Not looking for any medals. I suppose we could debate "excuse" v. "explanation." All I was really saying is that those of us who watch the team were not surprised by the result given both the roster issues and the current form of several key players. And, yes, were it not for Kevin Hartman KC would have won overwhelmingly - but we are used to that by now.
Sorry KC fans, but that guy who scored was in an offside position when the first shot was made (yeah, you could argue he wasn't involved) but he was also offside when the ball was played to him when he buryed it. Awful call by the ref to overrule the linesman. Still, shouldn't have allowed ourselves to get in that situation. LA didn't deserve 3 points, but a draw would have been fair.
Did you actually see the play? Igor scored off a square pass (i.e. was even or possibly slightly behind the ball). Not offside. I don't think it matters if he was in an offside position on the initial shot (looked to me like he was slightly) because it was a shot, and Igor wasn't involved in the rebound. As I understand it, the key is to view the sequence as two different plays. He's not offside on the initial shot, and he's not offside on the subsequent pass. Valid goal. By the way, the Quakes got burned on a similar goal earlier in the year where a long pass went downfield on the left while a forward was ahead of the defense in the center (passive). The wing on the left was fast, and when he got to the endline, he was ahead of all other players. He passed the ball back into the middle to the forward, who had maintained a position ahead of the Quakes defense the entire time. When the final pass was made, the forward wasn't offside because he was behind the ball. It was explained to me in the ref forum using this "two separate plays" analysis: passive on the first pass, behind the ball on the second pass. Same as on Igor's goal this weekend.
kansas city pre/post game (R) A little bitter? You were not robbed. You were, in fact, lucky to have had a chance to win it in OT at all. If you have a problem with the OT goal, then you have a problem with the rules of the game. If you have a problem with those, don't whine feebly here about it -- take your case to Garber, or better yet to FIFA. I'm sure they'll take your informed opinion under serious consideration.
If you watched MLS Wrap on Saturday night, you would have heard John Harkes mentioned that the league thought that Igor Simutenkov was even with the 2nd to last defender at the time the first shot by Chris Klein was taken. Klein was onside when he took the shot. Simutenkov was actually about a foot offside. However, he was not involved in that play so he was in a "passive" offside position. Regardless of whether Simutenkov was in a "passive" offside position or not, as soon as Klein's shot hit the goal post and rebounded to anyone OTHER than Simutenkov, the first play was OVER. Klein received the rebound so a new play began. When Klein received the rebound, he passed the ball laterally (not forward) to Simutenkov. As long as Simutenkov wasn't in front of Klein, he couldn't be offside in the 2nd play.
Maybe this gawd-awful excuse for a season has gotten me down, but I have a real hard time getting exercized about this. Mostly my reaction is: one more meaningless road loss in a season I would just as soon forget. Why should I care how it happened this time? If the ref had waived that one off, I have confidence we would have found some other way to blow the game.
oh well. i guess i was wrong. it looked like a forward pass on TV, we should have lost on the initial shot anyway... bitter, of course we're bitter, who the hell wouldn't be bitter after this shite season, and where exactly should we whine about it? it's our freakin' board. KC fans accusing LA of playing bunker ball? ha, we learned that one from you two weeks ago, only we don't have as much practice as you. for all the fire-sigi, play new-blood people. there you go. thanks for playing, they sucked just as bad, with 90 minutes.
Bull. He was closer to the goal line. Every time I've seen the replay, it looked that way and who better than the linesmen to call it. He had is flag up remember. Just another road loss in an otherwise disappointing season.
Well, I respectfully beg to differ based on my viewings. I've seen the replay a number of times on TiVo super-slo-mo. There are few times I've appreciated football lines on the field, but this was one of 'em. At best, Igor was even with the ball. One report I read said the linesman's flag was raised to signal a good goal. I'm not sure I buy that, but somehow he was convinced that the play should stand. Pure speculation here, but watching the replay, I could see why the linesman may have raised his flag. Klein's pass had a lot of bend on it and initially looked to be going forward. However, when it reached Simutenkov, the pass was exactly square.
What makes you think you're the only one with a Tivo box? Lets put it this way, he wasn't clearly onside. Was it enough to warrent such a judgement call on a sudden-death winner? Give me 10 world class refs and I'm willing to bet Kev Stott (ok, no where near world class) would have been the only to allow that goal.
Not sure why I'm continuing this since you seem to be the only one who saw it differently, but even is on, and Igor was slightly behind the ball (and even with the ball at best). By the way, I think you're selling world class refs a bit short. No, not all of them would have called it right live, but with the ability to freeze the video, I'm sure ten out of ten would have allowed the goal.
He doesn't have to be clearly onside. They should only call it offside if he's clearly offside. The benefit of the doubt should go to the offense.