Great performance from Geiger IMO. Dogso and and re-take of PK were spot on. One caveat: 90th min. when the corner flag gets destroyed and he conciously decideds to allows play to restart. I understand keeping the game going in such a crucial time in the match, but at the same time it is a compulsory piece of field equipment per Law 1. I'm fine with it but it is also that caught my attention...
Donovan probably should've had a 2nd yellow card. He show'd he was ticked and not interested in playing anymore. The handling of the PK, the send off and the retake was all perfection imo.
Personally I think the way Geiger managed it was perfect. A second caution would've been harsh. You don't send-off players because they are pissed; you manage them (especially in MLS).
You know how the league is punishing frivolous appeals of red cards? They should treat frivolous dissent of red cards the same way. What on earth was Lopes debating or arguing about with Geiger? I'd be 100% in favor of an extra game suspension for that. You tried to get away with stopping a goal with your hand. When you're caught, just leave. Referees face enough dissent as it is--it's absolutely ridiculous that we're in a culture where players think it's obligatory to dissent the most obvious calls.
I'm sorry but I was at the meeting where Donovan told a bunch of referees that they act like complete idiots sometimes "because you let us". I've seen Donovan get away with 2nd cautionable offenses over and over and over. I've even seen a FIFA referee fail his assessment over one failure to give Donovan a 2nd caution. Yeah you don't send players off because they're pissed you manage them is usually good advice. Not when they blatantly charge someone from behind and not when they constantly get away with it because of who they are. I'm also mad that Donovan didn't stay at Everton.
I think in the past they have added on fines for "failing to leave the field in a timely manner". Don't recall adding games. I also will agree that Donovan should have seen red and that he has gotten away with it way too many times.
The DC used "failure to leave the field in a timely manner" to suspend Gabe Farfan 3 games earlier this year. I'd love to have him get extra games - and my thought seeing it was what on earth are you complaining about. I'd love to know the answer to that.
I might be crazy, and even if I'm not, the call would be incredibly difficult to make in real-time, but... Is it possible the Chivas player who took the shot that was stopped on the goal line by Lopes was actually offside? You see three replays on the highlight and none of them show anything close to conclusive. But the widest angle shows he's at least even with the goalkeeper (with one defender behind). Seems at least possible that the left side of his body is beyond the goalkeeper (second to last defender) when it's last touched by his teammate's head. Would love to see a more telling replay--imagine if the flag had gone up?!
I'd take a gander that after the recent assault on a corner flag, that this precise issue has been discussed and that MLS referees have been instructed not to delay the match while the corner flag is being fixed, but simply rely on the ground crew to get it done quickly. How often does a corner flag matter in the real world? Maybe bounces off it once every 5-10 games and is relevant to a CK vs. FT one out 10 or 20? The odds of it mattering in the couple of minutes while it is being fixed are so vanishingly small, it seems like the right decision to me -- compulsory or not. (Also spoken as someone who has those compulsory flags on about 1/2 of the games I do . . . .)
Didn't farfan commit a pretty nasty tackle as well as try to headbutt another player? Its not like he got 3 games simply for taking too long to get off the field.
I didn't see the game, but in watching the highlights it looks to me like Geiger blows the whistle to retake the penalty before he sees what the result of the kick was. While he ends up being right...if the guy doesn't convert it...are you really going to call for a retake?
Just re-watched the highlight here: http://www.mlssoccer.com/matchcenter/2012-05-19-chv-v-la/highlights?videoID=186432 Geiger clearly waits until the ball is in the net to wave off the goal and blow the whistle.
On many of the MLS video, the sound and video are off by a bit. If not, the announcers, at times, very accurately predict the future.
If the ball does not go in the net, then it is an indirect free-kick coming out and not a retake, in this situation with an attacker coming in early. The ATR on Law 14 has a simple chart showing what happens when there is infringement during the taking of a penalty kick. The 'quick' whistle would be to stop play, so that if the ball doesn't go in the net and a rebound is given, there isn't a goal scored, or worse, in the scrum that could happen in the box.
So am I way off on this, or is no one commenting because it's so inconclusive? Totally understand if it's the latter and I'm not at all trying to criticize the call. Just pointing it out because replays show, I think, offside was possible... while in real-time it looks completely impossible.
Considering they're MLS announcers, the latter is highly unlikely since the present and recent past seem to elude many of them so effortlessly.
I watched it several times and it's tough to tell given the angle, but perhaps the question is moot, anyway, since the player who eventually takes the shot that's blocked/handled may not have been closer to the goal line than the ball when it was headed by his teammate. Here's the closest capture I could get from the online web video:
I think the offside decision is pretty close, but I'm reasonably sure that keeping the flag down was correct.
Yeah, like I said, I'm not trying to create a firestorm where there is none. Because I didn't even see the possibility of offside until I watched it a couple times. But that's sort of my point. You end up with two field players well between the ball and the goal before it gets struck and it really looks like offside wasn't even in the discussion. It's just more of a reminder to always be alert and on your toes, even when there are a number of other factors going on (collision with GK, players moving in opposite directions, DGF).