I've never seen an advantage call given after the whistle had already blown... does the actual rule allow for this or did Anno just make it up as he went along?
Totally made it up. Once you blow the whistle, the ball is no longer in play. There is no way he can bullshit his way out of this one when the assessors ask what the hell was that.
I think he did a Star Trek on this one to realms no man has gone before. Is there referee relegation?
Wow. VERY interesting weekend in MLS. The only thing I can remotely try to use to defend this is that the audio feed was delayed? The Portland players were convinced the whistle blew before the ball went in the goal, and I'll be damned if that wasn't the case on the highlight feed. Other than technical difficulties on the feed, I have no defense for this one. MassRef, you usually can find some way to pull a positive out of stuff like this... am I missing something obvious?
Wasn't delayed when I was listening. And the commentators started going at the ref that he should have given advantage when the shot went in.
Man, I'm actually laughing after reading this. Thanks for the fun end to the weekend. But, um, no. I've got nothing. Best I can come up with is that Anno truly believed/convinced himself that he hadn't blown the whistle until it was over the line. But replays and the adamant, screaming Timbers' players seem to indicate that wasn't the case. I will point out one thing, though... in the grand scheme of things, should this be a capital offence by Anno? Granted, he went outside the Laws to do it, but all he did was right his own mistake. And if he went by the book, it was still going to be a PK. I'm sure he fails the assessment here, but I hope it isn't the sort of mistake that boots him from the league for awhile or stops him from getting a playoff assignment (though he may not have been in line for one). Because Anno's been very good this year. It would be silly to severely punish a referee for this when other referees miss some SFP tackles and keep getting matches regularly.
With the avatars so prominent on the site now, I feel like a wise cartoon penguin is approving of my effort here.
The only other thing I can think of is perhaps a "spirt of the game" defense, since he knew he blew it (pun intended) and felt Ricketts wasn't affected by the whistle. On the replay, you can actually see Anno go towards the spot and then realizing he goofed, turn the other way and point towards midfield. At this level, does he really think he can fool the players by saying the ball already crossed the goal line when he whistled? Some Red Bulls players didn't immediately celebrate. McCarty kept looking over to see if the goal was going to stand as the players were in shock. I'm dying to hear in the morning what Anno told Jewsbury, the other players who were arguing and coach Wilkinson as to what his explanation was since I cannot locate any quotes as of tonight.
If the audio feed on TV is to be trusted (much closer than MLS website's highlights) then the whistle blew just as Cahill was striking the ball. There's no way it would have affected either the defender's or the keeper's efforts.
Gutless move by the referee, and without a doubt the wrong one. There can be no "spirit of the game" override here--once the whistle is blown, the ball is dead, period. In this situation, the whistle blowing may not really have affected defenders. But you open up an ugly can of worms if you give referees discretion here. As a referee, I've done it. Likely, we all have. You blow the whistle and a second later the team scores. It happens, and you have to man up, pull the ball out of the net, and do a PK (praying to god they score. Of course with my luck, in the game this happened to me, they missed the PK and lost by a goal >.< )
As Gene Wilder once said... "No way out... no way out!" Pooch was screwed and there is NO acceptable explanation for this one.
BTW, to add fuel to the proverbial fire... in addition to RBNY's second goal that must have come after an unidentified whistle in the stands... ... Did anyone (other than the victim and me) take exception to Cahill's elbow to the jaw/face of Kamura around 55-60 mins? Granted, Tim was the player who "was in control of the ball" but seriously... that looked HORRIFIC!
I have already made far too many excuses for Anno in the MLS thread (but I'm a Portland fan, if that excuses me - and let's face it, NY would have scored the pen, Horst would have at least a yellow card for the handball, and when you miss 3 1v1 breaks in the 2nd half, well I haven't seen many Timbers fans who are blaming the ref). I continue to have some sympathy - having earpieces is great in many ways, but it seems absurdly challenging to me to be having a conversation with someone about a handball (which I'm guessing was happening) and then try to manage advantage at the same time. People fall into mall fountains talking on their phones right? Then again, there is a reason this kind of thing happens to Anno and not better refs - and I suspect he had no idea whether or not he blew the whistle before the ball went in and neither did the linesman, for the same reason. As for Cahill's elbow - it will be interesting to see if he gets a game for it. He didn't really cock the elbow before the arm came back, which I think always gets the ref's attention. It looked to me like he swung a straightened arm back and had some bad luck with the way it landed (he seemed quite apologetic anyway) - still though, contact to the head so I'd bet he gets a game off.
I think the ref straight up lied about it after the game: Statement from referee Jason Anno Pool Reporter Question: On the Red Bulls’ second goal, what did you see on the play? Answer: On the second goal, No. 11 McCarty took a shot and it redirected off a Portland player to No. 17 Cahill who shot and scored. Pool Reporter Question: Did you blow your whistle? Answer: Yes, when the ball entered the goal. Pool Reporter Question: In your view, was it an advantage play? Answer: Yes. --- I thought the tight end like hit that Chara took towards the end was the most vicious of the no calls. The guy was not playing the ball, lowered his shoulder as he ran in on Chara, and absolutley levelled him. Oh well, our backline sucks, and we have to finish at least one of those 1 v 1 chances...
Jasen Anno done screwed up royally. Why even compound the problem with a lie? You can extend advantage in the box, no problem. You can't just blow the whistle, while the ball is in play, and decide to use advantage to escape your way out of the problem. No, that shit won't fly.
Operating on a lot of assumptions here, but if indeed Anno blew the whistle prior to the ball entering the net I am saddened by his comments. Mistakes happen, yes, we all have those moments. Integrity is really important for us as referees and I can't stand it when someone lies like this. Hopefully he is honest with himself and the inspector after the match. As Mass said, I think this could be a simple mistake if he cops to it. If he tries to stand on the lie, I lose a lot of respect for him.
He said that with a straight face? Wow, I wish I had balls that big. (I assume he knows he did wrong and will have a different answer for the league office/officials when asked). At first Shep said 'fine' and then on the replay he was laughing saying "I'm wrong. How is that not a yellow card." Yes and yes.
I can't believe he would tell a lie like that.....anyone know if his full time job is as a politician? The NY Post claims that he indicated in his Q/A that he was signaling a goal with the whistle: http://www.nypost.com/p/sports/redbulls/tweet_win_for_bulls_MRblYkTAxB5Rq0EoHqfVqI "He said in a statement that his whistle signaled the goal, not an infraction" Mark Everson is not one of the regular soccer writers for the paper, so it's possible he may have misunderstood. If he didn't, is Anno now going to be blowing his whistle every time the ball goes in from now on to further sell this?
We're all aware of that, and were just giving theories on what his explanation would be (right or wrong). Personally, I never expected him to outright lie. What's that old expression....."the cover-up is worse than the crime"?