If you watch the video, the player who committed the tackle was #5. The player in green who was sent off was #31
If you decide that Epps has to be sent off, and by the way, I do not subscribe to that point of view, you have to at least be smart enough to decide the original foul was SFP. In no universe can the player on the receiving end of that foul be the only one sent off.
You're right... what the hell is going on? Was this just mistaken identity? What exactly do you guys think is going wrong in the officiating "not being equipped to handle them" that causes these games to go completely out of control like this? Is the foul recognition bad that causes things to boil over? Not enough cads? Poor player management? To me, it just seems like many of these games are just bound to get completely out of hand no matter what the referee does.
What is it with it with the refusal to do anything about the discriminatory chanting in USOC games? Happening many more times in this MB v IRV game in the USOC. Honest question
Another case of a 2nd yellow where the referee didn’t realize the player was already booked right away. This time from Alexis Da Silva in Vegas vs Spokane.
I concur with your observation that this chant is more widespread now than it was in the past. I honestly think it’s the Streisand Effect, that trying to eradicate it has made it more popular.
I disagree. There’s no way the first foul - as cynical as it is - reaches the threshold for a red card. You give him a yellow card and chew him out hard there. I can’t see what exactly happens on the VC afterwards, but violent conduct is violent conduct. When it comes to violent conduct I disagree with the notion that the player deserves a measure of leniency just because he had just been fouled hard. Assuming that his actions did rise to that level, I have no qualms with the player who committed SPA coming away with a yellow card and the player who committed Violent Conduct coming away with a red. There’s no need to try to manufacture some other outcome. The Hartford player is to blame for his own actions, which were, almost by definition, worse than the initial foul.
This is where feel for the game comes in. The NYC player reaches out with two hands, grabs the opponent, and forcefully throws him to the ground. There is not even a pretext of playing the ball. This is what gets everyone pissed off. Players have an expectation of fairness. Punishing the retaliation more harshly than the original foul leads to further issues. Now if he punches or headbutts the player, then Epps has to go. IFAB used to have a sentence about it being SFP when the player exceeds the necessary force required for a tackle. The defender could have just grabbed the back of the shirt to get a whistle.
I basically agree here. I think it's very hard to get to the red card on a play like this. However, as @Midwest Ref says, it's not impossible. I think we talked a little about it with the Chiellini horse-collar at EUROs. You have a hint of the same thing here. On your side of the ledger, however, I would pedantically note (as I have in the past) that "holding" is not subject to the careless/reckless/excessive force rubric like the first several penal fouls. It either happened or it didn't. It was either trifling or it wasn't. Technically the idea of "holding with excessive force" isn't in the Laws (the SFP clause only talks about a "tackle or challenge," so if you ever got to SFP on something like this I would advocate a referee classify it as "challenging" rather than "holding." That said, my ideal outcome here is yellows both ways. Not reds both ways. All @Midwest Ref is saying is that if you find a mysterious VC against the attacking player here that no one else sees, balance is possible because the initial foul is done with violence and malice. And this is where we are going to part ways. I don't know what this means. Or I do and I just completely disagree. Violent conduct is subjective. Inherently, so. The referee is making a judgment on brutality or excessive force. It has some specific things we are intsructed about, but even those shift over time (e.g., contact above the shoulders, hands to face, etc.). Terms like "non-negligible" get added when the pendulum swings too far in one direction. And now we are in an era where not every headbutt is a red card. I'm making the instructional point first but I think the secondary, real-world point is that outside egregiously violent situations, referees should be reading the situation. If you find something that technically qualifies as VC amongst a giant fracas like this but everyone is pushing and shoving and the first foul is what it is here... who is served by giving the red card? There's no bright line on something like this, but it's where we are trusted as referees to read the situation and give our best judgment and apply the most justice for the game and situation. Nothing about this total play says that Hartford should be the team losing a man. And we can't let our tunnel vision--or that of an ARs--get us to a contrary result. It's not leniency to an individual player. It's an overall calibration of match management. Assuming actual egregious VC, of course. But given the video and this discussion, we're talking about something different. So the "did rise to that level" framing is important because the crux of the disagreement here is that you are looking at a different level than @Midwest Ref and I are. I won't belabor it too much, but I think this is where you definitely go too far. One player cynically cheated in extra time by violently and egregiously holding his opponent, prompting a fracas. The other player pushed/shoved his opponent, and perhaps got his hand up to the neck area while doing so, in a situation where a bunch of players were pushing/shoving their opponents. I just fundamentally disagree that the latter is worse than the former, simply because we have the ability to classify the latter as VC in the Laws.
We are getting away from the big picture here. As both @MassachusettsRef and @RedStar91 have noted, our development process is deeply flawed. By prioritizing and rewarding performance in "elite" youth competititions where fitness and "the look" are paramount, we have neglected the adult game as a proving ground for referees. Too many of the issues pointed out in this round of games come down to referees: lacking awareness of who is already on a caution (Fikar in Detroit City-Michigan and da Silva) referees unable or unwilling to issue deserved red cards for Violent conduct or nasty tackles (Tehini in Charlotte-Rhode Island and Elliott in Loudoun-Richmond) referees not being able to manage professional games properly (Centeno in Hartford-NYC) We need referees who are challenged in ethinic games so they develop street smarts and survival skills. Reffing current and future college players is not the same as Bosnians vs Serbs or Nigerians vs Mexicans or Poles vs Ukranians, which are all matchups that are seen on a weekly basis in men's leagues in Illinois. At the professional level, you have to be able to achieve outcomes that are both supported by the laws and accepted by the participants. This is where the disciplinary decisions in Hartford-NYC stand out. Can they be defended by the laws--sure. Were they accepted and did they lead to a general sense that things were handled fairly--not at ally. A basic principle should be punish the *$$h@le$. I am not saying that we overlook retaliation, but when we are defending outcomes that go easy on the players that start things, we have lost the plot.
@Midwest Ref is 100% correct about Justice theory and referee development. On the former, too often refs deal with an angry retaliator but forget to deal with the criminal because the retaliation distracted them. On ref development, the prescription is clear (do more adult/ethnic matches), but how to make that happen across the USA is another issue.
Monterey Bay FC plays their home games at the Cal State-Monterey Bay stadium. I wonder if any pressure could be brought effectively from the host side in terms of the Cal State University policy regarding discrimination and harassment.
Seriously, refs shouldn’t be allowed in the us open cup until they put in significant game count in the ethnic adult leagues or other adult leagues where they have to have hired security on site and referee assault is a very real possibility. I refereed at an African “cultural” tournament where they had hired security and almost every game had near mass confrontations, SPF RCs, multiple referee assaults, I almost got the shit beat out of me by players for calling a ball over the goal line, and fans streamed out of the stands to attack the opposing bench. The same shit happens in Hispanic leagues as well. These are the kinds of experiences that will prepare refs for the unhinged chaos that these USOC games can devolve into. Not “oh you can handle organized U19 MLS next games, organized NCAA games, you have good skills so ready for this”
Right. Because refereeing at the most dangerous and chaotic adult competitions to get prepared for challenging pro games is what every aspiring pro ref is eager to do (eyeroll). Practice at reffing for survival isn’t what these refs need to get better. Improvement wouldn’t be a given regardless. They simply need regular adult game practice with good coaching/mentoring on those games.
I think we're on the same page, but just to clarify on my end... very challenging matches in the top local urban area leagues (like @Midwest Ref alludes to in Chicago) where you have to manage excellent adult players who have a bit of an edge is a very good thing. Being at tournaments where referee assaults are semi-standard is not. But an eyeroll is not an uncommon reaction to the poster in question.
But also, the old USSF DA and the current MLS Next environments are very tame at the youth level. It seems like the US Soccer scouts being present at every game watching players has tempered the intensity. The kids play fair and hard, but the aggression and rivalry is gone. The coaching education systems that emphasize certain styles of play has changed the game too. You used to get varying styles of play from teams but now you'll see similar styles that don't challenge the referees anymore. When you had a possession-based team vs. a long-ball team, the referee was challenged more. Now, with most teams playing build from the back, it's all very calm with few challenges to the referee.
My bad. I wrote the post above before reading through the next page. I still think how the youth system is managed has "dumbed down" the environment for referees. The players and coaches have improved to get better quality athletes playing soccer (instead of other sports), creating better players for the pro teams and at the international levels. HOWEVER, that has hurt the development in regards to problem-solving and man-management. There are so many considerations refs are processing that they can't see the play for what it is anymore. Refs are too busy processing "did this shirt pull stop a promising attack?" and answering themselves "No, I applied advantage so there's no card" rather than saying "Oh shit, this guy just got dragged down by his shirt in the danger zone. That's gonna start a fight. I gotta diffuse this quick before it becomes a bench-clearing brawl"
Not to belabor this too much but it really depends on what the match officials observed on the VC they showed. You’re right, there is a gray area, and I agree that if it was within that gray area, I could support them negotiating down to yellow. But I don’t think the gray area should be as big—or at least, as dependent on the surrounding contexts—as other gray areas in our game. Fundamentally I wouldn’t very often agree with the idea that past victimhood excuses or mitigates current violent conduct. That reasoning shouldn’t stretch a referee very far, unless maybe the potential VC is right on the borderline. Which I guess is ultimately the question mark that the video leaves mostly unanswered. I also strongly disagree with the idea that we can/should take something that gets a yellow card in all cases, and round it up to a red card because of something his opponent did afterwards. Again, maybe if it’s right on the borderline, but this is an even bigger stretch than rounding down the VC for me. If we were to pause the video before the fracas breaks out and have a vote, pretty much no decent referee would say red card there. We should punish the player for his actions, not for the reaction of the opponents. To take this tangent into legal theory, I actually disagree with the reading of the Laws that holding offenses cannot, in theory, be punished as reckless or excessively forceful. The careless / reckless / excessive force scale is used to determine if the 7 main types of fouls (kicking / tripping / pushing etc.) can be punished with direct free kicks, but when it comes to cautions or send-offs, the laws never say say that these the careless / reckless / excessive force concepts can only be applied to those seven categories. For example, a player must be cautioned for unsporting behavior if he “commits in a reckless manner a direct free kick offense.” I read this as any direct free kick offense, not necessarily one of the 7 specific types offenses that need to be at least careless to be called. In a practical sense, I would avoid as much as possible writing a report that hinges on this logic, as I know there is significant disagreement in the referee community about it. I just don’t see where people ever got the idea that the scale can only apply to the 7 for the purpose of misconduct.
While I can understand you disagreeing, I am surprised you can't even see where people get it from. I think there are three solid reasons why: 1) Plain language/writer's intent: if the powers that be wanted the second tranche of penal fouls to be subject to the careless/reckless/excessive force rubric, they could have done so. If holding or impeding with contact is supposed to be assessed on a gradual scale, then there's no reason why those fouls wouldn't be above, with the first seven. Instead, they are grouped with others like "spitting" and "handball" that quite clearly can't be done recklessly or with excessive force. 2) The text of the Serious Foul Play clause: again, the SFP clause talks about a tackle or challenge. Unless you believe a hold is a challenge, then here is a clause where the literal language does not apply. And if a hold is a "challenge," well, "challenge" is already listed as a penal foul. So at that point it all becomes redundant. 3) You're reading the clause you cite far too liberally and it comes after the enumeration of offences: yes, the unsporting behavior clause says "commits in a reckless manner a direct free kick offence." You read that as saying any direct free kick can be done recklessly. I read it as saying the Laws have already laid out which offences can be classified as reckless and this clause is telling you that such behavior should be classified as UB (as the prior allusion to reckless behavior talks about a caution, but does not explain the appropriate classification). It would be really clunky for this bullet to instead say "commits in a reckless manner any of the seven penal offences that can be classified as reckless." Ultimately, this is a classic ref nerd discussion. And with the introduction of "challenges" as its own category of foul, it really has become moot--because anytime you give a yellow or red for reckless or excessive, you can just fall back on "challenges." Plus, no one is ever going to overturn a card because you reported it as a "reckless hold." But, at a fundamental level, I do think the Laws are written in a way where that (or one with excessive force) doesn't technically exist.