This isn't a direct response to my posts, but I want to be clear that I was at the game (I even show up in the video many times, plus it's the second game I've seen her center), so I'm using more than just the highlight reel to base my opinions on. My observation live was that almost all the cards she gave were individually deserved by the letter of the law, but I calibrate that to PRO standards are to give fewer cards than I've seen her give, and that the "typical" MLS Next Pro referee would've managed the game with fewer cards, rightly or wrongly choosing to not issue as many.
Definitely true, these 15 minute MLSNP highlight videos are probably the best way to see sub-UEFA and MLS refereeing decisions so it’s great they make them Agree with this but at the same time the way to learn, you have to be able to watch individual clips, you can’t just watch full games of everything and see the context of every situation of every card given. Just like how the webinars our state association do use clips from pretty much only FIFA or UEFA competitions and then they tell us to scale it down to lower levels so the stuff they show us might not even necessarily be that same card at lower levels, where a professional SPA may be just a regular foul, or a professional reckless YC may be a SFP RC for game management at a lower level
Well... there was very nearly a brawl at the end of a game this weekend that the referee was at least in part the cause of... Having lurked around during the lock out, I'm fairly certain a similar incident occurring during it would have caused several pages of content with at least a couple posts saying how this was proof the referee was in over his head, how he didn't belong in the league, and that this was finally going to end the lock out... There has been markedly less interest. Sure general performance trends are quite better, but the schadenfreude has also gone which I believe drove much of the interest.
I think the problem with your post is that the players and coaches all got up and told everyone that it was actually a game during the lockout that caused this melee. I haven't read anything that states they were upset with anything from the current game.
I see. I stand corrected. I should have known that this fight is the direct result of poor refereeing by a lockout official on a previous match.
Out of fairness to you, I looked into the quotes. The accusation was the a coach punched a player in the tunnel at halftime of the March game. It may very well be that they are very happy with the refereeing in this game and then they were just waiting for the end of game to go after each other regardless of what the referee did. So, let's concede that point entirely and say both teams were maximally satisfied with the officiating. Now, lets pretend that LS in this match was a lockout official... I still think my point stands (because we're stipulating just how happy the teams must have been with LS in this game, you have to say they would have been equally happy with any other official preforming the exact same way). And yet, I still think there are some on this board who would say the brawl is proof of his incompetence and why he doesn't belong in the league. I further believe it would have filled up at least a page (conservatively) and yet this week it got literally no mention at all.
Personally, I’ve just been too busy in the last two months to follow MLS as closely as I usually do. During the lockout, especially the early stages of it, I made it a priority to watch several games very closely so as to keep myself well-informed on exactly how the work stoppage affected things. Now that that interest is gone, watching MLS hasn’t been as much of a priority. I’m sure there are others who feel similarly, but you make a good point about how bad refereeing in MLS today may get less attention that it would have during the lockout, and how these attentional biases can affect our perception of news / media / reality in the digital age.
This seems like a very defensive post here. I never said it was a result of poor refereeing during the lockout. I said the game that caused this - according to the players themselves - was during the lockout. Now, the odds are definitely in favor of the refereeing then being awful, but I never said that. I don't follow the last half of this at all. And I've tried. You seem to be dead set on wanting to stir up something about the performance of the refs on this game. I didn't watch the game. Find someone who works for PRO and ask them what they thought about it. Since no one has complained about the game, I would argue the crew probably did an excellent job to keep all these pent-up frustrations at bay for the duration of the game. Management skills like that were lacking during the lockout. You're literally only complaining that people here aren't complaining about the situation. And you're doing so in the wrong thread. Maybe delete these posts and try again? This whole thing is like you've been hiding in the weeds for 2 months waiting for some 'I told you so!' moment. This isn't it. As an aside, here's where the team says it's all from the last game: pic.twitter.com/GHuvZj4GP6— Toronto FC (@TorontoFC) May 12, 2024
Was in response to this It brings up in part the sudden drop of off interest in the MLS page "since the lock out ended". It seemed to me that the observation was true and the lack of interest in a thing like this fight was to me a very good example of something that would have been examined with a fine tooth comb during the lock out... but now it's not. I think that is a reasonable observation. I also added that I thought there could have been some partial responsibility for the referee, but I'll accept that some may feel he did everything perfectly and maybe the whole incident is a freak thing. Then @Lucky Wilbury, you came to say that my observation was sub-optimal because the whole thing was really the result of an incident that occurred during the lock out, but that wasn't my point in the first place. LS is a great referee and he was generally fine in that match You could quibble over some game management stuff at the end, like shorting a couple minutes for stoppage time injuries frustrating a player who ends up getting a dissent 2yc after the final whistle is more on the player than the referee. More over LS correctly enforced the dissent point of emphasis. But none of that provokes a fight like this. So, I guess, if you think the lack of response on this board would have been the same, then I must seem over the top. But really this was more about the change is approach from lockout to now and not an indictment of the referee. The change interests me.
Yes. But... there is a historical record. "Week" 1+ Week 2 = 525 posts Week 3 to 5 posts per week =200, 117, and 103. Week 6 to present posts per week = 53, 66, 19, 68, 29, 38, 47, and 6. And I'll concede that interest in that space was waning even before the end of the lock out. Maybe it would have gotten to this point anyway. So, maybe that's evidence that my opinion is wrong and the sole reason response was up was solely and exclusively down to performance and now there is far less interesting to discuss in that space, with no other factors at play. It could be. But now I see that I'm derailing this discussion thread which I find interesting since it is an undervalued space in the US game to learn from. My apologies. I should have not responded, it has served little purpose. Feel free to delete anything I've posted at your discretion.
I’ll add my 2 cents beginning of MLS season (February). I wasnt working my own matches 2-3 weeks into the MLS season. I am prepping but I have loads of free time on Saturday to watch Prem + MLS. After week 2-3 I’m working Saturdays and can’t watch the games full live. Coupled with midweek games, UCL, USOC and other comps MLS becomes less watched until we have that dead time. That and coupled with 90% of the matches being on Apple… I just find it challenging to watch matches.
There are people here in this community that learn. Some just lurk. Some regularly engage. To each their own. Some posts here struck me as odd because they are simply about this community not crucifying referees. And it was here and in the MLS thread. There was an account that was very pro-scab and then abruptly deleted the account when the MLS season started. Now this account begins posting after the lockout ends and sounds the exact same. It's hard to read these posts without assuming there's some sort of reason why this poster is upset we're all not crucifying the crew for the post-game melee.
I was also surprised not to see some plays discussed this past week and don't remember as little as 7 posts for an MLS Match Day thread. Then again, it was Mother's Day weekend and I'm sure everyone is also busy officiating their own games. I don't believe it's solely because of the regular referees being back in entirely explaining the activity being down since interest in other threads has also waned recently. Next month, we'll have competitions such as the European Championship begin, and youth travel leagues will be coming to an end (in most parts of the country) as the regular contributors will have more time to comment on the games.
Transfermarkt has great stats: https://www.transfermarkt.com/mls-next-pro/schiedsrichter/wettbewerb/MNP3/plus/?saison_id=all
Checking the top 10 referees with the most MLS Next Pro games, they all average 4-5 YCs per game, so that confirms the previous data around what's an expected amount of YCs for the average Next Pro game with a referee experienced at that level.
VC Red card in NYCFC/NM starts at 1:53:00. My question here is, the referee gave the defender a YC as well, surely for pulling the attacker for 10-15 yards. This doesn't really seem like a great advantage situation surrounded by defenders at midfield crammed into the sideline. If he calls the foul before they reach midfield, gives YC, the NYC player probably doesn't lash out.
Your observation is a good one, but on the other hand, if Owusu were to have played a terrific through ball right as the referee blew an early whistle, it'd be a very different conversation. Referees cannot see into the future, so there's a value in being cautious about blowing the whistle too early on a potential advantage situation.
At the professional level, players will break free of that contact to continue the counterattack more often than they will retaliate with a strike. Difficult spot for any referee, because either decision the referee makes (advantage v. SPA caution) could be second guessed. Owusu simply needed to keep his head and maintain his composure there...and he didn't.
I think this is mostly right, but I'd go even further. This really isn't much of an SPA foul. He's not really pulling him for 10-15 yards at all. In fact, the Owusu has his hand all over the defender's thigh right from the beginning, so it's a bit of a "both ways" thing at the beginning (though, admittedly, that foul call always goes against the player not in possession of the ball). But then they sort of break free and only at the end does Owusu reach out and strike his opponent. I imagine the opponent grabbed at the jersey one last time to prompt the retaliation, but we can't see that perfectly and even still, as you say, the attacker can keep his head and play through that OR just stop, throw his arms up and force the referee to whistle. Slapping or striking the opponent in the back of the head seems like the least best option. With the caveat that I don't know if there was something going on with these two players earlier in the match (or with Owusu generally) that might make it sensible to blow early, I don't think the referee did a thing wrong here. Moreover, I don't think this is really a yellow card to the NMU player in a vacuum. If the whistle had blown before the VC, there's no way a yellow card would be shown. Instead, it's the (very sensible) "here's a yellow card that otherwise wouldn't have met the threshold so as to balance the VC card I need to give" situation.
It was definitely a tough situation and it’s not the referees fault that the attacker decided to whack him in the head. I couldn’t exactly see after the initial pull if he was pulling him for that entire distance or not. I just figured he was since the ref pulled out a yellow, and so it must have been for cynical holding since it definitely wasn’t a SPA situation, and if he was going to give a yellow for that, it might have been better to blow it earlier. However, if it was just a make up “oh you were doing something that caused the retaliation so I’ll give you a yellow for it”, then that changes the situation completely If he wasn’t pulling him the entire way and it was off and on pulling, then I agree it’s definitely not worthy of a yellow on its own. Perhaps I am just sensitive to seeing a number of times where a ref sees a defender pulling an attacker for many yards, calls nothing, and then the attacker retaliates