This honestly to me looks like some stupid mechanic told to him by some crazy instructor/assessor who likes to be creative but doesn't Think. I've been ignoring these instructions for years, they've gotten sillier and sillier as time goes on.
I think Grajeda is a great referee. One of the best in MLS. But my goodness, he sure screwed this one up.
Okay, I took MassRef at his word that both teams encroached, but I thought this is what I initially saw. Where is the Dallas player encroaching? Went back and looked at the video and the player is visible on the replay taken behind the goal. He encroaches at the same time as the Chicago player does.
Clearly a dive, MassRef. 51st minute. Unquestionably deserves a DC post-match yellow card for Bruno Guarda. Certainly an embarrassing aspect of the game of soccer.
I think I said quite clearly in my post that Guarda opted to simulate the contact before it occurred. But I still don't think that erases the fact that contact was going to occur. The Chicago player never pulls up and was making a silly challenge. I just don't think this is the type of incident that we should be hanging our hat on insofar as stamping out diving. I love the use of the word "clearly" on players like this--it takes almost freeze-frame precision on a replay to figure out Guarda started to go down before he's touched. Anyway, let's get the clear dives right where there's not even a hint of a foul--like Grajeda did with the later simulation card--before we start worrying about incidents like this. If Guarda doesn't jump, he's going to get clipped and it would be a penalty. Also, I have no idea what a "post-match yellow card" is. Again, I thought we weren't "re-refereeing" things.
Well, if he doesn't turn his head, he can see the kicker and all of the potential encroachers behind the kicker at the same time. I assume that's the theory. But I don't really see it as an improvement over the standard position. And I don't see a reason to move to be in the kickers' line of sight, either.
FC Dallas is in meltdown mode. Didn't Hernandez get another red card after game? I thought Hernandez is a player-coach on the team. Way to show leadership there. FC Dallas needs to quit acting like a victim. Playing victim is not good for the bottom line. You won't win games playing the victim. They are still aggrieved with the Brek Shea suspension. That tells me a lot right there.
Well, they have been victimized quite a bit. So it's hard to not feel like a victim when you are in that situation. (not talking about the Shea thing) Over time it all seems to even out I suppose.
Agreed. As a home town supporter, I'm ready to see them live up to the hype not play the victim and whine. The Shea suspension was fully justified, get over it and beat the teams you should beat (Philly) with or without him. One player a team does not make.
It always sorts itself out over the course of the season. Right now, it is mental for FC Dallas and they need to focus on what they can control. They can control their attitudes and behaviors. They are going to have to accept the situations handed to them and get stronger from it. But if you let pessimism and negative attitudes fester in the locker room, what is that going to do to the culture and chemistry of the team? You are not going to overcome and win.
I think you know this, but the DC hands out suspensions for dives instead of retroactive yellows. The majority of the post game buzz suggests the Dallas goalkeeper coach was the one who got tossed after the game. For game management purposes, knowing a team feels aggrieved by something like the Shea incident is much more important than evaluating whether they were actually aggrieved. I understand that refs at that level frequently research news reports for the teams in his next game. If you're in Grajeda's spot and you get the impression that Dallas felt hard done by the Shea incident, how would adjust?
Over very long time scales, I'm sure it does. Over the course of a season, I don't think it does. Or rather, I think it need not.
Right. Studies have shown in-match conversion rates of PKs somewhere between 75 and 85% at professional levels. I've lost almost all my statistical knowledge, but that would be the minimum threshold you're operating with. I think the likely conversion rate then goes up after a miss due to--as you say--"pure math." But independent studies purely on re-takes after misses might tell a different story.
True. Pure math assumes a perfect world, but of course in a perfect world the center wouldn't have missed the jump either.
I wouldn't be surprised if re-takes are made more often. It seems to me that most times I see a re-take, it's because a keeper moved early or a defender encroached. Therefore, on a re-take, the keeper is typically going to be making an extra effort to not violate the law. My chances of scoring on a keeper who's thinking hard about holding their position until the kick is taken are probably better than my chances against a keeper who's loose and not frozen. What you want to do is construct a sample of re-takes where the reason for the re-take is similar to what happened here; and then check for the frequency of success on the re-take. Good luck constructing that sample, though.
hmmm.... if ever there were an example of "this guy's encroachment affected the game, and this guy's didn't"... This is it. One guy in early from the left wins the ball uncontested. The other guy in later (still early) from the right never gets near the ball. I would be VERY tempted to go IFK coming out. Is it "setting the laws aside" to declare one trifling and the other NOT?
Maybe in our local leagues, but I think you'd be hard-pressed to make this call in a professional, televised match. Replays are going to show that two people encroached. The question would go from "how did you miss the encroachment?" to "how did you see one guy but not the other?" The Dallas player is about a yard in--this isn't an issue of a few inches. The reason the Chicago player gets to the ball first is because the rebound comes to his side and he has a better head of steam (plus being an extra yard in). If the ball had rebounded to the other side, we'd probably have had a contested play on the ball between the two players.
BTW, if it we're only the Chicago player who encroached would the restart be a PK or IDFK out? When the laws say retake if the attacking team offended and scored, does that solely mean the player taking the PK scores?
But replays ALWAYS show guys encroaching (ok, I mean a lot of replays show it), and trifling is very frequently invoked. If this had been saved over the bar for a corner, I'll bet 90% of the reffing community would vote trifling for both players. (And, if only the defender had encroached, 99%!) But the ball falls to the feet of a guy who encroached (a lot). So the non-trifling alarm sounds. Why does it automatically apply to the other guy too? That principle would not hold if we were talking about some other kind of infraction (like holding). Are you saying this because of the way the law is written (specifically mentioning the punishment for simultaneous violations)? I could go down the road of "what if one guy is 3 yards and the other is 3 in" to try to lawyer this, but I'm really trying to stay practical. It doesn't seem the least ingenuous to me to say that one is trifling and the other isn't. But, and this is why I'm asking, maybe refs don't have that freedom in this circumstance???
The PK has to be scored directly. If the Chicago player is the only one encroaching, it's an IFK coming out.
In a nutshell, yes. I just don't think it's something you can avoid. Practically, I agree with the points you make in the rest of your post. But if you're going to call encroachment here, I think you're stuck with the re-take because encroachment is clearly visible from both sides and the prescribed restart for that is clearly laid out. Oh, by all means, there has to be a point where one is trifling--as I said above. You're absolutely right. But here, where one guy is clearly a yard in... I just don't think you'd get away with it. Maybe I'm wrong.