OK, I thought I had seen everything.... Vancouver's Hassli received a caution for a flailing arm that caught his opponent in the face while he was being fouled. Then he scored a PK and removed his jersey to throw into the crowd while wearing a second jersey underneath. I had never seen a guy wearing two shirts like that before. I guess the directives say that a player who "removes his jersey" must be cautioned. One of those things that I have frankly never really agreed with. But everyone surely knows about it. The odd twist was the second jersey underneath. So Vancouver down to 9 men as a result after a bit of a controversial send off in the first half. VAN player jumping to head the ball made contact with his arm to the head of an opponent. Didn't look like he was using it as a weapon to me. The other strange thing (as I mentioned elsewhere) is that Toledo is in charge of a match involving NE less than two weeks after his controversial performance at Gillette Stadium.
Toledo sent off Soares from the Revolution for a tackle in the corner that in all honesty shocked me that he did. It looked like a yellow and thats it. He is having another controversial game with the Revs.
The second yellow on Hassli was justified, no questions asked. If taking off your jersey and throwing it into the stands is NOT excessive celebration, I couldn't tell you what is. What bothers me is that the NE announcers just stated, and I'm not exaggerating, that they would be 'ashamed' of MLS if he (Toledo) was allowed to referee another game. This was after Toledo sent off a NE player for a studs-up tackle from behind, after the ball had cleared an opponent by nearly a yard. To show the announcers' soccer wisdom, their primary complaint with the VAN PK (which so far is the only goal) was that when the NE player shoved the VAN player down in the PA, the ball was 'unplayable'. That seems to support Toledo's decision to not send off the NE player, but doesn't bring his awarding of the PK into question at all.
Toledo is out of control as a referee. He needs to go back to being a baker or whatever he did before.
Baldo is having another nightmare. Hassli's elbow to Alston was more flagrant and damaging than Koffie's earlier, yet Hassli only got a yellow. The second yellow to Hassli was a great card. Hassli was being an idiot, trying to make a fool out of the referee by having a jersey under the jersey. Jokes on him. The red card to Soares was a marginal yellow card. Reckless trip at best. Certainly not excessive force or endangering safety. After the Rev-DCU fiasco, how could MLS assign Baldo to another Rev game so soon?
I felt that the Whitecap player was pushed outside the PA, but kept his feet to fall in the PA. While I don't think that Camilo deserved a caution for diving on the play where it was given, he did go down too easily on several occasions, including the PK.
This is really tough to tell, actually. Boggs makes the initial contact outside the PA with his arm, but Camilo doesn't go down due to that. Then there's hip-to-hip contact that happens right at the top of the box that brings Camilo down. It's really, really close, and the way that the online highlights are set up make it difficult to tell for sure.
Both straight reds seemed quite terrible to me. For the first, the Vancouver player had no swing to his elbow and all of the energy came from the NE player who came flying in at full speed. The Red to NE was an obvious yellow, with the key word being yellow. The first yellow to Hasli, despite the damage to the NE player, seemed harsh. If you are going to bear hug your opponent and bend over with your head 3 inches from his elbow, bad things are going to happen. However, he did at least correctly call the foul by the NE player first. Also, I am unsure as to how the NE player was allowed back on the pitch (and he had to leave again after less than a minute). Poor sub control. The PK was obvious, as was the second yellow to Hasli, as clearly explained here http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/dec/31/you-are-ref-trevillion-messi
Watch the tape. Not a studs-up tackle from behind. Soares comes from the side and actually gets to the ball with his right foot (the studs are up and out, but a half yard in front of Harris). Soares' left leg is bent back under himself and his momentum carries him into Harris, the leg and thigh taking Harris' feet out. No contact with Harris by Soares' feet.
Agreed. No way that Alston should've been back on the pitch with bloody gauze dripping out of both nostrils.
The strange thing is that Jay Heaps said "there's a red card coming" well before Toledo actually showed the card. Then, when he saw the replay, he apparently wishfully decided that Soares had made contact with the ball, when in fact it was Harris who had knocked the ball ahead (although in Heaps' defense, it wasn't easy to tell). I thought it should be a yellow, but New England were up two men at the time and he did send Harris flying, so I can certainly see where many would have expected to see red. I though Toledo got everything else spot on, with the exception of allowing Alston back on the field with the huge dark cloth hanging out of his nose. That was Brad Feldman. He at least tries to learn the rules, but for some reason many of them continue to escape him.
Maybe he saw Toledo reaching for the back pocket and assumed the red was coming out? Anyways, I don't believe it should have been red. I agree with Toledo's other calls (for the most part).
Another poor performace by Toledo. Sure, no one can really argue Hassli's second caution, but the first. Really? As for the Koffie red, in context of the game, I knew it would be red, but, if Toledo hadn't sent cards flying right out of the gate, there would have been no problem with just a yellow. (Speaking of which, the first two cautions.....were they really necessary?) As for the PK, at first, I said 'No' even as Camilo was going down. Then I saw the replay. The 'push' isn't the call, as others already have said, there is hip contact, and, also, I believe just after that, the back of Camilo's leg was clipped as well. The Soares send off, in a word: no. I don't buy that he got the ball, and even though the studs were up, I don't believe there was any contact with the studs on Harris. Caution? Given everything else that's happened, yes, but serious foul play? I'm not sure how Drew Fischer let NE's bleeding player back on. One positive: - I was happy with the AR's Edit: I love MLS VAN -- Eric Hassli (caution; Lack of Respect for Game)
I actually thought Toledo did a pretty decent job tonight. The red card to Koffie was a tough one, but I'm OK with it. Koffie wasn't trying to use the elbow as a weapon, I didn't think. I don't think he had any bad intentions. But he was reckless, he led with the elbow, and he caught his opponent squarely in the face. That's something that referees worldwide have been instructed to crack down on. And the TSN color guy, whose name I don't know, was really pissing me off. He was ranting and raving that players HAVE to be allowed to have their arms out, which is ridiculous. So Toledo could have let that go, but he chose not to, and I'm fine with that. Hassli's first yellow card looked pretty valid on one angle, and pretty soft on another. But it definitely looked more careless than reckless, and with one player having already been sent off, I think yellow was the right decision there. Again, TSN's color guy saying the NER player conned the referee seemed pretty funny when Alston came up with a face full of crimson. The second yellow card... easy one. Sorry about your luck. That's just completely unprofessional on Hassli's part. Gotta know better. The call that led to the PK... that was close, but again, I'm OK with that call as well. Looked like a hip check that knocked the attacker off the ball. Seeing it live, I thought he actually pushed him in the back. That turned out not to be the case, making it a closer call, but the body contact seemed like enough to me. The only big call I didn't like was the Soares red card -- I have no idea what justifies that being red, other than the natural inclination to even things up. It's a clear yellow for a late, if not tactical foul, but I see no reason for red.
First red seemed consistent with FIFA directives. Third red seemed consistent with what USSF said they wanted in the WiR. First two yellows were 100% misconducts IMO.
Here's a link to the MLS recap page with a menu of highlights. I was calming down from the DC United/Philadelphia Union USOC play-in game nearby and stayed up to watch the whole thing. Wild game. I think Toledo did OK.
Just watched the highlights and I also think he did OK. I have no quibble with the sendoffs (though I thought the third one was harsh but justifiable)
The TSN Colour guy is Jason DeVos, a very tall central defender who was a Canadian national who played in Scotland and England. In short, he is going to be wayyyyy to the side of letting them play on incidents like that. I am curious as to the FIFA directives on Elbows. I always assumed that it required a "swing" of the Elbow to create a foul, and in this case, I don't think there was any swing of the elbow. Is this mistaken (ie, is any contact with the elbow is automatically the fault of the player attached to the elbow)? In this case, had the Vancouver player not had his arms out, we would have instead had a very bad clash of heads instead, which would have been far worse than what happened.
Except that there certainly was a swing. In fact, it almost seemed that Koffie reacted to contact by swinging harder. I don't believe this is true either, as Phelan, who is already wearing headgear for concussion reasons, would have passed behind Koffie without making contact, or with barely making contact.
I agree that once the contact occured that Koffie moved his arm, but this isn't dangerous as at that point it is a pushing, not striking movement. Both players had their eyes on the ball, and went to head it. Unless you think that Phelan came flying in only to miss his header, I fail to see how they wouldn't have had a severe collision. Neither player new the other was there until they hit.
in defense of Toledo when they showed the replay from the angle that he would have saw the play, it did look like Kofie was throwing an elbow but when they showed it from the other angles its looked like just about any challenge that happens 10 time a game and is not called. When I saw it initially I jumped up and yelled you dirty SOB, after watching the replay, it was more like, Toledo, you are a moron
This is likely. However, Heaps also correctly predicted the send-off for Hassli, and he appeared to do it before Toledo gave any indication, because he was very excited when he saw that Toledo was actually going to send him off. For him the Soares red seemed like a foregone conclusion, so he probably did see Toledo go to the back pocket. The most ironic comment of the night probably came from Brad Feldman, just after Hassli was sent off: "Jay, is it correct to say that as a player you've got to know better?" Jay should have replied: "Brad, is it correct to say that as a commentator you've got to know better?"
1) Koffie's red looked legitimate to me. No, he did not swing the arm. But he led with it like a battering ram. The push from FIFA is to eliminate this kind of contact to the head... it ends careers. 2) Hassli should have been sent off for his elbow, not just a caution (I love how the MLS highlight page says the yellow is "questionable"). Three of the FIRE elements are present (frustration, intimidation, establish territory). I would agree with many of the prior posts that this contact was worse than Koffie's (though I still believe the red to Koffie was correct). 3) While it looked like the player may have been pushed outside the PA on the PK, he was clearly tripped inside the PA. I do not have a problem with that call. 4) The second yellow to Hassli is nobody's fault but his own. It doesn't matter what you are wearing underneath, shirt over the face = mandatory yellow. Toledo is in deep trouble if he doesn't give it. 5) The red to Soares... that one I am a bit iffy on. On replay, it looked yellow at best. The trail leg is what hits Harris, and to me that makes it a cautionable offense. But the leg is tucked (no studs) and Harris jumps, clearly recognizing the incoming contact and adjusts to it. The lead leg is at the ball and not over it and makes no contact with Harris. I can only imagine that Toledo decided the tackle was from behind, but that was a 30 yard through ball into a corner where he has no AR help. Toledo was at least 30-40 yards from the play due to circumstances, and I think he just judged it wrong. Me thinks he won't be doing too many Revs games in the forseeable future...
But later Heaps starts saying that he thought the letter of the law had to do with exposing your chest and not taking off the jersey and maybe it wasn't the right call.