This YT playlist should be some help to anyone looking for replays https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZeg5wghjPjJZPugrlYhvD8l8Z5TfNw98
I just watched, and to your comment in the other thread about a crowd chant to the ref .... OOF. Am I wrong, or was he initially going to give the dropped ball to Detroit on top of it all? Always curious to know which of the crew saved some of the bacon in situations like that. EDIT: Incident at 1:59:40 timestamp, 92:59 game clock.
Nabil did a good job in Omaha as Union Omaha took SKC to ET. Not many major challenges during the game but he managed the players well. Great fitness at the end of the game.
I haven't watched it all, don't spoil the ending... 2:01:54 Dropped ball to Dynamo # 25 Side note. I do NOT like watching video of myself. I see all the ways I don't look like the senior match officials. My posture has gotten better. I thought my positioning wasn't bad, but it doesn't look good on video
Two RCs in Crown Legacy vs. New England II last night: DOGSO @4:30 (in the video), which doesn't look as bad in the broadcast angle as it was live (defender pulled down attacker just after a pass for them to run on to), a missed PK later, and then a 2CT @8:30 for what I assume was PI (one foul after a YC to the same player for PI earlier in the game). Maybe one of you can look at the 2CT and tell me if you think it could've been SPA instead. Second YC seemed like a soft foul in the moment, closer to obstruction than anything else, but live I didn't have the best angle, looking from behind the attacker. The center (Emma Richards) generally speaking did fine, but a total of 8 YCs in what was otherwise a fairly standard Next Pro game.
The three KMIs shown in the video (big red cards and the penalty) all look correct to me. The DOGSO in particular is a very good call. The 2CT is definitely for SPA. But watching the whole video doesn’t leave me with as good of an impression as the three KMIs would suggest.
SPA, running with speed into attacking third, option to his left, runs deliberately into his path to stop him. Obstruction isn't a law. As for the 8 YCs, these players in MLSNP/USL seem to love going late into challenges, pulling back attackers when they're beat, and doing silly delaying the restart plays. The SPA YC at 12:15 is probably 5 yards away from being a DOGSO red too. Here's another game that had a SFP RC, Atlanta/Carolina. I don't know if I've seen a ref blow his whsitle as many times as this guy. Double tweets after an extremely long whistle for every yellow card, even for the GK DR caution at the end.
I think you're too kind. I don't think that's DOGSO. That ball is played in with pace and bouncing and it's past the point of the foul in a flash. The "obvious" is there for a reason. Is there a chance the attacker--particularly at this level--controls that ball? Sure. A chance. But I'd bet against it. And "a chance" isn't obvious. The likelihood of control of the ball is low. I allow that I could be wrong and it might depend on the particular personnel assessing, but I would imagine the upper echelons of PRO don't consider this DOGSO in this game. I also think that's a rather soft SPA if that is what it's for. Both for the foul itself and because the player in possession of the ball takes a pretty heavy touch as he attempts to accelerate past, so that last defender looks about 50/50 to contest for the ball anyway. I can stomach an SPA-yellow there are certain levels, but the higher up you go the less this looks like SPA. When you layer in the 2CT aspect and it just doesn't sit well with me for the professional game. Lower level, I get it. Bit of a control card in some instances, I get it. KMI in a professional match? I'm not there. It just doesn't feel like it. It does feel, however, like seizing an opportunity to make the match 10v10. The PK is obviously correct, thankfully. But look where she is. Or, rather, don't look. Because you can't see on the broadcast. 84', 13 players in the penalty area on a clear attack and she's at least 15 yards away from the penalty area? Not good. And it's not like it was a rapid counterattacker or something. She's barely moving in reaction as the play develops. Then there's just the other stuff, which you allude to. 41' seems like a careless foul (not a YC) and also the idea of advantage never registers. 60' seems like a careless foul (he's going toward the touch line, I don't see SPA). The dissent card immediately after the non-DOGSO card looks real bad; if it's magic words, fine, but you have to sell that differently and if it's not bad, well you have to eat it. Maybe most of all, 39' feels like a referee whose only management tool is cards--that situation does not need to be a yellow card at almost any serious competitive level. Card at 26' looks good from distance but even on that one, you have to establish your presence in a better way than sprinting after the player 20+ yards into a small crowd--it's actually a perfect opportunity to beckon and isolate.
I don't think this is DOGSO either. Likelihood of gaining possession too low at the moment of the foul, as you said.
Obstruction is the old term for impeding. Nothing changed in the nature of the offense when they changed the name.
This is not a good performance. Referee is over her head. No attempts at management or use of personality, and consistently too far from play with no ability to sprint. Caution on one of the counterattacks by white could easily have been avoiding by playing an advantage, which she did not seem to even look for.
Yeah, this more than anything is what I felt watching it. One can always debate KMIs (as we do). And one can always pretty much find a way to defend or explain any card given (or not given) in most matches (as we do). But there was just no management here. To that end, 39' was probably the most illuminating thing to me, despite all the other decisions. That situation can be handled in like half a dozen different ways that don't require a card. It's a silver platter moment to show what personality you want to mold the rest of the game with. I can see getting out of that with a laugh. I can see getting out of it with a bit of an ass-chewing. I can see a scenario where you talk to both players (as the thrower did physically bump the opponent first, before the alleged DR) and taking either similar or different approaches with the two. It's a blank canvass. But the card was out for something minor and petulant before she even had time to consider all her options.
I appreciate you guys finding a good highlight package from a mid-pro level game and actually analyzing the stuff happening in it, good learning experience. Definitely a lack of any sort of game management and just going straight to cards for everything, she doesn’t seem to say anything to anyone ever. Watching the USOC games, it seems like these level games are liable to pop off at any time so I figured that’s why cards get used quite a bit. Regarding the 77’ SPA YC, how close is that to DOGSO in itself?
My thought at the time was that she must've decided the center defender was in a position to come over and help defend, but it was certainly tight between the two IMHO. I've seen Emma Richards in a similar game last year and she had a lot of cards in that one as well. She tends to get the specific technicalities/direction of calls right, but definitely leans heavily on cards for game management. The two games I've watched her ref haven't been any more or less rough/violent/dirty than the same teams' other games, so it's not just a particularly tough game requiring more cards to manage. There are definitely more opportunities to give cards if you want to at the MLS Next Pro level compared to top-level MLS, though. Players are much sloppier and given to more emotional/testosterone-driven reactions. Looking at six previous Next Pro and USL games, I see Richards giving 1 RC & 9, 9, 3, 3, 7, 7 = 6 YCs/game in those games. Randomly picking another referee for a nearby similar game (Alejo Calume), I see that he's averaged 5 YC / game over 5 games in the same stretch of time. Choosing someone with more games showing (Gerald Flores), he seems to average 4-5 cards/game at that level. So not an extreme outlier, but definitely on the high side. She also shows up doing NWSL games, so perhaps some of it is getting used to the differences between leagues.
4 games of 9 9 7 7 is definitely a ton of cards. But like you said, games at this level are far more likely to have cards than top professional leagues. I just know that I’ll watch USOC game highlights when I see the USL/MLSNP teams with 8+ yellows and it’s almost all the same thing, players just going late into challenges for no reason except bodying the player, hacking at a players legs, chopping or pulling down players when they are beat, pushing and shoving, and silly FRD/DR things. 5 cautions minimum seem to be the norm for these games and they are much sloppier and less attentive of body control than higher level pro players are Since you posted this I see that their YouTube channel has every game condensed to 15 minutes of the important plays which seem to include all the yellows so I’m definitely gonna peruse those. It will be a nice change of trying to learn things vs. seeing how the top refs in the world are officiating UCL matches or what dumb crap EPL refs are doing this week.
Careful watching that, as you'll be missing all the times the ref didn't give a card, and rightly so. I have a feeling watching that will get your card number up into your mentor's range (Lahoz), if you're not already there
I was watching highlights of an NWSL match: the ball is struck toward goal and it hits a defensive player in the leg and then bounces up and hits her arm, and it was called a handball. I was surprised that the handball rule would apply to a deflected ball that, secondarily, hits an arm/hand--and I think it is a terrible rule that doesn't make much sense.
I meant to ask the same question. The defender was Huerta facing the attacker, close range. The ball was kicked and hit her leg, bounced straight up. Huerta had her arm (3, 4 inches away from her body but folded completedly in front of her). The ball hit her arm and bounced in front of her. I'd say if the arm was not there, the ball would have hit her body instead n bounced the same way. Yet after VAR, it was awarded a PK.
The VAR did not notice/acknowledge that the ball hit the defender's foot first before hitting the arm.
Would that have changed whether it was a handball tho? Let’s say the ball does go straight from the Portland player’s foot to the Seattle player’s arm, is the position of the arm unnatural and making the body bigger?
It's funny that this backwater MLSNP game has been the subject of a more thorough analysis than literally any MLS game since the lockout ended. The highlight package here was very supportive, as it included a lot more referee-related clips (e.g., yellow cards) than you typically see from MLS highlight packages.
Right, and for that reason I don't really agree with jumping to conclusions like "this referee's only tool is her cards" when the highlight package is specifically showing us the incidents that resulting in yellow cards and omitting any that didn't. I'm not trying to disagree with that "only tool was her cards" point here either, I just don't think a video of this nature provides enough balanced information to come to a conclusion.