Hey, y'all, Welcome to a special edition of Reughing Down here, looking back at the weekend preceding December sixteenth. I am Bart. I am host of the Soccer for US podcast here on the SDCH network. I also make regular appearances on the SDCH Morning Show on Mondays at ten am to
talk about referee decisions and other US soccer news. Obviously that did not happen on this Monday, as we are kind of in the festive period for SDH and that means that there's a lot of moving parts that can't seem to come together and we do these kind of asynchronous recordings. On this particular segment, I'm going to look at three incidents from the past weekend. First, the Manchester Derby mass confrontation, the Reds seeing red against Fulham, and
how the refs handled a College Cup semi final. Now, while I have you, let me ask you to follow my show on Twitter and Blue Sky at Soccer for US Pod. Also, you can support my work at buy Me a Coffee dot com slash by excuse me, buy Me a Coffee dot com slash Soccer for US Pod. My show comes out on the same feed as the Soccer down here shows, So whatever podcaster you use to listen to soccer down here, you can use that to listen to soccer for us. And you know, when they drop,
they drop. Hopefully we have one coming out this week, so look forward to that. All right, let's get started first, a mass confrontation incident in the Manchester City Manchester United match, so this will cover laws twelve and five as we dig into it.
On Sunday on the.
Blue Side of Manchester, Manchester City and Manchester United had a coming together of sorts.
In the thirty eighth.
Minute, there was a long ball into the Manchester City defensive third. Kyle Walker goes to defendant and just runs into Rasmus Hoyland for Manchester United under cuts him very very carelessly.
Anthony Taylor called.
The foul, but that foul sparked a contentious series of events that we're going to talk about now. Walker fouls them, Taylor calls the foul points for the free kick, but Hoyland is upset, to say the least. This came basically right after, yeah, right after Manchester City scored to take the lead, so it's safe to say that there were some tensions rising for United, who have been, you know, on a decent reniform since the new co took over, but still scrapping for any points they can find in
the league table. And Hoyland did not like this challenge on that Kyle Walker made on him, so he kind of walks over to Walker, puts his forehead against his and then Kyle Walker just falls down after that, a very clear flop, I will say. The two teams came together to exchange pleasantries and put some hands on each other, including andre Onnana who came up from his position in the Manchester United goal to I don't know, get involved
for some reason. Lots of little pushes, lots of exchanges of maybe you know, sharing the peace if this were an Anglican Communion church up there in England.
But nothing major happened.
And I think that this is a great example of Anthony Taylor refereing fairly well. So that's why I wanted to talk about it. So, like I said, this covers law twelve and five. You know, Taylor did see the whole thing, and this is something we've talked about on the SGH Morning Show. The referees taking a step back to get a look at the confrontation as a whole, and so Taylor sees not just the foul that he calls, he then spots Hoyland and Walker kind of come together
for a second. And I think that's why he didn't really do anything drastic in that moment. He didn't rush to give out any cautions because he saw what happened, he saw Kyle Walker flop, but he also stayed back to once he saw some other players getting in because obviously, you know, Hoyland goes to Walker and Walker falls down, there's gonna be some player involvement who you know, probably shouldn't be involving themselves. The foul was a clear charging
foul by Walker. It's very careless and I would even say possibly reckless, which could have warranted a yellow card on its own. Hoylan's alignment maneuver, whatever you want to call it, is silly. It's certainly under the umbrella of unsporting behavior outlawed outlined in Law twelve, and the insuing kerfuffle didn't get out of hand, and I think that then goes to Law five. A good example of Anthony
Taylor using this discretion. So under Law five, the referee is charged with controlling the match in cooperation with the other match officials. So Taylor takes a step back, watches everything unfold, watches the players come together, put some hands on each other, you know, little silly things, and other than Walker and Hoyland, there's not anything that deserves disciplinary action.
And so you know, he Anthony Taylor understands he has three officials on the field with him, two ars and a fourth.
He also has eyes in the sky with bar so he's.
Just making sure he can observe as much as possible so he can correct it in the moment. But nothing happened that he needed to correct or discipline. So he gives Walker a yellow card and he gives Hoyland a yellow card. Now I think both of these were given for the unsporting behavior of creating the incident. But I will say that it wouldn't surprise me, and I haven't been able to see the actual report if Walker's foul
was what earned him a yellow card. Now, I didn't see Taylor bring out his yellow card immediately when the foul is called, so that's kind of why I don't think it may have been. But to me, Walker undercutting Hoyland like that could have definitely earned him a yellow card in this incident, but he didn't. Both I think are going to be listed as unsporting behavior. But I do want to point out that Walker is a little lucky he didn't get the yellow card for a reckless foul,
which still would have been unsporting behavior. Or technically, I don't think there was anything else, no red cards needed. This is not a This is not a headbutt at all. It was calm, It was you know, it was caressed. Really, he didn't use force at all to make contact with Walker, which is kind of why this never really needed to be escalated to a red card and VR didn't get involved. There was no excessive force. This was not an act
of violent conduct. This is just unsporting behavior, silly behavior, stupid behavior, if you will. So nothing more needed here in this particular incident. Now I want to fast forward in this game a little bit at the request of Abby Schiffman, who is a great follower and friend of not just the SDH family of networks, but also my show is Soccer for us, and Abby wanted me to talk about a potential penalty kick not called in the sixty. I believe it happens in the sixty six minute for
Manchester United. Now again in Manchester United chasing a goal spoiler alert, they do get a goal at the end. They get two goals at the end to steal three points from Manchester City. But in this incident, in the sixty fifth minute, Hoyland gets a three ball loft three ball and Reuben Diaz is defending. Now Hoyland is running onto the ball. Diaz does seem to get his body position in front of Hoyland, but he does so by extending.
His leg to try to kick the ball away.
He does not make contact with the ball and kind of does make contact with Hoyland.
However, his leg more so.
Interferes with Hoyland's ability to then chase the ball that kind of had already gone away. No one had any control of the ball in this moment. The referee did not call a foul ache and then did not call a penalty kick. To my knowledge, it wasn't really reviewed. Maybe for a hot second there VR did check it because it was a you know, if you will, a controversial play, But when you look at it again, I understand Abby was wondering that, you know, why it wasn't a penalty kick.
You thought it was.
And I think the biggest thing is because if we're talking about var seeing a clear and obvious error here, this didn't seem to be clear and obvious that it was a foul. Right, This is a fifty to fifty challenge. Diaz doesn't necessarily win the ball, but he doesn't make any real contact with Hoyland, and in fact, him putting
his leg out, Hoyland runs into him. Now, had this been given a penalty, I could see how that could have upheld as well, But I don't think the referee not calling this is going to be overturned and maybe Manchester United fans will feel a little hard done. But the fact that VR didn't spend a whole lot of time on this confirms this was not a big deal as maybe some of the United fans wanted it to
be so. Again spoiler alert, Manchester United does end up getting the victory to one over Manchester City with some very very late goals. But I think for this match, Anthony Taylor, a very experienced referee, does manage the match pretty well and definitely gets the yellow car defenses correct and then I think gets the penalty.
Kick call correct as well.
Now, we will move just southwest of Manchester to Liverpool where Andy Robertson got himself a red card in the Liverpool Fulham match. In the sixteenth minute, Robertson cuts out across that Fulham was making. It was kind of a deep lying switch more than it was across, but he goes to control the ball and.
Fails to do so.
So therefore Harry will is able to take it off of him and immediately start heading toward goal. But basically as soon as Harry Wilson gets the ball, Robertson trips him from behind. The ref blows his whistle. But this is a key thing. The ball does squirt to Raul Jomenez who is making a run on goal. Jimenez tries to chip the goalkeeper, is unsuccessful, and then the referee
blows his whistle. And this is a key point that I want to talk about because within the realm of Low twelve, which is basically all this particular incident will talk about, there is a provision about a referee applying advantage. There's also the provision about what constitutes an obvious goal scoring opportunity and what happens if you deny one.
So we're going to.
Talk about those two things. First, let's talk about Tony Harrington having to consider whether or not Robertson did in fact deny an obvious goal scoring opportunity. Now he blew the whistle and immediately it produced a red card to Robertson for a dog so foul. First off, it's very clearly a foul. It's a trip from behind. It's a foul, absolutely, But in the moment Harrington does have to consider if it's a red card or not. So he has to go through the four d's of dogsow which, as we've
talked about before, are distance, direction, distance, and defenders. So the first one is distance to goal. The foul happens about twenty seven yards from goal. I think it's fair to say this is a safe goal scoring opportunity for what at this point is now Harry Wilson and Fulham direction to play well, Wilson is heading directly toward goal after he nips the ball from Robertson. Distance to the ball, Wilson is very much controlling it, he's dribbling it. He's
His first touch was fine. His second touch probably would have been fine had he not been fouled by Robertson, so his control of the ball and his ability to then make a play at had he not been fouled very clear. We checked the distance to the ball criteria as well. The last one is defenders. I think it's very fair to say that while there may have been Liverpool defenders in the general area, they were all behind Robertson, so it's very unlikely they would have caught Harry Wilson
in on goal. Now, yes, the goalkeeper was there, but we're not talking goalkeepers, were talking defenders, and at this point there were no defenders who probably would have had to stand a chance to catch up to him, even Virgil van Dijk. So even after VR review, which the var review.
Was for.
What seemed to be more so offside, I think they were double checking dogsow but it seemed like they were checking to see that Wilson wasn't offside build up, which possibly could have negated the goal, which glad we didn't get into it because that could have been a very contentious offside ruling that we probably would have been talking
about in this segment instead. But regardless, this meets all the requirements for a red card for dogso Robertson is rightly sent off, and I think Tony Harrington got this very correct in the moment, and I'm.
Glad var upheld it.
The second piece of this puzzle to this particular foul is the advantage application. Now the play goes on for a half second, maybe a full second. The ball rolls to Raul Jimenez. Now this is a good piece of referring from Harrington, because he sees the foul, he holds his whistle for a second to see what happens to the ball, because he knows this is a very clear and obvious goal scoring opportunity, and he can see that ral Jimenez has a chance to get to the ball,
so he holds his whistle for a second. He doesn't necessarily signal advantage or play on, but he does hold his whistle.
He sees him and as get the ball.
He sees him in as try to chip the goalkeeper, which I think at this point now is Ali Solan. I think he's back. I think Ali so On is back. And then Virgil van Dyke does catch up to it and clears the ball before it gets into the goal. At that point, when Van Dyke touches the ball, Harrington blows his whistle. Now, the reason this is important is
because Tony Harrington gave a red card to Robertson. Had he applied a true advantage and say Jimnez does score, right, the foul that Robertson commits is no longer able to be given a red.
Card because the double jeopardy theory.
So, first off, I think Harrington doesn't really give a full on advantage call, So I think that's one way that he's kind of saving himself a little bit. But for all intents and purposes, he does allow advantage to play, or at least allows play to continue just seeing if an advantage occurs. Advantage does not occur, so he's able to call the foul, bring it back, give a red card. Had he not called the foul, had again Hermenez scored, or maybe the ball goes out for a corner kick or something.
I don't know.
To me, only in this incident, a goal scoring would have been enough to call the not call the foul back. Had he given that advantage, and again a goal is scored or something, this foul could not have been a red card. It would have had to have been a yellow card foul because it's not a handball, a deliberate handball anyway, And it's while it's a dilberate, deliberate foul, it is within the realm of a legitimate play on the ball. I mean, I think Robertson, you could see
he's not trying to take down Wilson. He is, I think trying to at least try to make a challenge on the ball. It looks like he's trying to tackle him, and he very badly misses. So if an advantage is played, and that advantage is given and played through once the next stop of the play occurs, Harrington would have had to come back and give Robertson a yellow card, not a red card, because we do not allow for that advantage.
To be played.
Outside of the box for something like this and then to get you know, again a goal and a red card. Think of this as the same way that we do not give red cards that often four thousandside the penalty area when we're giving a penalty kick. And the reason is the double jeopardy theory that we have been using for almost a decade now, if not more.
So.
We still try to extend that because you don't want to give a team a goal down and a red card at any point in time, that's really just not okay unless it's a very deliberate, you know, handball or you know, if it's in the penalty box, you know, a shirt tug or something like that. It's not a legitimate play on the ball for Robertson. He's a little unlucky that Jamenez doesn't score because he would have stayed in the game. But in this instance, I think Harrington
got a spot on. He saw the foul, he allowed play to play on for a half second. Once that advantage was very clearly gone, he blew his whistle, came back to the original spot of the foul, gave Robertson the red card, and allowed Fulham to then take a direct free kick from there. Good job by Harrington. But I just wanted to talk about the advantage part of that and again go over the dog so criteria.
All right.
Final play that I want to talk about comes from the world of college soccer in the Men's College Cup semi final, which, by the way, the Men's College Cup Final is going on tonight at this is Monday, so going on Monday night, you can watch that on ESPNU so the question here is a handball by Vermont. Now, the game tying goal scored by Yaev Benzani with seven minutes to play, went to VAR review. He scores on
a very nice lofted through ball. He controls it with what looks like his chest, but there is maybe a little bit of a possible handball, which again is why it goes to VAR. He controls it with his chest, brings it down, slots it under the goalkeeper, goes to the cornerback flag to celebrate.
We've got a tie ball game.
Looks like the College Cup semi final is heading to overtime, but VAR wants to take a look. And now VR in college is a little bit weird because the camera angles are basically only accessible excuse me, the only camera angles accessible are those from the television. So we're a little lucky that we have TV for these games. But Vermont,
you know, is celebrating. VR wants to take a check, and when you look at it, it wasn't that long of a check, but it was long enough to kind of make you a question what they were going to do. I think the reason why this was checked, and we'll talk about Law twelve, is because there's kind of a double touch around his shoulder area, and that's the cause for the pause.
Right.
So Law twelve defines the boundary of the arm as the armpit, So anything above the armpit you can play. Anything below the armpit can't play. A lot of times, we can look at that as the sleeve of the jersey. That's not a cut and dry rule for a number of reasons, but it's a good.
Way to kind of visualize it.
Right where that jersey goes down mid bicep, if you will. The first touch hits right at his upper bicep on his left arm. Then the ball goes back across his body and hits right about where the shoulder joint is on his right arm. In live action, that looked clean, but the double deflection, I think is why var.
Kind of wanted to question it.
However, both of these touches are legal and legitimate, and Bazini, you get a goal, you're celebrating.
It's a good goal.
And then Vermont goes on to win, not just an overtime, but in penalty kicks. So that game tiangle stands, we go to penalty kicks, Vermont takes it, they will be playing Marshall in the College Cup finals, so some college soccer action now again VR in this was we were lucky we had some good camera angles. Shout out to ESPNU for bringing all the cameras we did get to
have a couple of looks at it. I do wonder had this been maybe in a regional round or before that, or even a regular season, how many cameras we would have had put up to get the right camera angle, in which case I still think the outcome would have been the same because you wouldn't have had a legitimate view to see if it was good or not.
But I would have been curious because I don't see.
I did not see a single camera angle that showed this to be any sort of handball. But I'm glad they at least took the time to check it. Again, it's a very important goal. It's a game deciding goal, really, I mean we go from a we go from Denver being ahead to Vermont tying, and it's worth taking a look and checking it. But again, that boundary for a playable part of our arm is the armpit, right, So if you look at your armpit, you go down here.
It's again around your mid bicep. Some people like to use it as the shoulder or excuse me, the sleeve at the end of the sleeve, but it's around the mid bicep really that we're looking at. And both of these touches by Bazzini to control of this ball and score completely legal.
Love to see that from the referee crew. Well that's all I have for you. I just wanted to talk about those three instances.
I'm sure you'll be hearing from me throughout the holiday season as I give you some more updates, not just on Reffing Down here, but also on US Soccer. You can see you can hear episode one oh six I believe of Soccer for US coming out this week as well. It'll be a foldlength episode. It's about an hour long with my friends US Keeper and USM and T Corner. We'll be talking about the year interview and the year
that was for US soccer. So again, I'm bart for Soccer for US podcast, here for Refing down here on this SGH special edition. You can follow me on Twitter at Soccer for US pod, follow me blue Sky at Soccer for US Pod. Hope everyone has a wonderful evening and I will talk to you next time.