08/31/22 Philadelphia Union vs Atlanta United Subaru Park (7PM ET) REF: Lukasz Szpala AR1: Jason White AR2: Kevin Klinger 4TH: Joshua Encarnacion VAR: Rosendo Mendoza AVAR: Tom Supple Columbus Crew vs Inter Miami Lower.com Field (7:30PM ET) REF: Armando Villarreal AR1: Andrew Bigelow AR2: Diego Blas 4TH: Matt Thompson VAR: Ismail Elfath AVAR: Robert Schaap CF Montréal vs New York Red Bulls Stade Saputo (7:30PM ET) REF: Victor Rivas AR1: Jeffrey Greeson AR2: Chantal Boudreau 4TH: Jon Freemon VAR: Malik Badawi AVAR: TJ Zablocki New England Revolution vs Chicago Fire Gillette Stadium (7:30PM ET) REF: Marcos DeOliveira AR1: Jose Da Silva AR2: Gjovalin Bori 4TH: Adam Kilpatrick VAR: Daniel Radford AVAR: Jonathan Johnson Orlando City vs Seattle Sounders Exploria Stadium (7:30PM ET) REF: Alex Chilowicz AR1: Ryan Graves AR2: Tyler Wyrostek 4TH: Fotis Bazakos VAR: Kevin Terry Jr AVAR: Fabio Tovar Toronto FC vs LA Galaxy BMO Field (7:30PM ET) REF: Ted Unkel AR1: Corey Rockwell AR2: Adam Wienckowski 4TH: Guido Gonzales Jr VAR: Alejandro Mariscal AVAR: Cory Richardson New York City FC vs D.C. United Red Bull Arena (8PM ET) REF: Ismir Pekmic AR1: Brian Dunn AR2: Brian Poeschel 4TH: JC Griggs VAR: Allen Chapman AVAR: Peter Balciunas Houston Dynamo vs Los Angeles FC PNC Stadium (8:30PM ET) REF: Matthew Conger AR1: Gianni Facchini AR2: Brooke Mayo 4TH: Elton Garcia VAR: Jair Marrufo AVAR: Joshua Patlak Nashville vs Colorado Rapids GEODIS Park (8:30PM ET) REF: Mark Allatin AR1: Corey Parker AR2: Kyle Atkins 4TH: Silviu Petrescu VAR: Edvin Jurisevic AVAR: Eric Weisbrod Austin FC vs Portland Timbers Q2 Stadium (9PM ET) REF: Chris Penso AR1: Chris Wattam AR2: Jeff Hosking 4TH: Ramy Touchan VAR: Timothy Ford AVAR: Kathryn Nesbitt Real Salt Lake vs Minnesota United Rio Tinto Stadium (9:30PM ET) REF: Drew Fischer AR1: Logan Brown AR2: Eduardo Jeff 4TH: Brad Jensen VAR: Michael Radchuk AVAR: Craig Lowry
NJ/NY Gotham FC vs North Carolina Courage Red Bull Arena (5PM ET) REF: Armando Villarreal AR1: Amilcar Sicaju AR2: Jennifer Dumaine 4TH: Jeremy Scheer Interesting NWSL appointment. In Gotham’s previous game, the officials made a big error in awarding Gotham a corner kick when the ball allegedly crossed the goal line between the posts and under the crossbar. (I’m not actually convinced that the ball ever entirely crossed the goal line, but that’s what the match officials ruled anyways, and PRO said it did, so). PRO released a statement the following day saying that it was an egregious error ad that the officials involved with the error were removed from their next assignments.
I don’t know the full back story here but I will say that making this assignment on that short of notice would be highly unusual (and violate the CBA?). Also it would mean Villarreal was available OR pulled off an MLS match. So I’m not sure this is a direct consequence of the phantom corner kick. And if it is, not to be pedantic but don’t you need better ARs? Regardless, interested to learn exactly how this came about and to see how it goes.
It seems like one hell of a conincidence that Armando was already assigned his first ever NWSL match ahead of the incident and just happened to be on the team who was on the wrong side of said incident... How such a change works with the CBA is well outside of my knowledge so I'd be curious to learn what you hear.
Agree with everything you say. Not saying it's not a direct consequence. But that was incredibly fast if it was. Like if Villarreal had Labor Day weekend off from MLS, he would have known it for 3 weeks--if not longer. So to be called into duty for this one NWSL match? And that means someone--who had nothing to do with the error a couple days ago--got bumped? It's certainly possible, but you're irritating two referees who had nothing to do with any of the issues just to... do what, exactly, relative to the decision? This is a stand-alone Week 17 match for NWSL, with more matches coming the following weekend. Maybe an arrangement was made weeks ago to start using some MLS referees in September? If so, the coincidence is that it happens to be the same team who had the corner kick decision go against them being scheduled as the one stand-alone match this weekend.
And if you're going to use MLS refs on occasion, when you look at the standings this match doesn't need it. Both teams are missing the playoffs. So it being the team bottom of the table that was on the wrong side of a bad call...
This assignment (and at least one more) has been scheduled for a while. Not a reaction to anything last week
It was not posted anywhere publicly, but I can independently corroborate that the assignment predates the error in Gotham's most recent match.
Pics or it didn't happen! Nah I believe you, interesting though, why just this random assignment if he hasn't had one ever? Are there just, not a lot of NWSL refs?
There is another similar assignment coming. And, yes, I can also now confirm these were made weeks ago.
It must be, it feels like it would be a significant financial investment by the league to hire PRO’s top officials. And I don’t think it will be very long before NWSL fans realize that MLS referees make mistakes too; this “complaining about refs” problem exists in every league, MLS too, and it isn’t going away. I can’t speak for referees working at that level obviously, but I feel like this is a bad development for referees if these assignments happen on a regular basis. The reality is that the NWSL, compared with MLS, is a much easier league to referee, has a smaller following, has lower stakes, has a lower quality of play, and offers far worse infrastructure and amenities for referees. For these reasons, the best referees should be working in MLS, not splitting time with the NWSL. Some supporters may try to play the “equality” card, but the truth is that the NWSL is not equal to MLS in any meaningful sense. To me, seems like a poor use of your most valuable officials’ time, and many of them are probably not particularly interested in working in that league anyways. They would be much better utilized, and, I assume for plenty of them, would much more enjoy, working an MLS game, having a weekend off, or even mentoring local referees in their home state. I hope that the union is on top of all of this and, if this becomes a new assignment norm, that the referees get some CBA goodies in exchange for it.
@gaolin I’m sure you know there are people on this board that are either in PRO, are friends with PRO officials, or have access to the PRO assigning system.
Why is Marcos always so difficult? He's actually asking "Does it hit his right hand or his left hand?" VAR always needs to talk to him in a childlike tone describing why it's a PK as if he's a Grassroots Referee. This was a slam dunk hand ball and should not have taken more than a few seconds to view.
I think he asked before they played it for him so he would know what he was watching for? While I agree that this is 100% an expected HB call, for me it is another example of unnaturally bigger not really being what the words mean. His arm was in a completely natural position for what he was doing. His arm spun out as he was stopping and turning, which is completely natural. (And there was no plausible way in which he was trying to take up space, as that was never a likely place for the ball to go.) I really struggle with the difference between the language and the meaning. I get that we are trying to not force players to do things excessively unnatural to avoid being hit by the ball (e.g. trying to play defense with arms behind the back), but we are certainly expecting them to do things that are somewhat unnatural to avoid making themselves bigger in a way they might get hit by the ball. Maybe the language we have is as good as it gets (at least without a two page dissertation), but I’m not sure the language is really doing anything more for us than the the judgment we exercised on deliberate when that was the sole standard. one other thought—the ball out of play on the touchline seems like an awfully bad miss love by the AR. That seems a call I would expect a much less expensive AR to get right live—unless someone was blocking his view, which I didn’t see in the video.
With the ball in the middle of the field and the AR down near the goal line, you’d be asking a lot for the AR to get this from the side when the referee gets to look from the front
huh? I’m talking about the ball over the touch line. The AR is looking straight down the line- and unlike many of the lines many of us have, it’s a crisp we’ll marked line.
I don’t think Kessler’s arm position was quite as natural as you’re making it sound, but I am also struggling to rationalize the way handballs have been interpreted (at least by PRO; I don’t watch enough other leagues to say anything about them for sure) against the changes made in the 2021-22 LOTG. It kind of feels like they’ve gradually slipped back into calling it almost exactly the same as they did in previous editions of the LOTG, ignoring the inclusion of the new language that “A player is considered to have made their body unnaturally bigger when the position of their hand/arm is not a consequence of, or justifiable by, the player’s body movement for that specific situation.” Ultimately, “bigger” is a lot less subjective and controversial than trying to actually work with that “unnatural” definition. The result is that defends aren’t actually getting the benefits the IFAB intended when they made this change. I don’t really understand what the point of the IFAB adding new language like this to the LOTG if leagues are going to just ignore it at their own will. There have been a number of changes like that where it feels like something maybe changes for a few months and then leagues decide they don’t like it and just ignore it forever.