2023 USL/NWSL/USOC/MLS Next Referee Discussion [Rs]

I think it is going to be pretty nuanced. Of course they want the best referees. But I think they are also keenly aware of some of the challenges that women in sports face, and I’d bet a lot of the, also want to see women get opportunities.

 

@USSF REF is correct. In order to do men's professional matches, you must pass the men's international & category 1 fitness test. Those two seconds make a HUGE difference.
So if you have a number of PRO2 officials that can only work NWSL, they will skew the selection of the officials used in NWSL.

 

In their quarterly referee newsletter, US Soccer announced the match officials for the US Open Cup Final:

Final Assignments

Inter Miami CF v Houston Dynamo FC
Jon Freemon, Referee
Cameron Blanchard, AR1
Logan Brown, AR2
Guido Gonzales Jr, 4th
Younes Marrakchi, VAR
TJ Zablocki, AVAR
Ryan Graves, 5th

 

Really interesting that one of the weaker VARs in MLS gets the first ever US Open Cup Final that has VAR.

 

Inside video review NWSL Challenge Cup Semifinals:

Really good job by Anya Voigt in the second incident. Got the call right on the field and wasn’t swayed by the incorrect review.

 

In what world is this not a penalty and red card, or even foul? Completely reckless and the leg going in for the tackle doesn't even get a ball when I cut her? Just glad I saw her coming and didn't plant on that leg or I'd 100% not be walking today. pic.twitter.com/ruQ2rXtcK3

— Alex Morgan (@alexmorgan13) September 17, 2023

If VAR felt it didn't have enough to prove the defender didn't get ball to get involved, it seems the defender's left leg wipes out Morgan's right leg.

Thoughts?

 

I've seen enough debate online that I have a feeling this is gonna be controversial...but I don't think I have a foul here.

It's certainly a very strong challenge, but I see a defender going straight through the ball and winning it. Easy to call a foul in amateur soccer here, but at the pro level?

I dunno, this is one where I'm seeing lots of people calling for a foul + misconduct, and maybe I'm way off base, but I just don't have it.

 

I'm sure @MassachusettsRef can come in to say why I'm wrong, but the thing I hate seeing here is this



The plant leg being in between the defender's leg as she slides in could have easily snapped Morgan's leg in half at the speed she was going. It's extremely lucky that the momentum basically caused Morgan's leg to flop up and out from between the defender's leg to go over her rather than staying planted. When you fly in to a challenge like this, basically all you can do is get all ball.

It is a huge mistake to be saying that these kinds of challenges are fine to do. At least she didn't completely leave her feet with both feet off the ground before lunging as that's pure SFP.

 

But is it luck? Or is it the result of a defender keeping their legs low and studs down, coming into the tackle from the front, and going straight through the ball?

Definitely hear what you're saying, but I'm inclined to think that the reason Morgan wasn't hurt here was because a skilled, professional defender made a good play. It certainly could have gone very differently if the defender had been sloppier. But it seems at the pro-level, the standard is to give skilled plays the benefit of the doubt -- similar to why you rarely see a "high kick" (PIADM) called at the pro level, but might consider it very dangerous in less-skilled competitions.

 

I understand that the defender kept the studs low and the straight leg went through the ball. The only thing I am talking about here is how the defender's basically crotch and trailing leg followed through the plant leg, which encompassed the plant ankle. These exact types of challenges (the front leg and trailing leg enveloping a plant leg while the player slides through at speed) snap players legs.

So yes, I am going to call it luck that Morgan's leg didn't snap and instead she fell forward over the top. I would call it skill if she defender got all ball and none of Morgan (even when sliding) and Morgan just fell over her.

 

Morgan says in her tweet above that she didn't plant her leg and credits that for not having her leg broken.

 

Yeah and she’s absolutely right. Most of the Twitter replies (who cares) says it’s a completely clean tackle because the sliding leg got all ball. That is correct. The problem was the trailing leg and crotch putting the plant leg in between her sliding leg. There can be times where a legal tackle could still break a leg, like if Morgan’s ankle got rolled underneath the slidin leg that got all ball. This is not one of those times.

I am still waiting for one of the senior posters here to tell me why I’m wrong but if I saw this in a game I am 100% going red. And it’s extremely disappointing to have NWSL say that something like this is fine and legal

 

I follow a referee on TikTok and he called it a yellow+pk. For him it was a reckless tackle, because of the speed of the tackle and the fact she took Morgan out with the trailing leg.

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT86Fh4SD/

 

I think based upon the discussion here, we can say there’s mitigating factors that pull this down from a red card into yellow card territory, for me. I definitely agree that it’s a foul, though.

 

It is odd that a lot of the language we all used to see in the laws has kind of gone away over the years. Regarding what constitutes a foul tackle or challenge in the current law book... this is all I can find now, even looking at the Q and A attached to Law 12:

Whatever we think of this, if we are trying to keep with the vestiges of what was once there (getting the ball first and then going over the outstretched leg is not a foul but making contact with the opponent before the ball is almost always a foul, for example) it gets harder for us because we're essentially refereeing by tradition, like a version of common law for football.

If you took this offense literally as written now, the timing of the challenge would only account for the degree of the challenge. I'm OK with that... but I do miss some of the old specificity (notwithstanding my noted aversion to rule book expansion from another thread) there were certain nuggets that they would have done well to leave in, although I don't really miss this ball first language because it was too often used as the excuse for bad tackles.

 

Can we just take a moment to note that Morgan says she didn't even get the ball, when the video very clearly shows Ballisager winning the ball?

I can see an argument that it's reckless, using the trail leg to bolster that argument.

I also guarantee you this isn't a story if it's, say, Naomi Girma doing it to a Danish forward. (Unless Girma had seen red, in which case it absolutely would be.)

 

That video you posted that had a very close up replay at the end makes me see that my original though that the plant leg went in between the defenders legs was wrong, the tv camera angle made it look like that. It was more strictly the trailing leg hitting the plant leg. PK and YC

But I would like to ask people’s opinions on my original idea about the sliding through the plant leg and everything enveloping it. I know these types of scissor tackles get reds and I think they even are giving them if a player slides from behind and the extended leg gets the ball but it traps the plant leg between the trailing and extended

 

As a general rule of thumb, if in order to win the ball you must inevitably take the opponent off their feet while sliding to play the ball, it's going to be a foul for me every time.

Misconduct will be judged using the standard considerations. A true scissors where the legs close and cross to take one or both legs up deliberately usually gets red for the obvious safety reasons. If, the lens don't scissor but the player traps the opponent leg so it can't get out and the leg bends funny that's at least a yc and if the curve is high or the contortion of the leg is bad enough then it's an RC.

 

I think the "common law for football" concept has and will always be true. And it was certainly true in the old rules -- probably moreso.

Let's not forget that the LotG did not make it explicit that you can't replace a player who was sent off until ~2016.

No matter how you write the rules, key concepts such as "excessive force", "deliberate", and "trifling" will always require a knowledge of the history and tradition of the game to properly interpret. Personally, I think the laws work best when they're less explicit, not more.

 

I used her Twitter post since this specific play is not even on the usual game summary clips we see on YouTube. They have stopped using most of the "controversial" plays the past 2 years.

In the interests of full disclosure, I am not a fan of Morgan nor am I a fan of most of the players on the USWNT (and some in the NWSL) for various reasons. I would have posted the play here even if it was some no-name bench warmer from Gotham FC.

There are several things going on in the clip such as: 1) If the defender did get ball, did the force justify it?, 2) Was VAR correct not to intervene...and if so, why?, 3) If the original attempt for the ball was not a foul, did the trailing defenders leg wipe out the forward, 4) Etc, etc.

I know that there are people here with varying backgrounds and experience levels and knew that it would provoke good feedback (which it did) since good training in our recertification classes ended many years ago, regardless of what Grade you were back then.

I am looking forward to Week In Review and predicting that Barkey will mention the trail leg as the primary reason for calling a PK and that VAR needed to intervene.

 

I watch just about every one of this guy's videos, and while he is a GREAT ambassador for refereeing, he candidly is simply wrong from time to time, factually.

I'm not saying he's wrong here -- this is highly subjective -- but just a word of caution about that particular creator.

 

Not quite accurate. It had been explicit and then got left out in a re-write and didn’t come back for a number of years. Though it was still indirectly clear, as a substitute has to replace a player, and being sent off immediately made that person not a player.

 

Oh, I don't doubt it. Not pointing a finger at you. This isn't exactly the first time Morgan has taken to Twitter to complain about the refs. Or complain about people like me noting her complaints about the refs. She once called me an idiot on Twitter, and her fan base piled on. Good times.

 

That's alright. The first time and only I met her, she yelled at me. I probably deserved it, who knows? Competitive fire -- probably why she is where she is.