Now that we've all had a little time to calm down and reflect on the playoffs I still have a question. Why wasn't there any disciplinary action taken against Carlos Valderrama for putting a head-high set of cleats into Joselito Vaca's head in game two of the quarter finals? This contact caused a concussion and three stitches to the scalp according to MLSnet.com. Why does Valderrama get off scot-free in this situation? Didn't the MLS Disciplinary Board continue to do their job during the playoffs? I think there were players in other playoff matches who got post-game penalties assessed for their actions, why not Valderrama?
Here's why: See this site: http://soccer-ref.quietfire.com/BobEvansPaper.html In essence, MLS was using it's priviledge to refuse certain referees to give them a pretty clear message: don't red card star players. Hence, neither Valderrama nor Mastroeini were given second yellows when they deserved it. It would have suspended them. And MLS was explicitly or implicitly telling USSF and refs that they didn't want their star players suspended. If you go to the referee forum, you'll see an entire thread discussing how it happened. My only problem with Evans' Statement is that there is nothing in there about giving some accountability to the league and the fans for referees that repeatedly make mistakes. We're supposed to have faith in them that poor performance by referees "will be taken care of. " I want to SEE it being taken care of, or as far as I'm concerned, it's NOT taken care of.
This situation with MLS and the referees is a mess. Under the circumstances, how can ANYONE judge "mistakes"? For all we know, the referee might have been given high marks from the league for NOT carding Valderrama when he cracked Vaca's coconut!
I read Bob Evan's statement and if it's true, it sucks. That is complete BS that stars get special treatment, Valderama should have been suspended for game 3 and so should have Mastroleni. And I think we would have won if they didn't play, which is a sorry excuse, but anything changes a game. The last thing we need is Refferee corruption.
I totally agree. But I surmise from the paper that 1. Refs that did not give merited cards did not get good evaluations. They were given more games, but I think the author implies that the evaluations themselves were not corrupted. 2. I totally agree that the reffing we saw this year must be completely discarded when trying to decide the quality of reffing. There's no way to judge which games were tainted by the ambition of MLS and the ref in question. In the back of my mind, I think MLS was not solely at fault. Do you know anyone in the league who thinks that home teams were given an advantage in calls? In fact, myself and lots of others think that refs made calls that assured they were seen as NOT giving home field advantage to the home side. to the point of error. How many times did you see a flagrant shirt pull in the box vs. the home team, and nothing was done? Way too many times. I'm not saying home side deserves the calls. What I am saying is I think MLS was initally justified in griping about the level of refs in the league. But then we ended up with MLS and USSF playing so many head games on the poor guys, that games were bipolar in the extreme. Perhaps in 2003 MLS will play hands off, and USSF will fire the bad ones and give the good ones raises.
What Viking said ... both posts! I'd also like to add that IMHO, it goes deeper than that. In addition to the "star" treatment, there is a "star team" treatment. I think Ruiz is the MVP of the league, but he gets away with so many horrendous fouls and flops that it's comical. I also think it affected the non-offsides call in San Jose that eliminated the Earthquakes. I'm sure he was the reason Bobby Convey was given a straight red card for a mild foul and an Oscar-winning flop. It's not just him though, it's the entire league. Noel Kenney dislikes DC United, and his reffing showed it. Without Moreno, nobody on DC ever got those calls, and DC sure was the victim of a gaggle of them. This biased reffing must stop ... immediately. That's one of my two huge beefs with the NBA, it's total white-glove treatment of stars. It makes me ill. I'm glad someone had the ballz to expose the reffing situation. I'm sure MLS thinks it helps to keep the stars on the pitch and it probably is less of a reason to leave MLS for greener pa$ture$. I disagree. The fans want fair refs, that's one reason why the NFL is so well followed (OK there are a lot of reasons, but that's one of em). Fix the reffing situation. -Tron
I think the facts in this matter are being obscured by the soap opera. However, the 90 world cup final could have been interesting to watch had not the semifinal ref carded Caniggia out of the final for reaching up and touching a ball that was going out for a goal kick when it was obvious he was doing it out of frustration and wasn't attempting to conceal it. Against the rules of the game? Yeah. Ruined the WC final? Helped to. Very stupid on Caniggia's part none the less. Even this WC final saw the Germans play without their only player who could score in the knock out round. However, there just isn't a way to get around giving Ballack that card. Just trying to say that MLS telling refs to try to not card people out of matches in and of itself isn't bad. Its exactly how it is applied and to what degree.