2022 MLS Week 27 Referee Discussion

Sticking this here for fun from tonight's Rapids 2 game. Quick thinking on the Rapids part on the backpass call. Though if this happened in a non-2 game I have a feeling we'd be hearing a lot of howling about if the restart was "correct".

Fast thinking from Yosuke Hanya and Philip Mayaka on the indirect kick🧠#VANvCOL

pic.twitter.com/iFFxoyTBGZ

— Colorado Rapids 2 (@Rapids_2) August 26, 2022

 

Been a very challenging first half in Austin, but to be honest I’m not thrilled with Chilowicz’s job so far. There were a lot of embers since as early as the 8th minute, a lot of confrontations between players, which grew into a much larger fire. Chilowicz’s bar for a caution had been high in these incidents, the only caution having been for a SPA/reckless foul, until the big mass confrontation in the 39th minute.

I’m terms of specific decisions, Jurisevic has had a typical high bar for intervention, opting not to recommend a review on a potential penalty foul by Hollingshead and then on (I think?) a potential VC red card by Urruti at the start of that confrontation. To me, both decisions were wrong and probably warranted on field reviews.

 

It would have been interesting to see if there would have been an OFR for a penalty had LAFC not scored its first goal. It definitely seemed like there was a trip by Austin in the area.

 

Very very very soft PK from Elfath in Portland-Seattle....hard to believe it wasn't reviewed.....

 

For those looking and can get the ESPN feed, the foul is called at 39:15. If we can trust the broadcast angles, I'm pretty surprised on this one - the third replay seems to demonstrate clearly that the defender contact (whether PK-worthy or not) happens after the ball's been released by the attacker. (The second replay implies that, but I don't think it's as clear, but the two together lead very much in that direction.) I can 100% see why it would be called in real time, but either the VAR didn't think it was as clear as I do, or they have other videos that show something different (like from behind the goal, which might be a useful angle here).

Since it didn't go to OFR, we'll probably never hear about it again, but who knows?

 

For me the issue is the fact that Yeimar beat Williamson to the spot, after which Williamson goes down trying to avoid Yeimar. The defender has just as much right to the spot on the field as the attacker, and in this case, the defender got to that spot first.

IMHO, it's either a no-call or even a foul on the attacker for diving.

 

In the 89th minute of Seattle-Portland, Williamson shoves Montero to the ground in the penalty box with a hand to the upper chest/throat behind the play. Elfath does not see the incident, since he's looking at the ball. Play is checked, and no OFR.

Astounding....not sure why VAR even exists....

 

I’m just not sure what yeimar is supposed to do here. He’s getting out of way. pic.twitter.com/AVJFJ8ghW7

— Jeremiah Oshan (@JeremiahOshan) August 27, 2022

 

I don’t like the penalty call either, but I do think it’s a subjective decision: was Yeimar moving into the opponent’s path and therefore impede him illegally? Or did he get there first and the opponent ran into him? I think it’s more the latter but this call will always be a subjective one. It’s far less clear of an error than, say, the Hollingshead push or the Urruti cleat earlier tonight, which weren’t reviewed. VAR probably isn’t touching this one.

As for the 89th minute push, the force seemed soft, normal, and trifling to me. Maybe you could give it, but it would have been quite a soft penalty, no matter how big of a meal Montero makes of it.

 

The off the ball shove to the upper chest/lower neck seemed normal to you?

Like that's a normal soccer play?

They weren't fighting for position. The ball was nowhere near them. Montero has his head turned looking at the ball and is stepping backwards away from Williamson when Williamson steps into him and thrusts his open hand into the upper chest/neck for absolutely no soccer playing reason.

That's not normal.

The thing you will want to pay attention to is that in that corner kick Williamson was wrapping his arms around Montero. While fighting through that Montero gives a little shove to Williamson who falls over. That jockeying for position between the two seems pretty innocuous to me and it looks like Williamson more lost his balance than anything.

Williamson gets up and then goes after Montero with the shove.

Do they feel they would have to go back to when Williamson was pushed down? Would Williamson's arms wrapped around Montero then come into play?

I have to assume that's why they didn't send it down.

But it's not normal/trifling contact to push a player like that off the ball when there is absolutely no soccer playing reason to do so.

It's clear retaliation based on what happened a few seconds earlier during the corner.

 

Come on guys. This hasn’t been a foul in the mls for 25 years. There has to be a threshold, even for a push off the ball, that contact does not warrant a penalty kick. The contact isn’t the throat as the announcers would have you believe. If you truly want this called then we need penalties on literally every single corner kick because pushing and holding happens on every one of them

this smells a bit like fan griping. I checked a handful of your (and asocs) other posts and you both seem to watch a lot of Seattle games. It’s great to be a fan but this forum is for non partisan discussion of referees. There are other places to go if you just want to advocate for your clubs with fellow fans

 

Wait, what point are you trying to make here? Do you think that the VAR should overturn a penalty kick if the person who was fouled didn't have the ball?

 

If I can interpret, I think the post to which you are replying is saying that since the attacker had already released the ball, that the potential foul did not impact the play and, unless a blatant foul, should not result in a penalty.

To be completely fair, that line of reasoning does creep into a lot of penalty/no penalty decisions. I'm not saying it's right, but I think it's human nature for referees (and I'm sure I've done it myself) to say, "the attacker had the chance, the ball is away, so some contact after the ball is away is trifling and shouldn't be called".

 

I'm a Sounders fan (I live in Seattle), and have stated so previously.

I post for discussion any incidents from Sounders games that I feel are worthy of discussion. I try to be as objective and "non-partisan" as I can, but that doesn't mean that I am going to refrain from expressing my opinion.

 

You’re welcome to have opinion of course but there is no way in the world you would have accepted this if called for Portland.

 

If you are taking the time to dig through someone's posting history maybe you should take that time to instead make a reasonable argument how a shove to someone off the ball like that is normal. Because it absolutely isn't. It's easily a yellow card if seen anywhere else on the field.

I only posted because I think it's a pretty outrageous take to think that was a normal soccer play.

And I posted about what happened right before the shove which paints Montero as possibly instigating the Timbers player moments before. (Which no one else had mentioned.)

I suppose I could have completely ignored that as a Sounders fan. But I didn't.

The VAR took a long look at the play. I doubt he was just looking at the shove.

If a Sounders player did that I would be pissed at the player.

 

And there's no way that any Portland fan would have accepted the PK if it had been awarded against them instead of for them.

My issue is with the lack of balance from Elfath in terms of what level of contact constituted a foul....you had a very questionable soft PK for minimal contact awarded to one team, and then an equally questionable non-PK for more blatant contact not awarded to the other team. Either both are PK's or neither are....

 

I absolutely love the quick restart on that. That saves like 3 minutes of chaos.

 

I did. Not all contract rises to the threshold of a foul. Even contract off the ball. If you need more examples you could watch the game that preceded this one. Plenty of shoving during a dead ball and not every one received a yellow.

If your concern is consistency then I can’t really argue. However, making one mistake (if it even is one) does not mean we make a second one to even the score.

As a technical matter, the VAR would not have considered Monteiros actions. Either the incident is a penalty or it’s not. If it’s a penalty then a review would be recommended and at that time, they may consider other fouls in the app. The fact a review never happened is a direct indication the VaR doesn’t think it’s a penalty.

 

You’re right. That’s why this forum isn’t generally for fans (even ones that also ref). I’m sure Portland fans everywhere think it’s a pk in the first half. That shouldn’t offend you. The fact that fans can’t agree is exactly why we have refs.

 

Essentially, and I don't think this is wrong or even remotely controversial. Of course we punish contact that doesn't impact the play differently than contact that does, especially in the PA. To pick an obvious example: if a CK goes to the near post, and an attacker goes down from some contact at the far post or the far side of the D, we don't expect a PK. The bar for contact has to be (and is) much higher. If the attacker still has possession, I think there's an interesting conversation about whether the contact constitutes a foul; without possession, I don't think it's that close. (That said, I can sort of squint and see why it doesn't match the clear and obvious standard. Sort of.)

 

Forgive the fan forum but this is what I could find (I’ll put a less partisan one up if/when I find it)

it sure seemed off to me

Frame by frame pic.twitter.com/5co5XPWluK

— Scott Libbert (@ConnectDots4u) August 28, 2022

 

A friend asked me about this one so I went looking for it, so thanks for posting. Honestly I don't think the frame-by-frame shows what these fans think it does, because the kick point looks like 0:06 and that's not clearly off. I haven't looked hard for any live replays etc.

 

Not seeing the kick point at 0:06 - seems more like 0:12 to me