Trust me, the sport books are already doing it. It’s a multi-billion dollar industry and they aren’t in the habit of giving away money.
For the first games, VARs are: Minnesota: Kelly RSL: Geiger (and now a lightning delay after the first weather delay) Miami: Ricci
I know I'm not a prized athlete but this guy moves like a local amateur league ref that probably should have stopped 10 years ago.
AR 1 may not look the part of a PRO AR, but his decision making, so far, has been spot on. Great delay flag to disallow another Suarez goal.
This isn't wholly scab-related since we all know it's league ops making the call, but the snow in Sandy is starting to become a problem as we near HT. Another delay would be less than ideal for PRO's VOR considering the density of matches coming up. They're probably fine, but they've got some work to do to keep this playable.
Fletcher is the VAR in Vancouver so I think that answers a lot of the lingering questions around the Canadians' status during this.
I was at the original Snow Clasico in 2013 and this might be worse. And I remember saying at that game that if I were neutral (and I very much wasn't, I wanted them to play) they probably should call the game. I have a hard time seeing how the second half gets completed if the weather stays at its current level.
Sitting here feeling like I'm falling backwards through a time portal before I realized you're talking about USA/CRC and not Rapids/Timbers (which is predated by Minnesota's first ever home game anyway if I recall).
Do you know what MLS rules are in regards to what constitutes an "official match?" Do they have to complete full 90' or do they just need to get to 75' or 70'? Maybe they are just trying to grind to a certain minute threshold and call it a day so they don't have to replay the match and/or finish the full 90'?
Colorado/Portland was Snow Clasico III, preceded by a Colorado-RBNY game in the snow that was II. We've also had a Frozen Taps game. But the original is still USA/CRC.
Vancouver Whitecaps vs Charlotte FC BC Place (7:30PM ET) Referee: Scott Bowman (CSA National Referee) AR1: Gabriel Grenier (CSA NextGEN) AR2: Vitalii Oliinichenko (Former CSA NextGEN) 4th: Richard Kent (Former CSA NextGEN) VAR: Joe Fletcher (PRO / Retired CSA FIFA & National) Bowman has been on the National list since 2022, and in NextGEN before that (starting in 2020). His first game in the Canadian Premier League was in 2019 — and he's since had somewhere around 40 matches in the league (mix of Referee and 4th Official). NextGEN is the talent ID program of referees and ARs that are potential future National list officials. They are Provincial classification, and are utilized on Canadian Premier League, MLS NEXT Pro, etc. and on top competitions, university, and local leagues such as League1.
Anyone know how You know what the solidarity is like for the CSA nationals and/or "NextGen" officials with PSRA and the Canadian PRO referees? Are they pretty unified with PSRA? Or not as much as here in the US? Any half decent national referee or equivalent isn't taking the replacement assignments so far in the US?
Certainly not the kind of game that PSRA wanted to strengthen their position/case. They landed the plane. No Messi finger wag this time. He's smiling and patting the referee on the back.
SFP given on field and reviewed at the monitor, changed to a second yellow instead. Honestly I think even that's quite harsh.