2023 MLS Week 34 Referee Discussion

There is not. Given international duty requirements for your top referees, it would never fly.

Tori Penso is a very interesting question, though. Whatever you think of her in MLS (and I think of her relatively highly, personally) she hasn’t done enough in the past to be ranked high enough for playoff inclusion. I suspect that hasn’t changed this year because WWC performance shouldn’t affect that. But maybe it does.

 

To your point here, maybe Marrufo is the biggest question mark.

 

2:07 Mark


Bürki drops ball and grabs attacker.
Anyone willing to go red here for DOGSO.
Arguably, a defender near by. Also control issue.
But yellow or red, I don’t see either as clear error.

 

So Vazquez did something very sneaky last night in Atlanta, which I'm just now noticing.

87' foul by Waterman. He's the last man. It's a relatively obvious hold, but Waterman wants to debate the veracity of the call immediately. Some questions around the direction of play off the touch, I'd say, but Waterman is flat-out saying (paraphrase, of course) "no, I didn't foul him, he embellished." Here's the important part: Waterman is already on a yellow.

Vazquez instinctively pulls out his yellow from his right shirt pocket. But never shows it. He pulls out the red from his back right pocket and shows it for DOGSO.

Vazquez erred on the side of DOGSO-red because he knew that was reviewable but the 2CT would not have been! Even if a review was just to downgrade to 2CT, he ensured that the whole thing could have been wiped out if he was fooled by a dive.

Ultimately, VAR upheld the red (debatable DOGSO, but debatable calls should be upheld after all). So it all worked out. But I think it's the first instance I can recall where a referee very clearly erred on the side of over-punishing a clear-cut 2CT to allow himself an out if he had been fooled.

 

Probably, yes. He lines up about a yard or a little more than a yard away from the actual wall. He starts much closer to the other two Charlotte players, who have left a large gap between what can only be described as a wall (per the Laws) and a quasi-wall (not per the Laws, as it only has two players). Before the kick, he shuffles toward the wall and at that point he is probably like ~2 feet away from the wall. The problem is that the Charlotte player then moves toward the attacker as the kicker starts the run-up. So when the kick is taken and we see what looks like a clear violation, the proximity has actually been created by the wall moving.

Long way of saying this wasn't clearly an offence. It probably was a technical offence but we're talking about a foot being subjectively analyzed from multiple camera angles. Goal is the expected decision here. Defending goalkeeper is looking for an excuse.

Per the LOTG and protocols, yes. It's an offence prior to the scoring of a goal. But the threshold for a VAR to actually intervene is incredibly high for two reasons. One, a VAR has to remember to check this (to my point on another thread, the technology is only as good as the personnel) and, two, I think you have to have physical contact for the VAR to say that a player is clearly within a yard. Starting to use angles to say with certainty, let's posit, that someone is 18 inches away at the moment the ball is struck rather than 36 inches and in a situation where (usually) no one is complaining... that's a very quick way to not be a VAR anymore. If you had physical interference with the wall on a goal where the referee didn't observe it... maybe you could have something. What we saw last night wasn't it.

 

So the weird LOTG here is that it's actually really hard--bordering on impossible in my eyes--to get to yellow card. That close to goal, with an open net and the goalkeeper committing the foul, how do you reason that it's a "promising attack" but not an OGSO? It really doesn't make any sense. It's one of those that, in a practical classroom seeting, is either red (for DOGSO) or no card (because he's not likely to get the ball first).

But in the real world, it's one of those that 99% of the people in the stadium and on the field don't really even recognize as a foul initially. But it's a deliberate foul and it's right near goal, so it behooves you to sell the penalty by tacking on the yellow (and it also behooves you to keep the match from being lost by avoiding a red card because you find some doubt over DOGSO).

Street refereeing versus book refereeing. Rivas did the smart thing here.

 

I think he got it right, honestly. And if I'm correct about that, PRO won't be happy about the situation Mariscal put him in there.

 

I think you buried the lede a little here.

In both instances, neither play was initially even called a foul!

Penso was going to restart with a throw-in and Gonzales Jr. initially held up play for the injury and was going to presumably drop it back to the goalkeeper. It took like 90 seconds for a card to be produced and, implicitly, a foul to be belatedly called.

With Penso, I get it. It's really hard to see the foul from his angle. AR1 has to help. With Gonzales Jr.... eh, different story. He obviously got help from someone to give the yellow (and belatedly call the foul), which is good. But for him not to react to that tackle at all when it happens is not good.

Ultimately, I prefer red on both, too. Little surprised Penso took as long as he did at the monitor but I also get the gut reluctance to send a player (the goal-scoring captain) off in the first half (at home) of a match with big playoff consequences and on an incident you at first didn't even recognize as a foul.

For Gonzales Jr., again, I prefer red on a tackle like that but I can also understand the argument that he's more or less trying to score a goal, he does get the ball first, and the studs come up after he is into the ball. If there was one difference I would hang my hat on (if I was trying to defend both outcomes) it would be that Russell had studs showing the whole way and Mora's came up after he was through the ball. Still, it's a very dangerous tackle.

And whatever you think of the veracity of these two cards and interventions, I'll tap the sign from my post in the EPL thread: SFP is subjective.

 

I think he's bringing his arms in close to his body as best or most instictively as he can. You tuck like that and something is going to be outside the silhouette (unless you have a ton of time, which wasn't the case here). The ball isn't on goal. He's trying to get out of the way so it goes out for a goal kick. And then it hits his body and hits his right arm.

Spirit of the game is my answer. He's trying to not handle. And it was a nothing shot (not supposed to matter, but try telling me it shouldn't at 90+10' and counting in a one-goal game). And it deflects off his body first. More than enough to not call it per the Laws because this falls into this ambiguous zone and the actual circumstances and facts should make you not want to call this.