalizing. It was the soccer version of the classic 1984 Hagler-Hearns fight. It was very, very entertaining, and Rivas and team did a good job.
Fascinating VAR review in PHI-HOU. Houston player goes to ground, and the ball goes off his leg and hits his trailing arm. Nothing big there. But then, the Houston player has the ball hit his other arm as he continues his slide (at least I believe it hit his arm). Stott originally calls a penalty, then goes to the monitor and reverses his call. I hope this one is part of the next Inside Video Review, because I would love to hear the conversation. For me, it seems like the second occurrence of the ball hitting the hand/arm makes it handling. However, I could see where this is still part of the interpretation that when the player plays the ball and it then hits the hand or arm in a natural position, then there's no handling. The big thing about this is that the ball comes off the trailing arm, which is in a natural position as the Houston player slides. In any case, it's an interesting discussion point on any number of fronts.
Sitting here watching Kevin Stott working the Dynamo-Union game and remembering that I watched him do a Wiz-Burn game in April 1996 (I think it was his first MLS match) and realizing that was half my life ago. Where does the time go?
It really is amazing that Kevin Stott is still doing the highest professional level in the United States after 27 years, and he in no way at all looks out of place on the field, Much respect for him continuing at such a high level for so many years.
Two VERY close offside decisions at the end of ORL v DC. Certainly the difference between using the European lines vs MLS's eyeball test was evident from the angles I saw
There were a lot of VAR interventions this weekend. There were 9 OFRs, in fact. Barkey has a lot of material to work with for Friday. I think the two in Orlando are going to be some of the most debatable. Certainly arguments for a penalty and for offside, respectively, but not sure either will be supported as reaching the clear and obvious threshold. The rejected OFR for the Toronto-New England penalty is the most baffling. It seemed like a good intervention and Pekmic just didn't go with it. Feel like we will hear something there. Everything else seemed solid from an accuracy standpoint, though the offside decisions were very close and some of these interventions took way too long. By the way, it's worth noting Mendoza didn't work at all this weekend after an error in a 1-goal game that PRO pre-emptively conceded was wrong. Could be a coincidence or it could be accountability.
Remember, he wasn't supposed to have the whistle in that Seattle game anyway, but was switched in (I don't remember why). So this could just be rebalancing after that change too.
Are you referring to the DC v. Orlando game for this? I'm not entirely sure what potential penalty you'd be referring to here, but for DC's first goal, I thought Kamara was always onside or at least even with the second to last defender (see below for some modeling; not my account). First DC goal from #DCvORL - @ChrisDurkin0's goal in 92', my model shows that he is offside by <1", which is definitely well within the margin of error. I would consider this to be as even as even gets. #VamosUnited #OrlandoCity pic.twitter.com/cMtHK29gRK— SoccerPhotogrammetry AKA "A Nice Gentleman" (@OffsideModeling) August 1, 2022
No, sorry. I meant Miami when I wrote Orlando. Sloppy mistake. I meant the penalty for the charge/elbow from behind (was the defender pushed first?). And then the offside decision to negate a goal (was it clear?).
Gotcha. There was definitely some controversy over Kamara's positioning on the DC equalizer in 2nd half stoppage time, so that's why I was confused about the penalty portion of your comment. Definitely all sorted now.
50/50 in Orlando and a pretty forceful public criticism of the non-overturn in New England. About what I expected. Interesting that they also don't like offside intervention in KC-Austin. But that's in line with the Miami one, too. Not the best rate of execution this past week. PRO is saying a penalty was missed despite the VAR doing the right thing and then two VARs took away what should have been good goals.
I agreed with PRO on all of those. I like that they aren’t looking to overturn OS calls/no-calls on the field when they are really close. But i also think theater makes those close OS calls really tough on the VAR—how close is too close to intervene?