Did the Inferno get on TV alot last night? Can Kevin get us a discount deal to the Michael Johnson School of Excellence/Performance in the offseason?
ESPN never showed a replay of the goal where a determination of offsides could be made. Only one replay was shown when the ball was passed to Johnson, but it was from the endline stands. The other replays shown were all after Johnson had received the pass.
Those are the kind of performances that earn Referees a FIFA badge to do International matches. See Hall, Brian
I blame ESPN. All those dollar sausage dogs and dollar beer offers during weeknight games this year have made us hefty. However, the additional weight did help me establish balance when I was on the front row, standing and jumping on the folding chairs for 90 minutes last night without falling over. Hooray, low center-of-gravity! Suck it, chair monsters!
No offside. I had it on high def. DVR. And while you do have a small blank to fill it is pretty obvious. Ball is played centrally over a SJ player that Davino has stepped up to mark. The ball takes a strange bounce, or is flicked by the SJ player. Drew is the supporting player on the play and he runs up to pull the forward offside. The problem is that Wagner was playing deeper than Drew, keeping the goalscorer on as he makes a diagonal run on to the ball. This is unfortunately not the least bit controversial. Just simply, bad defending.
Not disputing the call, just never saw a replay that could justify arguing offsides or not. I'll trust your fancy DVR replay that shows Wagner being late to push up and move on.
That's exactly as I saw it, Theo, on the one replay. It isn't super clear, as you can only see part of Wagner, but he does look to be keeping Johnson onside. Personally, I think Wagner's inexperience has led to some very costly errors for this defense over the course of the season. Some very poor passes out of the back leading to dangerous turnovers. Now he's gone all "long ball" to avoid those mistakes, which just end up giving up possession. His positioning is frequently poor. I don't know of the Pitch-Davino swap out contributed to this, but Wagner was pretty awful last night. So that makes it a total of, what, 5 seasons in which we've not had a solid left back starter.
The YouTube highlight reel at 3:09 shows he's onsides (pause and watch his run -- it goes over the other guys head so no contact to reset the offsides rule). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9YoX5mRl7w His goal was definitely onsides. I was hoping for a draw, but a better game. The ref could have called the PK on Cunningham being taken down, but the actual foul seemed outside the box. Like someone else said... 1/2PK + 1/2PK = 1PK!
I can ditto the DVR diagnosis of Wagner keeping the goal scorer onsides. Is it me or has one of our problems this year been that none of the young guys have blossomed? I've come to expect that every year we'll have a crop of 4-5 young guys, rookies or second year kind of guys, and out of that group one of them will make the transition to being a useful player. Last year I would have called this guy Dax McCarty. This year I was looking at a group like Wagner, Dello-Russo, Guarda, Avila, Brek Shea, maybe Anthony Wallace. Players that young you sort of expect them to stumble and make mistakes, but from a group of them you expect one investment to start paying off. Shea has been hurt which put his chances to bed. The whole Guarda-Avila thing is well documented around here, but neither of them has grabbed a role. Dello-Russo has laid some big time eggs when he's been in. As far as playing time I guess Wagner would have to be declared the "winner" but he doesn't inspire confidence as much as his appearance on the roster just highlights our thinness on the left hand side. I guess coaching turnover is especially hard on the youngsters trying to define themselves.
I thought it looked pretty clean once they were inside the box, but I have to admit I wasn't paying that close of attention. I would have been surprised if there was a PK awarded, though. I think that Cunningham could have got a better result if he didn't try to hold on and successfully take a shot (however weak it was). Best result for me (as a spectator, not biased towards either of the teams) would have been Cunningham jukes Riley out of his shoes, scores a fantastic goal and it would have been 1-1 without a PK and woudl have just been a fun and exciting game to watch. I really hate it when games come down to "If the ref would have"...
You know I honestly don't remember looking at what I appear to be looking at right there... Also, I see what ElJefe and everyone else means about the beef in the front row. It's a rare photo that can make me feel good about my weight... You know we love you guys, chunkiness and all.
Well the heaviest stuff usually sinks to the bottom right? Guess that's true for a soccer supporter's section as well.
If cunningham had dove like you claim, he would have probably earned the penalty. Fact is he tried to stay on his feet and managed to get a weak shot off all the while that guy was all over him. I guess he should have just went down.
Bet its too late for that. In the off season, he's gone. Best of luck to him too. I hope he kicks a$$ in Europe.
I watched this game (thank you Kenny for that tie!) and I'm almost 100% sure Abbey knew he screwed up on his no call for the earlier penalty, and took the unintentional hand ball by Lima as compensation. Only giving Davino a yellow card was also probably part of Abbey assuaging his guilt.
Hey, shouldn't you be over in the Quakes forum, making a bunch of catty comments with the rest of the paragons of physical fitness that is Quakes fandom?
Bailout Plan Match Report: San Jose Earthquakes vs FC Dallas October 4th, 2008 . By: Buzz Carrick http://www.3rddegree.net/