I’m iffy on the distance there. Sure the attacker has the jump on the defender, but there’s still 50-60 yards to cover towards goal. And a player dribbling the ball will usually be slower than tracking defenders. Maybe the CB can catch up. I’d feel comfortable with either yellow or red here.
Man Salazar was a good ref. In the pre-VAR days, he had real skill. He had a few boneheaded calls (and a few mistaken idenity calls, one of which is arguably why MLS went to their weird red card reversal committee) but on the whole, for a crazy game like that, he was an exceptional referee who made courageous calls.
Some may find this stat interesting. Through 32 match days, 44 of the 73 player sendings off have been for second caution (60.27%). This is slightly down from last season's final numbers (59/95, 62.11%) but both are well above 2021 (24/66, 36.36%).
I remember that 2011 season he was really, really good and deservedly got MLS Cup that year. He was one of the few that had a good balance of managing the game the way MLS wants and actually enforcing the Laws of the Game. He wasn't on the extreme end like old MLS favorites like Prus or Petrescu who never bothered to show red cards now matter how obvious they were. It is sad that his career went pretty much downhill after that season and he was eventually let go/fired for not being able to pass the fitness test.
They are getting intensive training that 99.99% of us are not, so what is the reason for the significantly differing opinions we see on these types of plays? Freemon's explanation of "But this is a normal motion for me", makes me wonder what level he played in his younger days and lacks common sense. If the arm isn't up, the shot isn't blocked. Seems pretty cut and dry, no? Even a casual fan would understand that this is not a normal position of the arm when a defender comes in to slide to block a shot. What's the relevance that the ball hit the foot first when the arm was up blocking the shot?
Look it’s a handball. But where do your hands go when you slide tackle? Not to mention he blocks the shot on one side of the body which then hits an arm on the other side. The argument is always justifiable position for what the player is doing.
This is where English and soccer-eze aren’t really in synch. His arm is absolutely in a place natural for an arm to go while sliding—watch any baseball slide, where there is no ulterior motive to have the arm up. So in English, I say that was a natural position for what he was doing. But in soccer, we expect the player to keep the arm lower, so in soccer-eye, I think most would say it is not a natural position. I think these were the type of plays IFAB was trying to clear up when it went into laundry lists, but that didn’t work. I also think this is the type of play that becomes more controversial with VAR and the pretense that we can get unanimity on this kind of call. (FWIW, I don’t think this should be a PK, but I think PRO is right that it is the preferred call under modern guidance.)
This Inside Video Review video reveals/highlights a lack of clarity concerning handballs of this nature. Neither Chenard nor Freemon even mention the deliberate vs deflection question during the review process. To them, it’s just a question of if the arm was in a natural position or not. Which, while exactly what the law says, ignores the supposed considerations used to judge it. Barkey rhetorically poses the deliberate vs deflection question in his explanation, and then immediately provides no explicit answer to it, saying instead that the arm made the player bigger and that the player took a risk. Which, again, is all well and good, but there seems to be a lack of clarity about how the deliberate vs deflection question fits into that. Otherwise, why would Freemon and Chenard just ignore it?
Any review form Simon's game? I haven't seen it, but also I literally haven't heard anything about it one way or the other.