Wanted to start a thread for the US- Jamaica game. Good penalty decision against Turner. Thought that Ream would get a yellow for the challenge at midfield early on. Advantage played, but no card.
Very easy penalty call against Turner. Referee was also in really good position to see it, so no one could really argue against it. But this field - yikes. I get why Jamaica set the field up as they did, but it sure doesn't make for fluid, entertaining soccer. I hope the field in St. Louis is glass-like slick on Monday to compensate.
McKennie gets a deserved yellow for pulling the shorts, but nothing for the Jamaican player when he grabs Pulisic by the arm stopping an attack. Got to love CONCACAF referees.
I will never understand what logic is used when allowing Christian Pulisic to be kicked all over the field. Objectively speaking, have any Mexico players ever been allowed to be kicked like Pulisic? Maybe it's happened, but I don't really remember any El Tri player being handled like Pulisic gets handled by Concacaf officials.
Good second yellow against the Jamaican player late in the game. Clear SPA. No argument from the Jamaican team. I feel like this referee has done pretty well. Still letting get Pulisic get beat up, but overall not bad.
If we just operate under the assumption that Pulisic will be kicked with relative impunity, I thought Calderon did well. Kept a pretty good lid on things. Felt like he handled the mass cons well (but of course, he wouldn't have had to deal with mass cons if he properly dealt with Pulisic getting kicked). Got the penalty spot on. I've seen a LOT worse over the years in CONCACAF matches, particularly during USMNT matches on the road.
Did anybody else think that the YC for the foul on Tessman in '76 should have been a straight red? Looked like spikes to the thigh.....
No thoughts on the potential penalty when Ream hit the ball with a chicken wing on that corner kick in the 2nd half? VAR didn't send it down and seemed to clear it pretty quickly. There weren't any good replays shown on the broadcast though.
Arm was close to the body, reaction time was minimal, unclear where exactly in the upper arm/shoulder area the ball hit.....no way that is being given, either on the field or via VAR.
I personally never liked that red area / green area handling diagram. I felt, especially from the side, the green area allows for quite a bit of arm allowing for acts that just don't feel right for the game. Though, it is what it is at this point.
Haven’t been able to find referee assignments for this quarterfinal round. I’m sure there are American refs working, just wondering when and where.
All I can find at the moment: Mexico – Honduras Referee: Drew Fischer CAN Assistant Referee 1: Michael Barwegen CAN Assistant Referee 2: Lyes Arfa CAN
That was a play-in match. It's a bit convoluted but it's more or less about Gold Cup prelim qualifications: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024–25_CONCACAF_Nations_League_Play-in For what it's worth, Wikipedia seems to have all the referee assignments correct after-the-fact. League A is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024–25_CONCACAF_Nations_League_Play-in It's four expected names with Fischer also named ahead of time for Tuesday. I would suspect some combination of Barton-Escobar for two of the other three. If that does end up being the case, it means either the US or Mexico would be shut out here (with Penso having a play-in, Elfath injured, and PRO not likely wanting to risk Villarreal if it can be avoided, I tend to think you won't see an American crew but I could be wrong). League B is, thus far (Matchday 5), eight names I've literally never heard of. I went through and watched some highlights and there was some fun/bizarre stuff. Regardless, CONCACAF is experimenting right now at this level with a few of the guys being used in League B not even being FIFAs yet.
I don't think her full name is a big secret lol. Árbitro Internacional tends to use full names, and I think Nick Uranga is another one on the current panel who goes by a middle name fwiw.
Yeah, lots of League B and C referees who I’ve never heard of either. That’s always true to some extent, but I agree it seems like Concacaf is casting a wide net. Especially since non-FIFAs are included. As for the fun/bizarre highlights, which games in particular do you recommend I look at?
Bizarre might be too strong. On the Puerto Rico match, I would just say the referee did not look the part. And there was a 2CT with about 20 seconds left that I can only assume was for some sort of dissent toward the AR. The player walked, but also no one made a fuss and it came from nothing you could observe. Unless it was worthy of a straight red (or it was something else entirely) it just seemed like the kind of dissent you don't worry about--particularly at that juncture. Vazquez and Da Silva were on this crew, for what it's worth. The red card for Bonaire, on the other hand, was a horrific elbow. Had it connected fully, we'd be talking about Leonardo v Ramos type of result. The odd thing is that the referee was right there on the scene and seemed to still need confirmation or instruction from his AR/4th. Sometimes you're too close, I get it. But this one seemed sort of obvious. All's well that end's well, but the indecisiveness was noteworthy.
Well in that case, her full name is Mary Victoria Penso (née Hancock) per Wikipedia. Now we all know!
The entire CONCACAF Nations League is incredibly convoluted. It's not just the qualifying but the A, B, and C and the promotion/relegation is insanely difficult to follow.
On my phone, so can’t strike through. But the bold words were really all you needed to type for this to be accurate with an economy of words.
Escobar for US. Ramos in Panama. Barton would appear likely for Canada’s second leg. But perhaps he’s overkill there and it’s a different name.
Escobar is still very much Escobar. I did love how Pochettino acted like he was old friends with Escobar and his crew at the end, hamming it up. He had an arm around AR2 while Pulisic (rightly) complained to Escobar about his treatment all game. But Pochettino just used the opportunity to make new buddies within CONCACAF in the aftermath of a 5-2 aggregate win. Very smart use of star power and soft power. In other news, Fischer has a very big match tomorrow for a variety of reasons. Mexico is down 0-2 and this is for both semifinal progression and direct qualification to Gold Cup. Meanwhile, both FIFA and PRO eyes will be on this for two very different reasons. I don't think problems tomorrow night could upset any plans for MLS Cup, but you also never know how bad a home Mexico match with a negative result for that side could end up being. No matter what, it has the makings of an event to watch and is probably Fischer's biggest international test yet given the position he finds himself in.