2024 MLS Match Day 30 Referee Discussion

Not to side track the thread, but is the lack of discussion lately on this board about MLS a sign that the officiating has gotten so good that there is nothing to discuss?

Or this board is a microcosm of the general lack of fan interest/apathy about MLS in general and that the league is not as healthy from a fan interest standpoint as we think?

Are people just not watching the games?

Has the Apple TV deal backfired and that we aren't talking about the league because no one can really watch the league?

Or is this overall forum on the wane/down slope?

Or is the answer a combination of all of the above?

 

I don't think that the apple deal has helped the fan on the fringe. You now have to pay for a sport that you may only watch in passing, i think the average person just takes a pass. Also this time of year a lot of people get busy and don't have the time to watch a lot of games and that leads to cancelled subscriptions.

On a side not did any one watch Cincinnati vs Montreal? There was a play at the top of the box. The defender got stripped and the attacker was in on goal. The defender held him and brought him down. Freemon called a PK and gave a yellow. VAR intervened he announced a holding foul outside of the box and confirmed yellow. It looked like DOGSO to me and was a holding foul so I couldn't understand yellow no matter where the foul was.

 

As still-active referees who were regulars 25 years ago on SOCREF-L know well.

 

I agree with your overall point, but we are still getting pretty significant traffic on the EPL thread and UEFA/major tournament threads.

We had two pages of discussion on the Rice red card yet we haven't had two pages of discussion on a single MLS match weekend in like a month. There has to be something else.

So it can't just be because people are less involved. Is it as simple as most of us, simply, don't have access to MLS matches like we did 5-10 years ago and the fact that there maybe too many MLS games now than before that it's diluting our attention span and almost regionalizing the league especially since all the games are at the same time?

Basically, if you are a casual fan of the league you can't really pay attention to the league as a whole because of lack of accessibility and all the games being at one time?

 

Well most of that month was Leagues Cup.

 

The lack of MLS discussion is absolutely because it’s been locked behind a subscription paywall. EPL and lots of other major events have extensive discussions here. And big surprise, they are much more accessible on cable channels, or FOX, or large European channels, or just in general much easier to find match replays, not to mention many more clips being posted on Twitter, reddit, etc.

But the changing social media landscape definitely lead to the decline in usage of message boards like this as a whole. But I don’t think there’s really any places online where you can get somewhat intelligent and reasonable discussion about refereeing outside of message boards like this

 

I think it’s a little of all-of-the-above. First of all like Mass said, the internet in general has spent more than a decade trending away from small, independent forum websites about specific topics, and towards stashing most activity/discussion onto a small handful of super-big sites run by tech giants.

Second, for as long as I’ve been watching the league, August-ish has always seemed like the lower point in the season. Playoffs are still far away, yet the season has been going on for a loooong time. People get bored.

Third, I think Leagues Cup exacerbated Problem #2 quite a lot. Leagues Cup seems like it was a disaster in terms of getting eyes on MLS; it did the opposite. Especially with other major sporting events starting around the same time, it was the perfect off-ramp for people to direct their attention away from MLS.

Finally, I think an underrated thing that I haven’t seen mentioned yet is that, for a lot of posters, creating a whole new matchweek thread isn’t worth the effort of posting about a call they just saw in a game. Someone above in this thread just posted something about a game from 4 days ago now that I thread finally exists! And I’m sure that other referee incidents that would generate discussion on gameday have been largely forgotten by Wednesday. More people would post if there was somewhere to post as soon as the incident happens. For that reason, I think it’s worth considering having a continuous thread for each MLS season (much like UEFA or EPL) rather than individual threads for every matchweek.

The only thing I saw mentioned that I don’t think is significantly contributing to the inactivity is the quality of referees. Even back in April or May when we had the real refs back, there was a lot more discussion than this about the same group of officials. And I just don’t think quality correlates very much to posting. People post about controversial incidents whether or not the referee got them right.

 

I think this is a great point and something that I advocated for when it first came out.

Originally, there was a dedicated individual thread for EACH MLS game and that went away real quickly.

I think it maybe worth considering going to a single MLS thread or maybe split the season up into months (i.e. a individual thread for all MLS matches in the month of May, June, July, etc.)

 

On the topic of that match, thoughts on the handball review at 2:47 in this video?

 

I think one of the issues twith Apple TV especially this week is that the commentary and replays are God awful that it doesn't lend to discussion really.

This week, I saw that something happened in NYC v Columbus based on Taylor Twellman tweet. I couldn't find any replay, so watched the full game and the commentary hasn't a clue that NYC had a player sent off for about 5 minutes. Does anyone watching even know what to come here and discuss?

By the way I saw someone mentioned the ref got grabbed and that's why the red, is there video of this? Lol

 

Another probably irrelevant thing (and I would guess some here say is straight up wrong) to most people is that there are really no referees in PRO who I think are worth going out of your way to watch. Of course there was Mateu Lahoz, who I went out of my way to try to find almost any FIFA, UEFA or La Liga game he did because of the (usually) good refereeing mixed with sheer comedy and theatrics for entertainment. But there's plenty of UEFA refs who get on big games who are worth watching just for them.

Sure there's Rivas and Dickerson who came from my area and whom I've met, and hearing Dickerson be an a-hole to players on Inside Video Review is funny, there was Bazakos who looked like he had no business being on a field but was actually a pretty good ref, every MLS fan despises Ted Unkel, but I don't think that even PRO #1 Elfath is it worth going out of your way to watch a neutral MLS game just to see his refereeing.

 

On the Ted positioning, Mark's video response is great. Ted was in a good position. That was unfortunate, but just one of those things that happen in soccer. As Mark says, "the bottom line is that the referee is going to be on the field."
Also, note that Mark says, "he can't rely on VAR because VAR has a higher threshold for a penalty than the referee does." That's obviously what should be true, and it warms my heart to hear that reiterated.

 

And on that point I’ll add that it’s basically just human nature that big mistakes generate a lot of discussion. With VAR, there’s very few big mistakes that have real consequence.

Also, your point is pretty much the main reason why I was personally disappointed back when VAR was introduced. It was great to see referees managing professional games in front of huge crowds with nothing more than the same tools that we all have in any of our own games (besides, most of the time, comms). With VAR, there’s definitely a disconnect now. It’s a very different job and it isn’t as relatable.

I’d consider myself one of the few “referee nerd” people who will watch games to see a specific referee work. The problem with MLS games is that I’ve already seen all of the referees work so many games that there isn’t much that will interest me specifically for refereeing purposes in the domestic game. I’m sure Ismael Elfath would be a really interesting referee to watch if you haven’t already seen like 50 of his games.

 

I do too, but (apart from a debutant here or there) there’s no referee in the league that’s gonna get me to tune in to watch MLS on a night if I’m not already planning on it. I guess Marrufo would be the closest thing to that while he’s still around.

 

Another aspect is that MLS, on their website, used to have individual clips/cutouts of almost every yellow card shown.

So if Instant Replay didn't cover something or we didn't catch it watching it live someone would post a clip of the yellow card on here and ask "what about this?"

Also, Instant Replay is just not as interesting and entertaining now than when it was with Simon Borg. It's more controlled and more accurate from a LOTG and officiating stand point.

It's a better product, but it's not as entertaining.

So there isn't as much to discuss. It's a defacto PRO mouthpiece now.

However, there is obviously more PRO input into so its more controlled and designed to protect the referees.

It's not, essentially, one guy in a basement grabbing clips out of thin air and screaming "that's a RED card" and "see you next time!!"

So it limits the discussion of us either laughing at him or agreeing with him.

Finally, the combination of a well working systematic and consistent VAR system along with an improved referee corps across has cut down on referee errors pre-VAR and PRO.

And also creates a more uniform decision making process. You wouldn't have games where Baldomero Toledo sends off three guys in a game for looking at him the wrong way, while Jair Marrufo and Silviu Petrescu go three years without giving a single red card in an MLS match.

So there isn't as much to discuss. When I first joined this forum MLS refereeing was at times laughably bad and there were several referees that really had no business being out there so a big part of the discussion was "how the hell is this guy still getting games?"

You had guys like Gantar (before he did improve), Petrescu, Jasen Anno, etc. who were at times laughably bad so it was low hanging fruit and east discussion.

Now, with VAR and better training and development you don't get that discussion anymore and you don't have those kind of referees.

Even my favorite punching bag, Marcos De Oliveira, is getting better and better so there are no stones to throw.

 

I don’t really watch them but MLS next pro puts full game highlights for every game on YouTube and I believe they include every single card given, at least they did the ones I watched earlier in the year

 

I opened an account on BigSoccer over 20 years ago to discuss MetroStars games, who eventually became the Red Bulls. I stumbled upon the referee forum afterwards. One of the dedicated fans started his own forum for Red Bull games and it's been thriving for 15 years now, so I don't believe it's entirely due to this type of format being obsolete.

Regarding Apple? During the strike, folks had the time and ability to view the games and were openly rooting for people to fail and were waiting for a car wreck that never came. While I think personally that the league will eventually fold since 10 years is a long time to be away from the mainstream media, it didn't prevent the regular posters here from watching the first 3 months.

While I may not participate regularly in the MLS chat boards, I ALWAYS read all of the posts. I am finding it harder to do the last two years since posters are not indicating what time of the match an incident occurred and don't post a video clip later that they can find on Twitter or YouTube. Apparently, we're in a society now where people say "go look it up yourself". The way the plays are being described on the forum, assumes that everyone is watching the same match live.

In addition, the rest of the forum is also suffering. For that, I don't have an explanation as folks have returned from their summer vacations.

I have always told everyone that in addition to me being assessed twice a year for my games before they changed our grades, the PRO Week In Review and watching games live, that I have learned the most from BigSoccer, since folks were quick to post quirky plays the same day and folks would debate and discuss.

I hope we're not seeing a slow death to a forum that has helped so many of us for so many years with many wonderful contributors during that time.

 

Point of order: there were definitely some train wrecks out of the replacement referee games! Most games avoided “disaster,” but I don’t know how you look at LAvMIA as anything other than a total train wreck. If MLS didn’t have a vice grip on its own media coverage, the lockout might’ve been over right there!

Side note, since this topic came up: what happened to the presumptive top dog of the replacement corps, Cristian Campo Hernandez? Other than an early round USOC game in April, it looks like he hasn’t done any professional game since the lockout ended.