That was some spectacular lightning on the second delay. Just about all of the fans near me left during that delay. Anyone still think the Vanney-for-Erpen trade was a good one? The play wasn't a dive and Erpen's action was a sendoff at any level. He certainly did make contact, certainly did disrupt the play and certainly did it from behind. Chalk up another 2 lost points to Erpen. Fire Clavijo. Colin's goal was awesome. He showed great touch and took time to make the shot. Casey's assist was top quality. Colin better watch out though. Another match like this and he's likely to get benched or traded. I suspect we will see Jacob in as a defender next match. That's probably the best option unless Petke has a miraculous recovery. Keel did fairly well although he got pushed around a bit. The Rapids desperately needed 3 points but all things considered a point today wasn't a terribly awful result.
If you check out the highlights on MLSnet you can see that the Chivas player (Merlin?) is starting his fall just as the ball rolls over the box line, the player is behind the ball and still outside the area. It was Sanneh and not Ugo closing on the play. Watching the replay I think the most "correct" call would have been a free kick from outside the area and a red card for Erpen. Sanneh probably wasn't in a position to prevent the goal scoring opportunity making Erpen the last man, so he should have seen red.
As far as I'm concerned the Red Card was uncalled for.. especially in the 12th mintue of the game. Want to call a foul, sure. Give them a yellow.. sure. Given them a penalty kick, sure. Hell, give them 5 penalty kicks if you want.. I would rather the game to be 5 to 0 with a full 11 on 11. Watching a 10 vs 11 match is about as fun as waiting in the doctors office for a prostate check. It's horrible. I posted here in the spring how disgusted I was when Brown got the early red card in a game.. and folks here basically told me to go to hell. I understand that all of you are die hard here, but that's a donkey rule and the refs need to understand it's effect on the game. I watched for another 15 mins the most boring soccer I have ever watched in my life. I watched for 15 mins Chivas kicking the ball back and forth and Casey watching them. I finally got sick of it and got up and left. And ya, you hard core guys can run me into the ground.. but here is the thing.. on my way out to the car there was quite a few people heading to their cars disgusted about the game too. This was BEFORE the half time delay. To me that's a major problem that needs to be address or I don't ever see this sport growing into anything here in the US.
Alternatively, if you're going to commit a foul, and not be concerned about a PK call, be a member of the team playing the Rapids. Disclaimer - I still haven't seen the Casey replay, and making the mistake of watching the Bronco's get lucky again, I'm just being pissed.
Yeah, that was my response too. If you have an issue with what a red card does to the game, take it up with the team, not with the officials. The ref's job isn't to make the game entertaining, its to make it fair and safe.
Doesn't today's match just sum up the season. By the way, watching the highlights on our website in Spanish, over and over again, the Chivas player is one step outside the box when he starts to fall. It could have been a red, but really, there should have just been a free kick on the very edge of the box. I want to know what happened with the televising. My son was very ill today, and I was unable to go to the match. I taped it, and also taped the billiards tournament afterwards, so that I would make sure to see things right up until the end. The official broadcast ended at about the 79th minute, so I skipped to the billiards tournament. What did I immediately see, Do to contractual agreements, the program you are watching will now switch to the regularly scheduled programming. Is it really possible that the Rapids would not even take priority on their own station!!!!!! Amazing!!! In order to find out what happened, I had to go to the website, where I saw the highlights in Spanish, which did not include Clarke's goal.
It was horrid. 10 v. 11 doesn't have to be though. I've seen games where the unbalance has lead to a very entertaining game. I wouldn't blame the ref for making the call. The teams need to put in the effort, and after the goal neither cared to. After the half things were a little better. I'd rather the ref call it then start to guess at the entertainment value. Basketball has been dead to me for that very reason.
It's been one of those rare trades in which neither player has done a whole lot positive for their new team. Erpen hasn't been bad, till today, and Vanney's been an intermittent starter at best for DC, a liability at worst. By the way, I wouldn't pin the two points on Erpen: Ugo's poor touch put Erpen in that position.
I'd share a bit of "the pin" on both. Having watched Vanney play with DC a few times, I'd say the trade is still a toss up.
In the 71st minute play was halted due to lightning. This was the second delay as halftime was extended due to lightning as well. I don't know what happened on Altitude, but when the second delay started Telefutura (MLS's national TV "partner") decided to dump the rest of the coverage of the game to show Geronimo. That's why there are no Spanish highlights after the second delay. People watching the LA - Houston game say they showed highlights at half, including the last 20 minutes and goal and (apparently obvious) missed PK to end the game. Hopefully those will be on-line somewhere tomorrow.
I'm watching a replay of the game currently on Altitude - started at 7pm (nearing the end of the 1st half right now). There is another replay scheduled for 11 am tomorrow (Mon 9/17).
My friend, sounds like you need to get FIFA to change the rules. To me that would only add to the situation at hand. That is, he can't even do a decent job taking a guy out. You can clearly see him put his hands up and on the guys back. Why do that if you're not going to take him out? Why give the Frenchie a chance to dive? To me that would even make less sense. I don't have an issue with the call. I don't have an issue with the RC nor the PK. The issue I have is Petke's complete non-trying for the ball after the bad bounce leading up to that. I do have an issue with how the team approached the game after that. I have a feeling on another day without lighting this team doesn't have extra time in the locker room to come out fired up. And without that they don't even make a decent effort to tie it up let alone win.
Me too. on another topic: Kiro goes into the midfield when peterson comes on, but what does he do? Why can't clavijo see that 90% of his possessions result in backpasses or giving the ball away? Not to say that he didn't do the right thing when he brought cancela in, but it's not like he hasn't seen kiro play mid before. Why did he think it would work for 15 minutes or so?
Imagine how boring soccer would be if you only got a yellow for denying a clear break on goal with a yellow? You'd never get a player in on goal alone again.
After watching a rerun of the red card tackle. I hav come to the conclusion, that it was a dive. And according to FC he will be sending in a video to league offices to attempt to suspend the guy.
Frame by frame Tivo review shows Conner nutmegging the defender and then tripping himself over the defender who does not move -- froze there in the embarrassment of the 'meg I presume. Correct no call. Now on Clark +/- 5 minutes earlier, obviously a foul if it happened on the open pitch, 85th minute, 1 - 1 tie, and in the box (with a bad referee) -- should have been but wasn't. Pablo got the card on purpose to clear his accumulation before a soft RSL to be 'clean' for the final season run? Remember it was right in front of the 4th official and even for Pablo pretty foolhardy and not a critical defensive move to make?
FC's frackin delusional (I know, stop the presses on that one) if he thinks a video of the incident will get any response other than laughter from the Disciplinary Committee. While the player clearly embelished the foul there's no doubt that there was intentional contact from behind that had nothing to do with playing the ball. Erpen was clearly the last player back. There's no question that's a foul and a red card offense if it affects the goal scoring opportunity. At best he could try to claim that since it was a dive it wasn't Erpen's foul that denied the goal scoring opportunity so it shouldn't have been red, but since MLS refuses to review red cards that doesn't matter.
You honestly haven't been paying attention to DC, have you? Vanney has turned DC's defense around and now gives us three starter-qualtity CBs to choose from. He's only "intermittent" because Soehn wants to rotate players to keep them fresh and fighting for a starting position. The only things he's liable of is giving our backline cohesion and an authoratative presence. I mean, honestly, the Vanney trade sparked DC's tear over the last two months. No one could judge this trade as anything but positive for DC.
I don't get this. I saw the foul during the game on TV, and I just saw it again on FSC, and there is basically no way the ref doesn't call it. It was just so blatant. Why would the guy fight to keep his feet? He just got shoved in the back, in (or maybe just outside) the box. If he keeps his feet, he has to beat Bouna while running full speed, and maybe stumbling a bit from the shove. Any decent forward is hitting the turf. It was such an easy call and tarjeta roja that Erpen shouldn't be let off the hook.
He could have used some of that cohesion last Sunday to stick near Twellman instead of allowing him to authoritatively win GOTW.
I saw the same thing you did, it was an obvious foul, and even if the fall was a little over embellished, it was still a foul. The only thing I would sorta disagree with is Erpen being let off the hook. I thought that it was a very smart foul IF he would have done it a few steps earlier. I've always been told that if its a clear break away, foul the person and prevent them from getting to a 1v1 situation with your keep at all costs. The red is acceptable there. So he needs to be blamed as far as where and when he committed the foul, but not for committing it in the first place. I'd rather have a free kick from 20-30 out than a 1v1 with our keep any day. Especially since Bouna got hurt last weekend.
Yeah, because every defender in MLS can cover Twellman TT is better at spinning players in the box than just about any forward in MLS. His spin is the new Preki cut-to-the left; everyone knows it's coming, but can't figure out how to stop it.