Oh my God. I can't believe these are the same guys that complained about the "Canadian" reffing in Montréal. The ref was appaling, calling every nudge against the Impact, letting our keeper get clobbered and allowing a ridiculously unwarranted penalty. But Rowland righted the wrongs, so we're now 3-1 against Rochester this year and headed for first place!
Well, overall I thought the ref was okay, though he did get whistle happy a few times, but I'd agree that the PK call was truly criminal, a terrible call. The replays didn't show it clearly but when I saw it from the run of play it was just a good defensive header. To call THAT a PK was really a shame. But justice was done in the end! Great strike. I don't think it was by Ze Roberto though. He had come off a few minutes earlier. It was by some other guy. Great match, albeit a bit untidy at times.
If you ever want to have fun, do this.. When they have a match on Fox Sports World, watch the TV broadcast, but listen the Rhinos webcast. If you ever listen to a Rhinos webcast, you will know that in their world, the refs miss about 60 calls a game against the Rhinos' opponents (listen for the tell tale words ".. no call" mentioned at least once every two minutes), and nearly every call against the Rhinos is a bad one. When you have the video to go with their announcing, the difference between reality and what is announced is quite breathtaking. I'm not saying other team's announcers don't do this (including the Timbers), but the Rhinos announcers are on another level altogether. They were also the only ones at Frontier Field last week who didn't think the Rhinos started the post-game brawl.
MLS fan watching from NYC: great crowd! exciting match! As for the rest -- you guys work it out. It would appear justice was done, eh?
If there was ever a time the Rhinos could have used "homer" refs would have been the Cup game against KC. All four refs were from Rochester and one has season tickets. But they still didn't get the calls. Yes, I'm whining.
Great strike at the end by Rowland! Rhinos had the upper hand the second half (and at times not pretty) and most of the overtime, but all it takes is one chance. Well done Montreal. Making it interesting down the stretch.
I am a HUGE Rhinos fan and there was a large difference in the number of fouls called between Montreal and Rochester. I believe that alot of this stems from Montreal's style of play, there was alot of touchy fouls call on them though. Rochester played soft and they deserved to lose, and this could be alot of the reason that there wasnt make rhino fouls, they were afraid to run at the ball!
no I also think the Rhinos didn't start the fight at Frontier Field after the US open cup game, the KC wiz didn't either. but then again why would the two team go all the way from Webster to Frontier after thier game at Webster to start a fight?? becuase of what happened in a game in Webster? I would think it would have had happened in Webster where the game was played. So once again let me state this "without a doubt in the world the Rhinos did not start the fight at FRONTIER" of course that may be the fact that the game was in WEBSTER. I will also state without a doubt I have no clue who started the fight as I was watching the Wiz leave the field without any sportsmanship and shaking hands of thier opponents. Then I saw a KC WIZ player turn at the goal line and sprint to midfield and dive into the other players throwing punches without regard to who he hit. Mike
I'm sure Allison was more concerned with the fight than the location. But it would have been interesting to watch two soccer teams have a brawl in the middle of a triple-a baseball game. Something to liven up the game between the ball scratching and base checking. Ahh....baseball....Zzzzzz....
Yes, I got the location wrong. But I think my point is still valid. Rhinos announcers are a hoot though.
After the Memphis Express OSOC match against Atlanta, I had to chuckle at the two match reports. You could have used a script that went as follows: The [express/backs] (choose one) dominated the game but failed to find the back of the net. In the second half, a Memphis player [tried to kill a Back with a cleets up/got a terrible call] (choose one) and was ejected from the game, leaving Memphis a man down. [That didn't matter though/That made a huge difference] (choose one) as Atlanta [dominated/squeaked by] (choose one) for the win.
This shows the brilliance of the USSF. Letting a season ticket holder for one of the teams ref the game. Granted, it sounds like he didnt give the game away, but still.
In my mind, it was an issue that this ref was afraid to make a call for Rochester because he was a season ticket holder. This is a horrible idea by the USOC to even let this happen.
rhinos announcers in response to allison: (re: rhinos announcers) i listened to them on tuesday vs. REVS. they sounded excellent. the playbyplay man was more of a homer, but still did a great job. the color man gave props to all who deserved (rhinos&revs). he had a great call on the hernandez blast, saying that he has a cannon of a shot and that's one wall i would hate to be standing in.......then came what sounds like a ripping blast..
To his hesitation to make calls or to his season tickets? The season tickets were verified by Lenin Steenkamp's family/friends who were sitting in front of me at the KC game (Lenin is one of our midfielders). One of them sits in the vicinity of this Barci guy during home games. His hesitation was only obvious to those listening or watching. It was such a bad, bad, badly reffed game. (but not the reason we lost....)
what is the issue here? what is the issue here -- that the referee has season tickets or that the referee is a highly visible supporter for Rochester? if the referee visibly supports Rochester as a fan to the point of being recognized, then agreed, he should not be doing the match. but to say that the referee cannot attend the local team's matches seems to go too far. it's one thing for a referee to receive free tickets regularly from a team. it's another thing for a referee to spend his own money to buy tickets to attend a match. a referee can only improve by attending as many high level matches as possible to see what does and does not work as far as positioning, man management, foul recognition, etc.
I was talking about the season tickets. Just wanted to make sure it wasn't an urban legend.Why hasn't the D&C reported on this (or have they - I don't read it very often).
Re: what is the issue here? These are some very good points. I agree that if a person supports a club, he should not officiate it. But, attendance does not necessarily amount to support. This is particularly true at the USL level. Most USL referees--I say this from experience--are usually local referees. You all know the state of the league's finances; USL clubs does not have the money to constantly fly referees around. In almost all circumstances, the only time an official is ever from out of the area is for the center referee in an A-League match (D3 and PDL playoffs also can have a referee from out of state often). However, for most PDL, D3, W-League and A-League matches, usually all 4 (but at least 2 or 3) of the referees are local. If an official is from over 50 miles away, the team has to pay his travel expenses, and teams do not like to pay travel expenses, so the league does what it's asked and makes sure that at least 2 of the officials are local. So, you have situations where many of the same referees are seeing the same clubs repeatedly. On top of that, I'd guess that most USL referees are soccer fans and they're going to go to USL matches when they're not refereeing for three reasons: to support their fellow referees (either local friends or colleagues from out of town), to scout teams that they might be officiating soon, and to just watch some soccer in general. Their attendance does not necessarily make them a fan. I have been to many Bulldogs, Renegades, Crusaders, and Pioneers matches over the past few years when I wasn't officiating, and I don't consider myself a supporter of any of those clubs (or any USL club for that matter). So, in summary, if this referee visibly supports Rochester or, at the very least, considers himself a supporter, then I agree that he should remove himself from refereeing Rhinos' matches. However, his possession of season tickets and his attendance at matches does not necessarily amount to him supporting the club.
MasachusettesRef hit the nail on the head. Every point is valid and true. We have a pool of refs in Memphis that do most of the games, I am not sure I remember refs coming in from out of town. Maybe I thought the refs were more lenient on the visitors, but of course I am complete biased towards the home team so it is always going to appear that way. When one of the local refs is not reffing, I usually see them in the stands at the game. You cannot blame them for being fans of the team but being a fan also does not make them incapable of making a good decision during a game. The incident in Rochester was unfortunate and if the official knew he would not be able to call fairly, maybe he should have found something else to do that night. I think most would. And I think that most refs under the same circumstances would call the game fairly.