2025 MLS Cup Playoffs Round One (Best-Of-3) Game 3 Referee Discussion

I mean, they certainly weren't the worst in this particular game. Both of their kicks were better than a few of their teammates. Even Seattle's keeper absolutely crushed it... I still don't think that ball has landed.

I might be a minority voice here, but I like reduce to equate as is. Both teams having their keeper (or whoever is playing keeper) take the kicks is fair. Bot teams dropping a shooter if one gets a red card is also fair. If a team deliberately gets a bad shooter red carded to tinker w the kicks, the other team gets to drop one too, so that's fair. And at the professional level (heck, even the high school level, basically any team w/ more than one keeper) the truth is keepers do practice taking PKs probably more than field players. This is why it is fairly common to see a keeper take a PK. I was at a coaching clinic recently where the directors were talking about if it is better to have keeprs kick 1 or 5... 1 because it gets it out of the way, or 5 because if they miss one they are in their head for the next 4. I know in this particular game they went last, but the point is that is unusual...but so is kicks going to round 10.

Bottom line--a red card in the game for a headbut that reduces a team for the rest of a must win game... the punnishment for the red card is experienced by playing short, not by then giving the other team an advantage in the KftM. But at the same time, it makes no sense to make the aggrieved team have their worst shooter before the offending team gets to repeat. So reduce to equate is perfect.

 

Exactly! That’s why when we really need have to have reduce to equate during kicks, because that’s when (tactically) it would make sense to get the deliberate red!

. . . No, I’m not really serious . . . I do think on the priority of things to fix in the LOTG, anything about reduce to equate is awfully low on the list . . .

 

Late to seeing that the discussion about "reduce to equate" popped over here but I'll add one more note on this. In an odd coincidence I had just gotten back from England a week or so ago and was reading the copy of the Non-League Paper I picked up there where in the back pages it mentioned that the FA ordered the FA Vase match between Wythenshawe and Holker Old Boys to be replayed for exactly this reason. Holker was forced to "reduce to equate" in the shootout and selected their keeper, but the refs allowed the keeper t continue in net and just not take a kick. I had mentioned it to @ManiacalClown a couple of days before the situation came up in this Minnesota-Seattle match.

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/articles/c1d04yyxvv5o

 

Replaying the entire match seems excessive. Their hands may be tied, but I think this is a case where just re-doing the PKs is reasonable.

 

DisCo decisions from game 3

https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/new-york-city-fc-s-maxi-moralez-fined-by-mls-disciplinary-committee

I understand that Moralez technically violated the policy but this seems a little excessive?

also, I see they didn’t include the video of Brenner stripping off his uniform- probably for the best

 

He stepped around the referee who was trying to prevent a confrontation and placed his hand on the back of the other player's neck. The whole point of the policy is to discourage behavior that could escalate a situation.

 

Wait, so I texted a friend in England who told me that the kicks only went 6 rounds (Holker missing kicks 4/5; Wythenshawe missing 3/5/6)...so the FA made the match be replayed for a hypothetical advantange that never even materialized!!! That's insane. I'd be so pissed if I was Holker. That is bonkers. Any way in the world that would be the solution if the team in the higher teir had won? I just don't understand the logic in the replay.

I suppose "the ball never lies" though, as Holker won the replay outright, so justice was served.

I also wonder if the sent off player got to play in the replay? If he sat, does that serve his supsension? Do they treat the first game as if it never happend? I think the red card was in injury time, right before final whistle too, so the whole thing seems like miscarriage of justice to replay the game, especially if the dude got to play.

 

Not so. The excluded player was the GK. And he played. That was the violation/advantage.

 

All fair. An I wouldn't have done anything more than shrug if the powers that be swept it under the rug. But whether it is consequential depends on how willing you are to forgive teams from their mistakes. The team made a mistake by deciding to exclude the GK. Once they made that mistake the GK unfairly participated in the kicks. I don't think there is any way to say the decision to replay the match (which I assume is mandated by ROC rather than just doing the kicks) was not a technically correct decision.

But I agree that the powers that be could justify a no-replay by ruling that the team was entitled to change their decision until the kicks started, and that they demonstrated that intent by having the GK go out (either as the starting GK or the one waiting on the touch line), such that the actual error was the R not recognizing that the exclusion had not taken place, and that it is fair to assume the excluded kicker would not have been one of the first 6 such that there was no plausible impact. Whether could = should is really a question of what role protests should have as far as using judgment to determine significance of impact.

 

Makes sense.

I look forward to the upcoming fines for Messi whenever he next does that (seems to be pretty common to me)


I kid, I kid. Sorry for the ridiculous suggestion

 

Game's gone.

 

I think it's along the lines of screwing up a substitution. The ref allowed the restart with an extra player on the field, so can you really find the player guilty of misconduct? You have to find a solution, but, as ATR once said "If you don't do it properly you'll find yourself in a position where the laws can't help you out of the situation. So do it correctly."