http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/sep/16/can-video-replay-work-in-soccer-mls-thinks-so Peter Vermes was livid. The Colorado Rapids just scored an equalizer against his Sporting Kansas City side, and there were three moments in the goal’s lead-up where the referee could’ve blown his whistle. The goal should probably never have counted, but Sporting KC went on to lose that match 2-1. In post-game interviews, Vermes made it clear he felt the referee was wrong, and that he cost his team the match. Major League Soccer forbids such criticism. So, as expected, Vermes was fined, along with two other coaches and a team owner, all for criticizing referees during that week’s matches. The month of September was off to a banner start in MLS.
http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/aug/18/mls-referees-dodgy-penalties-red-cards Baseball had a saying for former Boston outfielder Manny Ramirez’s many oddities and indiscretions: “Oh, it’s just Manny being Manny.” The same could also be true of soccer fans referencing the latter stages of the recent Gold Cup: “Oh, it’s just Concacaf being Concacaf.” Except that the man in the middle of the latest Concacaf shenanigans, the unfortunate Mark Geiger, is not one of the usual suspects in the kind of by-play that the confederation has been associated with in recent years. As a member of the Professional Referee Organization (PRO), Geiger is supposed to be part of the solution to some of the vagaries of soccer in the region, and it was a major officiating own goal for both him and PRO that he was caught up in the middle of the Mexico v Panama Gold Cup semi-final furore that brought no credit to anyone involved. The previous Mexico game – their quarter-final with Costa Rica – also turned on a decision by a PRO member, in this case assistant referee Eric Boria, who flagged for an equally late and dubious penalty that helped El Tri to progress. At the same time, a less publicised decision saw Cyle Larin’s red card from the previous weekend rescinded. The Orlando striker had been dismissed by another PRO member, Fotis Bazakos, during the game with New York Red Bulls, a decision that incensed City head coach Adrian Heath. In overturning the red issued by Bazakos, the appeals committee put PRO in the crosshairs of a debate that possibly signifies the true coming-of-age of MLS: are the referees up to the job?
The irony is that officiating today is much better than it was in the early days. I'd say the quality of the officiating has climbed as much as the quality of play.
I have never seen people so bitchy about threads before - they're two completely different topics, Ref Quality and Possibility of Replay - why not make two threads?
I think that PRO has done wonders advancing refereeing in MLS. Remember, these are human beings and they aren't perfect, much like the players. Check out the PRO referee site to see all kinds of training they do and how they look at technology to help advance the game like video technology. The few examples that are cited may be alarming... if they didn't get hundreds or thousands of the calls correct. In addition, in watching EPL, La Liga, or even UEFA Champions League or World Cup games, referees are not much better. Granted the referees are better because the play is better, but they're still humans and still make mistakes. I don't think there's a unique MLS problem at all. I used to make fun of the Additional Assistant Referees in UEFA Champions League games... but if you've got an hour of extra time, watch this fantastic video on AARs. (And even with AARs, Moreno didn't get sent off yesterday for his challenge on Luke Shaw. Hmmm...) http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2iku17 The fact that you've got people like Peter Walton and Pierluigi Collina heading referee organizations shows that good refereeing is important in all leagues of the modern game.
My guess is even if they institute instant replay they wouldn't go back and call a penalty where there wasn't one (except maybe offside).
Being a little cynical about it, I just think it is another way that MLS could generate ad revenue. Soccer is imperfect in that way as you only get 1 ad window per hour rather than 9 or however many there are on a normal hour show.
To me, one of the main things about soccer is how much the game flows, how the time never stops and the game is constant aside from half-time. I'm not sure how much of that game-flow I'm willing to sacrifice to get the occasional call reviewed and the like. Yeah, I like it a lot when the calls are correct, but how long are these reviews going to take? If it's something like in MLB where it's pretty darn quick, then I'm cool with it.
Replay can't fix everything, but could greatly reduce bad calls and bad goals allowed, to wit: 1. Review all goals for offside, bad goals immediately get ruled out. 2. Review all PK calls and red cards (no flopping) In these instances, there is usually a bunch of celebrating or surrounding the ref anyway, so it could be done with a minimum of interference in the flow of the game. After this is implemented, the hope would be that the ARs would be much more conservative in flagging for offside, because the goal will get reviewed anyway, resulting in less perfectly good goals being ruled out.
This is about what I'd expect/want. If memory serves (and my work blocks me using bigsoccer links because they go though some other link first which gets flagged as an ad), the article didn't talk about reviewing for offside, it was primarily just reviewing goals, and maybe cards.
That gets into a messy situation though. If it gets called as or right before the guy takes the shot, the goalie won't nessarily try to save it. If it's called completely after the ball went in, it would work. But there's a blurry line somewhere in there where some team might get screwed.
I'd rather spend the money on better ref training--and better fitness for some of the MLS linesmen. If the AR is even with the ball, I'm ok with his judgment on offside. But I've seen a number who are either lazy or slow or just caught by surprise and make the call when they are *not* even. Or close. They simply guess. Sitting in 124 about 10 rows up, I have a pretty good view of when that happens. The problem here is that all you are going to get out of replay for offside is goals being disallowed, as when the whistle blows, play stops. So even if the offensive player was on, the whistle stopping play will not allow the goal to be scored. I'm ok with two things. Goal line technology at the top levels of the game. Post game review of cards. Otherwise, let the game flow. And I say this as a person who was firmly in support of replay for college football. It works there (if the refs don't screw up the feed). But soccer isn't the kind of game that lends itself to that.
I think any sending off should require a brief review, by either the 4th official or league office type deal. If it's due to 2 yellows, both plays are reviewed (they could review the first before the second ever occurs). Other than that I agree with you
Then I'd make it dependent upon the Ref's whistle. Neither player or keeper are looking at the AR to see if he raises the flag. However, they don't need to be looking at the Center Official to hear his whistle. So, if the Center Official blows his whistle prior to the shot when seeing the AR flag up, then you don't review it - you can't really just set the play up from the spot of the whistle blow and have everyone resume their position at that point and start over. But if the Center Official only recognizes the AR's flag after the play has ended (goal scored), then the review can be made. Seems reasonable to me.
Let's say teams are allowed two reviews per game. It could easily take two to three minutes for each review. Add that with substitutions, time wasting, injuries etc. that could easily add an extra 10-20 minutes to a game. That could seriously effect scheduling with the big networks. I could see a lot of games getting cut of at the 80th minute to make way for collage football etc.
You're suspicion is exactly correct. Here's you're workaround. 1. right-click the link and choose 'copy link/shortcut' whatever your fav browser's syntax is. 2. open a simple notepad.txt file and paste the link (this is from @CybrSlydr's first link above) Code: http://api.viglink.com/api/click?format=go&jsonp=vglnk_144259228674110&key=40ca283ade7e55388a1bbb1a6f57b0e0&libId=iepu746f010004ld000DA1paa0pckgjxly&loc=http%3A%2F%2Fforums.bigsoccer.com%2Fthreads%2Fred-cards-dodgy-penalties-goals-chalked-off-%25E2%2580%25A6-are-mls-referees-up-to-the-job.2024794%2F%23post-32956798&v=1&out=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ffootball%2F2015%2Fsep%2F16%2Fcan-video-replay-work-in-soccer-mls-thinks-so&title=Red%20cards%2C%20dodgy%20penalties%2C%20goals%20chalked%20off%20%E2%80%A6%20are%20MLS%20referees%20up%20to%20the%20job%3F%20%7C%20BigSoccer%20Forum&txt=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ffootball%2F2015%2Fsep%2F16%2Fcan-video-replay-work-in-soccer-mls-thinks-so 3. starting from the very end of the file on the right search left for the first instance of http://www. As here, often the unicode characters : / and even . can be represented with http escape values like %20. 4. delete everything to the left of the last link url so it looks like this Code: http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ffootball%2F2015%2Fsep%2F16%2Fcan-video-replay-work-in-soccer-mls-thinks-so 5. In notepad do a find/replace for all of the following values: %3A = : %2F = / so the link now looks like this Code: http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/sep/16/can-video-replay-work-in-soccer-mls-thinks-so 6. Copy and paste that raw link into a new window and as long as your corporate proxy filters don't block the category (porn, guns, politics, suspicious) etc. You'll likely beat the redirection through the ad filters. Network Engineers, building and bypassing network filters and security since Dec 6, 1969.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/players-union-fifpro-launching-landmark-6468779 Transfers as we know them could be set for the biggest shake-up since the Bosman ruling as FIFPro, the union that represents footballers around the world, launches a landmark legal case against FIFA. The union are filing a complaint with the European Commission that would see transfer fees abolished and make it easier for players to move clubs after negotiations with FIFA and UEFA over a transfer system that would better protect players fell apart. FIFPro are also seeking the end of the loan system, a cap on payments to agents and intermediaries and squad size limits, to end the hoarding of young players. “Whatever happens, it is a historical moment not only for FIFPro but for professional football,” said FIFPro’s general secretary, Theo van Seggelen, who represents over 65,000 players in 65 countries.
I failing to see how this would be better... EDIT: For the love of god, can someone just create a 'CybrSlydr has nothing better to do but post random English articles' thread so all these threads can have one home instead of three or four threads per page?