Noel Kenny - political move or not

I doubt it. Every referee at that level is assessed at every game. His performances were failing. I don't think it's any different from any other profession (except, perhaps, civil service).

 

So do you think he should be untouchable??? If he sucked he knew that he would face the consequences. I would be interested in hearing about some details of the game. As a side note I watched about 10 minutes of the soccer saturday match with chicago and Hristo Stoichkoff HIT the referee with a shot on goal. ANYONE can make a mistake but it was not a quick break situation and the reff put himself in a bad spot AND he almost got hit less then five minutes later. Wonder if he passed.

 

I posted the details, from my perspective, of the game in the other thread about encroaching on PKs.

 

Part political move, cause there was quite a ruckus, but there was no denying that Noel sucked. If you fail one assessment you've got problems, so he deserved to be booted.

 

Please note Kenny was in part removed because he asked to be. That should tell you what he thought of his own performance.

Cheers,
ECM

 

Re: Re: Noel Kenny - political move or not

He asked to, but he also recieved two failing grades, so he would have been removed regardless.

 

"Asked to be removed"? This is like when a coach who comes in last place resigns.

 

It's sort of aggrevating that MLS picks out only certain controversial calls to "explain" and pass judgement on. I've seen nearly every televised game this season and IMO there's no referree that has more to explain, or should have more failing assessments, than the two Kevins, especially Terry. It sure feels like there's a lot of politics going on.

-KMJvet

 

That may be so, but Kenny just flat had difficulty controlling matches. The controversial calls were merely an outcropping of an overall problem.

 

Controversial calls can be an "outcropping" of any of a number of match-after-match reproducible problems.
Failure to control a match isn't actually the worst sin IMO. It doesn't hold a candle to failure to maintain impartiality or being enough of a professional to maintain match fitness. Kevin Terry has repeated problems with 1) fitness-associated inability to keep up with the run of play and 2) deciding calls based on a judgement of the impact of their outcome instead of just calling things consistantly based on what actually happened. Kevin Stott has a reproducible problem with bias against certain teams and players developing as a game wears on and creeping into his impartiality.
Other referrees have more minor, but consistant, issues. Erich Simmons (and the other very young ref who's name is escaping me for the moment) has a reproducible problem of never calling advantage. Most of the referrees are actually rather consistent when it comes to their weaknesses that results in controversial calls. MLS chooses to worry about some of these and make a big deal of it and yet turns a blind eye to others. I think the fact that DC United and Ray Hudson are quite vocal played a big role in the Kinney decision as opposed to his weaknesses being any more glaring than other same mistake again and again problems. Corrrect me if I'm wrong, but it wasn't failure to control matches that utlimately lead to Kinney's dismissal. It was a specific controversial call not stemming from a match control issue.

-KMJvet

 

Kenny failed his assessment in the DC game. Period. He could have failed for a number of reasons. I don't think there is anyway to really know if he failed for one incident or if he failed because his overall control of the match was lacking. For all we know, he could have failed because he allowed too much dissent. None of us are privvy to that assessment, so we can't know with any certainty.

That said, match control is a major component of referee's performance at that level. It has been stated here before that you will almost never see a referee make a techical mistake at that level. Consitency, man-management, positioning and the like are going to play a larger role in the overall assessment. The match was not televised, but the reports seem to indicate that Kenny lost a degree of control of the match. That, in and of itself, could cause a failed assessment.

I don't see enough of Kevin Terry's games to have an opinion on his officiating. However, he passes the fitness test every year. It's a rigorous enough test that most people would puke after taking it. He's obviously passing his assessments, and fitness is a component of that, and he's maintaining a Fifa badge, so he must be doing something right. I'm interested in knowing of some instances when you feel he's made a call based on the game situation, and I ask this in all seriousness.

As far as Kevin Stott is concerned, I think he's an excellent referee. His threshold for what constitutes serious foul play might be a little lower then that of some referees, but he's done a very good job in every game I've watched him work. I don't think he's a biased referee at all. He takes his job seriously and he seems very aware of tactics and player tendencies. He also seems to have a good feel for the moment of truth in a match. The Petke-Diallo situation last year comes to mind here. When he does one of your team's games watch how quickly he gets to potentially volitie situations. It's like he has a sixth sense for sniffing thme out. Perhaps he seems to pick on certain players or teams because those players or teams don't adjust to the game he is calling. You'd have to give an example or two of his bias rather than making blanket statement, so we know where you're coming from.

All in all, the MLS assessment program is designed to develop a referee's weaknesses, so if a referee really does have problem like the ones you described above, they are worked on.

 

You're the second person to say this about his passing fitness tests and thus everything must be good enough. I don't know what's in these fitness tests, but I can tell you that Kevin Terry essentially never runs. I don't know if the fitness tests don't test the right thing, or if Terry doesn't maintain his training once the test is passed, or if he's simply lazy come game day. I suspect he could go all day at a slow jog, despite his being overweight. But the question is, does he not run because he's not training to run (training for endurance at a jogging pace and training for running are different) or it is because he's lazy.
He can do pretty well in Spartan and Naperville. But put him in a big stadium where the field's big and he's basically with the play only when it comes to him or it's slow. I think he understands how to get positioned, he just doesn't accomplish it. And soccer's not a game of simple extended jogging, you need to be training specifically for running fast for short intervals interspersed in with all that jogging some walking. I don't expect him to keep up with Carlos Ruiz or Landon Donovan on a breakaway, but he doesn't even try. I'm comparing him to other MLS officials who seem to do fine in this regard. The big, long-legged guy (Jair is his name I think) does great at this, almost to the point of getting in the way on occasion. But at least he's always working to be close enough to the play to see it well.
I think it's difficult, but I do think you can be fat and fit; but if Terry wants to do that, I think he'd better be running like everyone else. And beyond just the problem for it's own sake, I think the effect is that he guesses on a lot of calls from being too far away. I think he'd be a lot better referree if he cared about correcting this very correctable problem.
Again, I don't know if the problem is that the fitness test doesn't measure fitness for true game-required skills--but even if the fitness test is flawed, there's no stopping Terry from adjusting his training. And if Terry doesn't train once the test is passed or if he's just lazy and could run if he thought is was important, that's a problem that assessments should point out, no matter his fitness test results.

Okay, here are two examples that stick out in my memory. A week ago Saturday's game Quakes vs DC. Prideaux gave Landon a vigorous two-handed shove to the back after play was dead. It was seen and called by the AR. Jack and Ty were pronouncing Prideaux out of game for his stupidity.
I'm fairly sure it was seen by KT in addition to the AR because the ball was already dead. Landon embellished it a bit by not simply going down, but going down with a certain drama. Landon got a card. Fine. But there's no way Prideaux walks away with no card for that push. Except he did walk away. I suspect the reason was he was carrying a yellow already and Terry thought "a yellow means I have to give him a red and I don't want to take a tied-up, hard fought match and make one team play down a man." His decision had nothing to do with what actually happened, it had to do with what would be the impact on the match.

Another example, Quakes vs LA in LA. Carlos Ruiz attempted to score a goal by playing the ball with his hand. He was carrying a yellow. Terry saw it, but chose to call a push by Ruiz on Cannon so as to avoid giving Ruiz a second yellow and a sending off, even though the infraction was intentional handball to score a goal and no push occurred. Ignoring what happened, he found a way out that didn't result in players going off. I suspect he does this so as not to, in his mind, impact the game, or some such.... problem is of course, it impacts the game just as much because it overrides the truth of what the players actually did.

With Kevin Stott's matches, you can predict many of the cards before they happen. You can just see it and feel it in his body language that's he's ready and wanting to get the cards out. I don't mean to imply he walks on the field wanting to be Mr Big Pants in charge center stage like Hugh Dallas. But just that once thinks happen, he lets his emotional reactions become part of his judgement.
Perhaps you see this as player's failure to read his warnings. I'd be okay with that, expect that for when the cards or calls actually come that I've sensed were coming, they don't fit the infraction. Unless I misunderstand persistant infringement, it has to be either repeated fouling by the same player or repeated fouling of the same player. But with Stott, if there's been 3 or 4 fouls in a span of 2 or 3 minutes, by either team, you can just know that whichever team he thinks is the aggressor is going to get that next card, no matter what the foul is by whom or on whom. It's a fine line, I'll grant you between knowing a player's reputation and using that to your advantage vs having a preconceived bias. But fact of the matter is, I think Stott would do better reffing in a league where he doesn't know the teams and players for awhile. Stott seems to be pretty good in other respects, but I don't like referrees that get in whistle and card happy moods. I haven't seen him do a game except as 4th official in awhile, maybe he's calmed down some.

I'll be watching next year to see if Simmons takes care of the advantage problem, and Kevin Terry is fit and running. If the problems are gone, I'll be happy. I've seen zero Kinney games in person this year, so I can't really say if the problem with match control is as bad as people claim. I'd be sort of curious how the all refs do across the board in games involving Ray Hudson coached teams.

-KMJvet

 

Well KMJvet, I can understand where you're coming from. You've obviously thought that through, so I can't argue. I think Kevin Stott is a good referee, but he is a little more strict than some. I can see how some fans might not like that. That's just his style. If you can count on know his tendancies, then you know the players can as well. They may bicker about some calls, but they at least know what to expect game to game. That's the feedback that coaches and players constantly give back to the referee program. They would like officials to be consistent game to game, not all over the map.

On Terry, as I said, fitness is a part of the assessment process. The assessor will look at how close the referee is to the calls he makes and the like, so it would be talked about. If this does come up in his assessments, then it isn't something that casues hime to fail, nor has it cost him a Fifa badge.

The fitness test that the MLS referees have to pass is called the Cooper Test. My understanding is that it's a measure of overall fitness, but I don't think it measures how well a referee can keep up with a match. If you train as you said with a mix of distance running and sprints, then you should both pass the test and be able to handle the demands of a match. The test doesn't seem hard, but it's one that would make most people at least a little uncomfortable. It consists of a 2700 meter run (just under 7 times around a track) in 12 minutes, two 50 meter runs in 7.5 seconds, and two 200 meter runs in 32 seconds. I think there are about 15 minutes given between each test.

 

Perhaps part of the problem is that the assessors do this from video instead of going to the games. Video is useful for some things, but it's not always very good for how far away a ref is away from the play. There's a big difference between "he's not the screen" based on what the camera man decided to tape and he's 20 or 40 or 60 yards away.

It seems to me the problem with the test, at least as far as not picking up Terry's problem, is that it ought to have an element thats about 12 sprints, either 40 or 50 meters in length separating each sprint with completing the rest of track lap in about 3 minutes in time to sprint again. Then a fifteen minute break and then the 200 meter runs seem reasonable. Then going on straight to the longer run, I think something like 5000 meters in 30 minutes would be good. If it were me, that's how I'd update the Cooper test to something more soccer game appropriate.

-KMJvet

 

I'll try my level best to throw out my biases and give Stott a fresh look next year. But I still think Brian Hall is the best American referee by far. And, just to be clear, I don't mind if Stott cracks down on dangerous fouling. My problem with him is the scenerio where player A commits a bad foul and gets warned, player B commits a bad foul (but not quite cardable) and gets warned. Player C commits a wimpy foul by comparison and out comes the card even though Player C's foul was nothing compared to B's.

Can I ask a question, btw.... is a dummy play considered a play of the ball, in terms of the offsides rule if the player doesn't actually touch it? Has this ever come up? I'm curious because of DC's second goal against the Quakes this weekend. No offsides call was made, which is clearly a wrong call if Pope played the ball onto Nelson. Pope was given the assist, at least as of this weekend on the MLS site. So the official scorer thinks he touched it. I thought he touched it, but a lot of people are saying he did not. On the replay, I think one view looks like he does and one like he doesn't. So, question is, if Pope tried to play it and failed, is Nelson offside anyway because the dummy is a play on the ball even though no actual contact with the ball is made.... or does Pope failure to touch the ball, turn out to be an advantage because it draws in the defender and Nelson was onside at the time the original ball was sent in to Pope?
I was pretty pissed after the game because I think this goal/call pretty much decided the outcome and I thought it was an easy offsides to call. Now I'm not so sure it was easy because it's tricky to see if Pope actually touched it or not, unless the dummy is a play on the ball, no matter if there's actually contact.

And if you saw this game, what was your opinion of Marufo. I thought it was one of the most unevenly called games all year, in terms of what was or wasn't a card or a foul. And actually the yellow card to Donovan brings up an interesting paradox. I have no problem with Donovan getting that card because he was an idiot and launched himself into the air and threw his head back instead of just falling down like a normal person. I think Pope did foul him though. Can a referree call a trip and simulation on the same play, or do they have to pick one or the other? Seems to me, both players should have been carded there. Pope for a playing the player instead of the ball and denying a scoring chance and Landon for embellishment instead of just falling like a normal person falls? This yellow card, too, I think demonstrated Marufo's unevenness... if Donovan gets a yellow for embellishing the contact, why not Mareno or Quintanilla for the same offense.
Also, f the refs can't both call the foul and book the embellishment, this simulation-yellow thing just isn't really going to work. Because there are a lot of plays where fouls occur but the fouled players response to it involves fabrication as well.... and picking which was the worst of the two offenses just doesn't work.

-KMJvet

 

Wow. Very interesting how so many can have such divergent views of all these referees.

With respect the the DC-SJ game, I was there. From the in-stadium replays it looked like Pope missed the ball on his attempted header. As far as I'm concerned as long as he did not play it to Nelsen there could not be offside on that play. I'm not sure whether Ryan was offside or not if Pope did play it. The replays I saw did not give a wide enough view of the whole field. In general I thought the ARs were very consistent in giving the offense the benefit of the doubt on all the close offise plays.

As to Marufo, I thought he did a fine job. Maybe that's because my team won, but I did not notice the inconsistency you complain of. He did lose control a bit towards the end when Dayak decided to act like a 6 year old, and certainly he should have at least warned Etcheverry and then cautioned him for his constant impeding of the GK. And how he missed the egregious backpass by Ibsen to the GK in the first half is a mystery. And I wish he had handed out a caution or two for the constant fouling of Quintanilla by the whole SJ team. Landon's dive was one of the biggest flops in the history of soccer and if any dive ever deserved a caution, that was it. Jaime is more subtle when he goes down, but there are many occasions in which he really does get fouled and no call is made because he has a bit of a diving reputation. However, of all the MLS refs I've seen this year I would rank Maruffo near the top. I thought Valenzuela did a very good job last week in the DC-NJ game too.

 

I'd don't know if the issue is so much that your team won, as it was that DC United got the advantage of the unevenness. Actually, Marufo could have and probably should have cautioned Etcheverry for running away with the ball after the whistle was blown repeatedly after a Quakes player was fouled. Marufo merely looked at his watch implying he'd add it to the stoppage time... yeah right. Etcheverry gets away with an awful lot of unsporting 'play.' John Doyle, being the dolt he is, referred to Etcheverry as "smart." Because he can get away with it, perhaps he is smart. But I'd still call it unsportsmanlike behavior. And yes, Troy did lose his cool and act like a 6-yr old. He was frustrated with Etcheverry's stupid antics. I understand Dayak's response, but he should be more professional than that and not sink to Etcheverry's level. And as you mentioned Etcheverry should have been warned for the impeding of the goal keeper.
In terms of the Donovan call, he was tripped by Pope. The game tape is pretty clear on that being a trip. No one's disputing Landon didn't make a meal of the contact by not simply falling over. Shame on Landon for trying to play the ref instead of the game.....and a well deserved card. I suspect it had something to do with Marufo's not awarding the deserved penalty in the first half. But Landon is always stupid to try to get a call by embellishment. But Pope did foul him as it's very clear on the tape. Actually, and although it doesn't matter, it looks quite intential too in that he turned his foot outward to clip Landon's ankle once the ball was gone instead of just landing naturally on his foot. I have no problem with Landon getting that card for embellishment, but I personally can't give credence to any of your other opinions if won't admit that Pope did trip Landon. Actually Landon's sin is less than Moreno's IMO because for Moreno's dive (40th minute or so, at the top of the 18 yd box) was on a foul where he almost certainly could have even stayed on his feet. I'm okay with the foul that was given to Mulrooney for the shirt pull. But I think it's highly doubtful it was enough contact to actually knock Moreno over. But Moreno through his hands in the air and fell over on purpose to try to get a free kick at the top of the box instead of just playing his ongoing advantage. This is embellishment that's at least as bad as Landon's, who was tripped and had no hope of playing through it and staying on his feet. On that play, Moreno deserved the card, not Mulrooney, which is a great example of uneven calling. I'm okay, for example, with Dayak getting a yellow card for his tackle from behind, but how does Richie Williams not get a card after his 4th foul on Mulrooney. If a 4th foul on the same player by the same player isn't persistant infringement, what is? And frankly, the no call on the PK in about 28th minute is really inexcusable by Marufo. Etcheverry tripped Donovan. That should have been a PK and a yellow card for Etcheverry. Sort of uneven not to award the PK and then later to card Donovan for embellishment. And if Marufo didn't think Etcheverry tripped Donovan, then why not a card for diving there? Did he decide Donovan went down due to divine intervention. Personally, I think the refs are afraid to make calls against DC because of the Noel Kinney situation. But in this case, the video is darn convincing that Etcheverry did trip Landon.
I'm very disappointed in Landon and Troy for their unsportsmanlike behavior, but they doesn't hold a candle to Moreno or Etcheverry in that regard. And it was Marufo's worst game of the 3 I've seen him do.

-KMJvet

 

Obviously I don't have the benefit of the tape, and they don't show replays of everything in the stadium. If you say Pope tripped Landon I have no reason to disbelieve you. But the way he fell so dramatically made it look like a total dive. Maybe his over-embellishment fooled the referee into thinking it was a dive. Interestingly the restart was a DC direct kick which seemed rather odd to me at the time. So, I'm not really sure what his decision was.

Etch does get away with a lot of unsporting crap, and I wish they would deal with it a bit more. The stadium was quite loud at the point when he went off dribbling down the sideline. I suspect he didn't hear the whistle at first and just kept going. Obviously anyone who's played the game as long as he has knows that when everyone else has stopped playing that something is up. I think the amount of time wasting that goes on in MLS in general is a terrible thing. All of the teams do it to one degree or another. Some players are better about hiding it than others. I would be the last person to defend Marco as being a saint. Frankly though, I guess you could call him both smart and unsporting. If the referees aren't going to make him pay then he is smart to keep pushing the envelope.

In a way Dayak's tantrum was paid for by the ensuing goal by Villegas which occurred while he was busy trying to get even with Marco instead of playing defense.

I have to admit that I don't remember the PK or not situation you allude to, probably because it wasn't against us and was at the other end of the field from where I sit. I'm sure Moreno probably did go down easy to get a free kick at the top of the box. Just like DeRosario and Graziani did over and over and over again in the game the same two teams played in SJ a few weeks ago. However, he also did battle hard to stay on his feet earlier in the game when Hack Ibsen tried to wipe him out when he went in basically on a breakaway but squibbed his final shot wide. Moreno gets fouled a lot, some of it gets called and some doesn't. So, I would suggest that it probably all evens out in the end. Just as I'm sure Landon gets fouled a lot too. He's certainly no saint either, whether MLS tries to market him that way or not.

I would suggest that it's a stretch to say refs are afraid to make calls vs DC. See the game in SJ for evidence of that. The total fouls in this week's game were 16-12 which is fairly even. We've all seen referees make no call many times when a player goes down in the area. It's possible for a player to go down and there not be a foul or a dive involved. The fact that SJ had 4 cautions to 0 for DC however is a bit difficult to explain. Richie did foul a lot and deserved a caution. Just as SJ was fouling Quintanilla a lot and deserved a caution for that persistent infringement. But you never see that called.

I'm afraid this is turning into an MLS rivalry thread now. But I guess it also points out again how two people can watch the same game and come to differing conclusions with regard to performance of the referee.

 

It's not... your reply is quite reasonable. The reason I say refs are afraid to call things on DC now actually started with the DC game in San Jose. I base that statement in large measure on the referee of that match not giving Prideaux his second yellow for the two-handed push down of Landon after the play was dead. Landon wasn't tapped and then chose to fall down to get a call. It was an aggressive two-handed push in the back and that's always brings a card in MLS, expect in that game it didn't. Not that I'd let Rob Stone be the judge of anything, but Rob and Ty were treating it as a certain send-off from the moment it happened and just knew the card would come, only it didn't. So, it's not all calls against DC that the refs are afraid to make, and certainly not little inconsequential fouls here and there. It's ones like the Prideqaux situation where they turn a blind eye rather than have to hear Ray Hudson accuse and complain they're too harsh by following the letter of the law. I think that same fear protected Etcheverry from the card and PK on the trip of Landon in the first half. It's a little hard to see on the TV, but based on his arrival time at the scene, I think Marufo did see the play.

I think you're quite right that the Donovan brought the diving card upon himself by his ridiculous histrionic way of falling. He did that most of last year and I'd thought he'd learned his lesson, but alas no. I hope this will teach him to just play the game and stop trying to help the referee make calls.
But I still think it's an interesting refereeing question as to whether they can call both the foul and dive (for embellishment) or if they must pick one or the other. It seems to me, there are lots of plays where it's both. I think we see much more embellishment than complete fabrication. The dives by Totti and Diouff in the WC being notable exceptions.

In terms of Quintanilla, I guess I don't recall a lot of multiple fouls on him. I remember a sort of rough one out near midfield and I remember one instance that I thought was rather a dive. I think they're were a couple of instances where Agoos muscled him off the ball with what appeared from a distance to be a shoulder charge, but the plays weren't replayed from a little closer perspective so I don't know that they weren't actually pushes... you could well be right.

Zak Ibsen is a hack--no argument from me on that.

Although Graziani loves his melodrama, I honestly believe he's been suffered more uncalled fouls than anyone in this league...particularly getting pushed from behind. Unfortunately, he's decided when that happens now to let go of his weight and sit down--it looks quite stupid really.

You're right that all teams are guilty at times of time wasting. We have one player in particular on our team... Joe Cannon.

True, there's incidental contact. But when it comes to tripping specifically as the foul in question, I personally think incidental contact it relatively uncommon. Most trips that go uncalled, are IMO, fear by the referee being only 75% or 85% or 95% sure or such and thus, just opting to "no call" rather take a risk to get it wrong. I think when what makes a player go down is a push, with all the jostling that goes on the penalty box from players trying to play the ball, incidental contact and both players pushing each other is a lot more common.

-KMJvet

 

A minor point - and first I agree this has gone way off topic - there IS NOT two assessmensts per match in MLS this year! The ISO is only allowed to go to the llocker room if he has a specific question on something that he needs clarification on to help in his report to the assessor. He IS NOT to debrief the crew and is certainly NOT allowed to state his opinion. He absolutely provides input to the assessment but whether there is any use made of that is up to the 'real' assessor. The ISO is specifically told that he is not to question the crew nor give his opinions to them. In brief - there is still only one assessor with one person talking to the refs (the assessor via phone or email) but there may be multiple inputs (including the ISO).