Hmmm, it sure sounds like us.... Not that I recall or was even paying a lot of attention, but somehow I'm thinking that Gus DaSilva was the ref. He has done a lot of MLS games in the past, and is somewhat local, so it would not surprise me at all if it was him. He was the ref at the opener, the bald guy who used to get mistaken for Yari Allnut at times. I don't think there's anything a MLS/USSF-sanctioned referee could have done to prevent Shalrie's nose from being broken. It was a run-of-the mill play, where a UConn player caught him by accident. It was just one of those things that happens. Having said that, the UConn coach was a bit over the top at times, and if the game was more physical than it should have been, he must be held accountable. Several times when one of his players was whistled for a normal foul, he jumped up and yelled "Hey, it's a men's game!" Gender bias aside, he clearly was encouraging his players to not back down. Harvard appeared somewhat intimidated by the Revs, and UConn were much tougher. It's a fine line. Playing teams like Harvard can help the Revs in some way, but it didn't make them sharp enough for San Jose. Then again, even if UConn was more like how an actual game might be, that didn't do them a whole lot of good either. My guess is that it was some kind of a "procedural thing" that the Revs didn't do, since teams play scrimmages all the time against local teams. Tom
Gus was not the referee. The problem was that the referees for the UCONN & Harvard games were college referees and were not assigned through the proper channels (USSoccer & MLS). While you're probably right about a different referee not being able to necessarily prevent an injury, I think the fine has more to do with failure to follow proper procedures and possibly with insurance coverage problems for the league and it's employees (injured players in this case).
I won't identify the referee (other than to say it is not Gus ). I will identify the referee badge as NISOA, the collegiate soccer ref organization. When I first saw the pictures I was surprised by the NISOA badge. OTOH, it would have been incorrect for a US Soccer-certified referee to do the match because the college teams are not affiliated with US Soccer. Catch-22.
The USSF assigns referees to all games involving pro teams under it's umbrella. When a college team plays an MLS team, they must have to sign some sort of waiver verifying insurance coverage and the like to make them affiliated because there are a ton of these games in the assignment database. This has to be a Fifa issue here.