Right before Colorado's goal, Brian Hall (who I think is gernerally the best and most consistant ref in MLS) whistled a foul at midfield. Kerry Zavagnin ran onto and played a ball, and then a Rapids player continued his run into KZ's leg. I don't know any ref who would have called that. Seemed non-existant. Then, the FK taker asks Hall to set 10 yrds on the wall, two Wizards defenders, which Hall does. As Hall is walking with his arm outstreched pushing the two wall players back, he has his back to the FK taker. Before Hall is finished setting the wall, a different FK taker runs onto the ball and plays it out to the left flank, which leads to a cross and a goal. Question is, doesn't the Referee have to whistle for the FK if he is setting the wall? Shouldn't Hall have called the FK back before the goal?
Once a team asks for a wall, I don't allow them to take a free kick until OK it. I believe that is the rule, but I'm sure one of the elders will set me straight.
Re: Re: Question on FK's 11/4 Rapids/KC [R] Once the kicker has asked the referee to move the players back, he forfeits the right to a quick kick and should await the referee's signal to take the kick. Didn't see the play you talk of and I'm not about to second guess Brian Hall, but it would seem the kicker took unfair advantage by taking the kick while the defenders were involved with the referee and the referee couldn't observe that the kick was taken properly
It was an interesting play. I couldn't tell if Colorado actually asked for ten or if they were simply complaining about the encroachment. Those two KC guys jumped right in front of the ball to make sure a quick kick couldn't be taken. I think most refs at this level (certainly guys like Valenzuela) make a big show out of things if the kickers ask for ten. I'm pretty sure Hall does the same thing, so it's possible they didn't really ask for ten exactly. It's not the referee's fault that the players were standing on top of the ball and engaged with him instead of defending properly. And I think any time guys blatantly jump in front of the ball like that it's so unsporting that if a goal results from a player running up to the kick quickly then justice is served. I think we're encouraged to reward attacking play as much as we can, and that's what happened in that case. I suppose you could also argue for a foul on the header that scored to goal too.
Well, I was going to question the header in the box, too, but I didn't want to make the question multi-issued. I haven't seen a replay since that night, but two rapids went up nick garcia's back to win the header. Seems like an unfair advantage to me.