This is really going to get long and involved. This is where we take our deep breaths, because the topic list is very, very long, inasmuch as we poke fun at it. Sometimes. The reason that we do cards and calls and reughing down here on the grander scale is so we all can sit there and we can watch the game together. Want to see the game improve and want to see officiating improve to where it is consistent.
And like I said, this is going to be coming across as somewhat Pollyanna ish, so I apologize for the paragraph. We do this because of moments that we see, Moments that we see that concern us, Moments that we see that should be under common sense be called in certain ways but are not.
And we believe it's almost like the sunshine law.
The best things that you can do is sit there and you can put the sun on something to give it the exposure that you feel that it needs, because if it's allowed to exist in darkness, then it will continue to grow. So we have these moments every single week where we bring in Bart Keeler. We walk through the events themselves, we walk through the chaos itself, so we're all reminded about how the game can be better if we continue to look at these events as they are.
And so Bart, my five paragraph essay is now out of the way and it's time to take a deep breath for a Monday. What's the what's the mug today, sir?
This is Mudham Arabia, a mug from them. So okay, TV show from Finland. It's got calming tea in it, the sing John, because yeah, Saturday was not calm.
No it was not, No, no, it was not.
I have one moment in particular that that is kind of a microcosm of the whole thing. And I mean we played I played the ending of the Atlanta United match with Jason and hour number one, but for those that are just kind of joining us, an hour number two and they played again. And it is the overarching comments about the crew that was at the Purple Barn for Atlanta United and Pumas on Saturday once again, ninety two nine game in the Odyssey.
App Oh they blow for full time right there.
Believable. This referee crew should never work another international match again.
They are not capable of working a game at this level.
Pumas wasted time with their substitutions and they wasted time with a red guard.
And they got they made it happen.
This referee crew should never work another game at this level again.
They cannot handle it.
N the game in the Odyssey app that was how the game ended, But we go into that. Do you just want to start at the beginning and go forward or are there particular events that you want to address and philosophy and consistency and crowding and because there are so many things that went wrong, this was like how not to literally this was this was a this was
a manual and how not do? And yeah, I was had and I was trying to do some research on the center ref and I did notice and you can draw your own conclusions that the center ref in that match has spent a lot of time in the Costa Rican Primari League, getting a lot of his a lot
of his reps and his red card. I want to say his red card to match ratio was about five one to five, so about every five matches he had a red card in the Costa Rican Premier League, where and this is a this is a gentleman who has been given.
He's been given assignments all across the board.
The VR VAR in this match for Pumas and Atlanta United was the gentleman in the Gold Cup in the TN t Haiti match who pulled the the penalty off the board by going to v R in the first half. So you had a couple of a couple of red flares that were sent up here. But you can draw your own conclusion about a riff that gets most of his reps in the Costa Rican Premier League and the nationality of the keeper for Pumas.
I'm glad you made that connection. John. I'm not going to go in there and say that that is necessarily connected, but you cannot deny that the man who is a Costa Rican international referee allowed the Costa Rican national goalkeeper legend, one of the best players ever to come from this this region. He got. Where's the timeline he got?
Well, So actually, here here's Sika and Sam. Here's Seka got.
Fourteen No, let's see eight thirteen minus five, eight minutes from the time that Navas got a red card to Sleish taking the shot.
So here is here is that moment in time seeking Sam on the call. Courtesy of our friends at Apple TV and the League's Cup. This is just a microcosm of the whole thing.
Oh, he's a steal from Riley and he leads Jare out coach Navas, who takes him out a file here, what's going to be the call?
A red card? So Pulmas will go down a man with about a minute remaining.
More importantly, where this contact came, which I still think was outside the penalty area, and his sacrifice of himself might have still saved the day.
Atlanta are not gonna benefit much from that red card, sadly for Atlanta Pans.
Because you go around the goalkeeper, you.
Force a red card, you have well less than thirty seconds to take advantage of being a man up.
So it was quite a good result for Kayla.
Navas said, you'll take you'll take a Reddit save a goal unless someone steps up in scores.
Let's sake and Sam in real time.
I do want to address that particular notion that Jason and Mike were particularly up said about, and I don't disagree with them being a little upset about the time wasting that Pumas unsurprisingly took part of. But as noted, it's not like the red card came in the second minute of six minutes of out a time. It did come at the end of what would have been six minutes of out of time. Now you probably could have added another minute or two even before that, based on
substitutions and shenanigans. But I do think the one thing I'll say for this all this, I'm not giving the referee any credit, but it wasn't like we had a whole lot of time left in the added time to continue with the match. So the fact that the whistle blew fairly quickly after the free kick was taken and eventually cleared to me, wasn't that big of a deal.
So I just I do need to put that out there, I think if we're gonna But at the same time, they don't have any real benefit of the doubt because from minute one to minute one and fifteen they decided to just not adjudicate this match and a fair and just proper manner. And I think there is some level of reality that a man whose only real workings are in the Costa Rican you know, top flight, is not
prepared well enough for matches against legamkis and MLS. He does have international appearances, he does referee a lot on the international stage. He is a Conker Calf widely used referee, but not as many matches as probably you would want to see from a guy of that caliber. Quote caliber, He's no Oshane Nation, if you will. But you know, I do think that is something that does need to
be critiqued. I mean, it was not good from start to finish, and Pumas was able to do whatever they wanted and get rewarded for it, and he let them run the show. It was not a very well controlled match by any stretch. You can talk about fouls and cards and all these things, the reality is that he did not control the match.
Well.
He had no control over the match, especially towards the end. And for one of the only times of this season we can actually say maybe the refereeing affected at land Nights ability to win a game. But and here's my snide comment at Landing itms darn good at losing games, and they figured out to lose another one tonight with the help of the referee.
Yeah, all right, so explain not the first one, which was soft in general, but the second.
Yeah. Okay, Oh so I will say for the first one, yeah, it was a foul.
Yeah.
Would we like to see at Landing knighted benefit that on the other end once or twice a season.
Sure have we no, no, no, we have not no.
But you know, I always just go back to that one that Brooks Lennon had back in I thin guess was twenty twenty one down in Miami where where he is? He was falling down already, and I'm like.
Where where now, Brooks? And I think since then, Brooks has been given this moniker of being a thirty player.
So if that's a dive, then this was a dive, right, I mean, come on now, So but at the end of the day, there's contact and if you see that, you're not, yes, not overturned.
I mean I get it.
But the but but second one though, yeah, the second one now, I have had it. I have had it expressed to me about this particular rule where if there is and it's basically.
Like continuation in basquet ball, where so.
Ronald and the player for Pumas, I mean, the foul happened fifteen yards, it started fifteen yards outside the eighteen, and so it's hand fighting and grabbing and it's almost to the point where it's fifty to fifty and there doesn't really seem to be you know, if you want to call advantage, you probably could. But then magically, as soon as the player gets to the edge of the eighteen, if not, the eighteen fall down go boom, and you end up with a moment where it's another opportunity for pumas.
So but I have but I have been told that the rule states that if it starts outside the box and continues inside the box, then you are to award it toward the last act and not necessarily pay attention to the continuation.
Well, it does depend on what a the foul is and b if they're still fouling them inside the penalty area. So I personally have not been able to fl a great angle of showing exactly where the foul stopped. Let's just put it that way. But I think it is fair to say from our vantage point on both you know, when you're looking at it from just live action and when you looked at any sort of replay that they had right, didn't feel like even the foul continued to that line, right, I think this is.
What's the word you're looking for.
I'm trying to, okay, John, I really am trying to not be a fan in this moment, because that's why I'm looking at it as a referee standpoint and going, if he calls that foul, yeah, outside of the penalty area, and you go, no, that's where the foul was. I don't think there's any real problem with that.
Yeah, No, I think I think.
To me that the error is if you're if you're going to err on the side of either side right of this, it makes more sense to say no, it wasn't in the penalty area and then yes, you can have our check okay, or you can go to the monitor and see. I think it is easier to say no penalty and then reverse to penalty if whatever magical angle you find it shows you, oh, no, it did actually happen on the line, because again, as long as you're touching it in part of that white you are
then inside the penalty area. So that I think is where the error is calling it a penalty without really having a great vantage point that it was a penalty. And definitely, as you've noted, there was a lot of fouls that led to it. You could have easily said no, no, no, this is the foul we're calling. Because the foul that was the penalty wasn't something that happened directly on the line, And that's kind of where I agree that this foul
occurred outside of the penalty area. The player just so happened to start falling once he went into the penalty area. And that's not what we call the foul right now. We call it where the where the foul occurred, which was outside of the penalty area. Yeah, but now let me slip into fan mode. This referee seemed hell bent on giving Pumas a penalty anytime they.
Felt like it.
Yeah, and that that is the unfortunate, Like, as a referee, you lose your integrity a bit. He lost a lot of integrity this match, and so it's easy to say, wow, man, this guy looked like he was favoring one team over the other, and it did feel that way. You're allowed, at Landed fans to feel that way because he himself abandoned his integrity a lot of times during this match.
Yeah.
And the reason that we bring you in for this particular segment for refing down here is while you are a fan, you're the one that it gets to read the rule book, take the classes, learn about what's going on.
You watch from a a critical eye, and that's why I wanted to That's why we started this segment in the first place, was to look at things through a critical eye and educate us all as to what's going on through the mind of an official in these moments and where the approach is different, flawed, uh, needs improvement, whatever, you know. That's that's why we wanted to have you do this from the absolute beginning when we started. Well, so folks can understand what's going on in the mind
of folks as we're analyzing these plays. Yes, we do get fired up about them, but I wanted to go through the laws of the game and kind of walk through it and then add the personality of the officials and all those other intangibles that are attached to plays that we see, yeah, and hope that we can be vigilant in wanting the game to be better.
And again, for me, as a referee in a fan, I'm looking at it. I'm giving the referee the benefit of the doubt. I know how hard it is out there. I know what is going through their mind and the eight million decisions they have to make on the fly.
I think referring soccer is way harder than any other sport because of the number of officials you have out there with true decision making power, Aka, you have one and you got twenty two dudes who have zero respect for you and very little respect for themselves and the other team at some points trying to make all this difficult.
But again, when you choose to see a game in a certain way, which is what it felt like, then it's easier for me to criticize you because it did feel like there was a field tilt towards one team and not the other based on the fact that two penalties were given that look, the first one, there's contact. Is it soft? Yes, don't stick you like out Brooks.
That's my analysis of that. You know, that is a if I'm ever teaching kids how to play soccer her as a defender, don't leave your legout and as an attacker fall down, you know, And and it's like, well, yeah, man, it's soft. But also you like dad gummet, you know, that's the that's the reaction you are allowed to have.
It.
It is funny, though, John, I think we were on this not even a week ago, I guess totally. Yeah, not even a week ago, because it was Friday, we were talking about a penalty that was taken away from Atlantic nighted.
Yeah.
Yeah, So I do question the var consistency because there was contact, yeah, and they took it away. So that is another thing I am questioning, is what is this var consistency for match to match even in you know it's.
Yeah, I know, there are a couple of other things from the match that's stuck out. You're talking about iniquity when it comes to just delivering yellow cards in general, it is giving yellow cards for the Philadelphia Union playbook being exercised by Pumas. When it comes to slow substitutions, it's like uh oh oh oh. You know it's like you know, al Chervich breaks it breaks his elbow and it's like, oh my arm. You sit down, you sit there,
you catch your breath. Man, I'm exhausted. Oh you're being subbed out, okay, and then you're slow on the walk off. And then I think we finally did get a yellow card for someone who was taking their own sweet time. Yeah, to at the very end, the very end, then you have let's see what am I missing? So oh, taking the denying the taking of a quick free kick was
another thing. That I noticed in the match. When it comes to a foul and a team wants to take a quick free kick, what's going through an official's mind to either A allow them to do it or B sit there and go no, you can't, or telling see the team that is trying to stand in front of the ball so there is no quick free kick. Back the blank up.
See here's the thing, John. In a normal world, I would say you get the benefit of it. Doubt once, maybe twice. Hey back up, Hey, don't do that again. You know again, setting a wall as long as you're trying to give it ten yards and look counting as hard. You know, being relatively far enough away from the ball when you're trying to set up a wall or whatever is fine. It's the walking in front of it, standing in front of it. Those things are where personally I
get really annoyed. And as a referee we've kind of been directed to like not allow those things to happen, because again, if you start setting your while of four yards away, we all know what you're doing, but it's in the realm of like, well, okay, I'll back you up. And to be quite most of the time the attacker is going to want that anyway. But it's the delaying
the quick restart that is kind of the problem. A lot of times that is not supposed to be allowed to happen, and that's usually where you get the player who runs up right on the ball and stops and again,
you make it once, you make it twice. But for me personally, after the second time that a team does it, not even a player a team, we're getting yellow cards out because that is something that is deliberately trying to delay the restart of play, which John is a cautionable offense if you read the laws of the game, which I suggest mister Nava or not. No Herrera does Ron Kaylor. I also suggest, probably Kaylor Navis read the laws of the game, because you're not supposed to handle the ball
outside the penaltyary. And for some reason he was trying to argue that, which was the craziest thing ever. And that's where half of the I feel like eight minutes came up with him trying to say, no, I didn't handle the ball, as he clearly handled the ball, or even if he didn't handle the ball, took a whole player out in a dog show situation. But yes, John, You're not supposed to be standing in front of the penalty, in front of a free kick after a foul that
should be a cautionable offense. It's right there in the laws of the game.
Now red cards and issuing the removal of a player, it's like your fam you got to go. This did not happen with Kaylor Novice after the fact, and added another level of Shenanigan to this whole thing where.
You have.
Kaylor basically directing as Jarrett joins us, Kayler Novice basically directing Angulo and it's like setting up walls directing Angoula, where's the free kick going?
All these kinds of things you had.
You had basically coaching going on from Kayler Novice on the pitch, and it basically took Brad Gazane at center circle to remind Kaylor Novis, you're not supposed to be here anymore. And finally security you know the muscle, and Brad Gazane finally encouraged to Kaylor Novice to finally leave. That was another element of all of this timely removal of a player who got a red card.
Yeah, so look, we all understand in the var era that you're probably gonna take a little longer to walk off the field so that Var can look at the review again. I don't know what he expected Var to look at. When he clearly handles the balls out of the punetaria, plus takes the whole player down in an attempt to do so, it's a red card all day long.
I think Kaylor Nobvias knew what he was doing. What bothers me is it's not that he helps the player put the jersey on, because okay, fine, whatever, you got to take years off and give it him or whatever you know you want to say it, Just again, when you have eight minutes from red card to free kick, that's too long. It's just too long. I don't know where Pumas is in terms of like the table of their fourth Okay.
So they have a chance, they're part of that gaggle. That's uh only.
Three games into the season. Oh never mind, you're talking about League Cup.
Yes, yeah, no, I meant uh Leagues Cup. So Conker calf. In the League's Cup regulations, which I did take the time to read because crazy, it does say that the disciplinary committee, which does exist for League's Cup, can take action against a player who does not leave the field of play in a proper time frame. I would assume that if anything were to happen, and we'll find out today, And I'm also going to assume that it ain't nothing going to happen to kaylor Navas for taking half of
his career to leave the pitch. Yeah, the reality is it's he's supposed to. And again this is a failure of the referee to do his job and say no, you need to leave, because I think the protocol is maybe not protocol, but accepted course of actions is you get a red card if you're really that concerned that you think it's going to be a reverse via var Again, this was not going to but whatever, you go stand
in the tunnel. Yeah, that's kind of I think the most widely accepted practice of Okay, well you can say that you don't have to fully leave, but you need to be. Let's better be off the field just right, and then you know, you get the VIR confirmation and you head back into the the locker room and get ready. And it took too long. It was farcical that they were able to delay match the match so long over
a very clear and obvious red card. It's farcical that he even had any sort of like communication with the next goalkeeper outside of like, hey, let's go, you got this and.
Then leave you're out of subs. So it's a position player in Angoula.
Yeah, I mean that's just what it is, right Like you, I understand maybe a little bit if you say, oh, he's got to take a short off and give it to the other player, But he just was allowed to stay on the field too long. He's setting up walls, he's talking to teammates, He's going like embarrassing. I don't really have a whole lot of words for it, other embarrassing.
This goes way outside of any scope of practice or referee or any any scope of training a referee would have had to allow a player to do this.
HM so jared this morning with Bart, literally we have spent inasmuch as Bart needs to talk about Copo America Feminina, I want him to talk about Katchia iachel Garcia. Maybe if we get into Seattle. In the twenty seventh minute from last night, the whole chaos with Danny Mussovski, the end of Orlando and.
Atlas, all that's still on the table.
We have spent the first twenty five minutes of Bart's segment discussing everything that went haywire and a half down at the Purple Barn from the weekend.
Well, that's because everything that went down at the Purple Barn.
Was interesting.
Yeah, I love the nose cell. It was interesting.
It wasn't just the it was it was allowing Killer Noavis to basically direct the wall and direct his replacement. And by the way, he didn't have to give him a kid. Keiler walked off of this kid on But they have another. They have more than one professional team has more than one keeper kit. I hope people know this. It's important to me that they know.
This as well, Jared, and so we can't guarantee they do. Now.
I mean, well, they got the they got the other guy's kid. It might have somebody else's name on it, but I mean, uh, you just give it to take the backup keepers kit and give it to him.
We need your kit, but and your gloves.
The beautiful part of that whole sequence was not just the you know, ten minutes of delaying and then refusing to leave the field. It was also the u If you go and watch the actual first.
Of all, win.
Pumas put ten people in the wall and Nick Sessok was standing off to the left all by his lonesome. And I understand you want to be the hero.
Okay.
Yeah, even that one at the end had no name or number. Great, they had an extra one. You didn't need Cale Nabs's kit sidebar on that. I'd've been happy to help crowdsource to throw ten fifteen bucks to the fine for the Atlanta player that grabbed Kaylor Novice buy the scruff of his shirt and dragged his ass off
the field. And if he goes down on the field and tries to make a meal of it, and oh he absolutely would have it kind of would have been like a oh Jesus theah the the Orlando atlass game where like I think I saw four dives in the span of five seconds. Yeah, dragnail, drag Navis off the field when the referee comes to give you yellow, apologize for doing his job because he sucks at it, because he not even it wasn't the call, it was he got the calls right. It was the inability and the
unwillingness to control the match. And that's some bullshit. If you go watch the actual again, play the ball out left to Sasaku's standing there all by his fucking lonesome instead of trying to put it through a ten man wall. Because by the way, the guy who deflects it and blocks it was not ten yards away. As Sleash takes his run up, the guy starts running at Schleish and
blocks it from like five yards away. Yea, So it should have been retaken, yes, with it should have been a yellow card and retaken and if they break and if they break that ten yards again, then you keep retaking it. You keep getting that yellow cards until they hold their line. You chose not to do that. The whole game was chaotic, and it's the whole game in and of itself is frustrating because there's a look, there's no sugar coating how bad the year has been. I'm
not here to sugarcoat this. But you also had a game where you created chances, you you generated two goals. Still, am pissy at MLS League Cup whoever is making a decision taking that goal away from Saba. Yeah, I'm gonna be a I'm gonna be a pissy a little less o b about it. But then you get a lot on the board. Good, but a build up play. You generated two goals. Great job, happy for you. Offense has been the problem. You generated two goals, But.
This is one where you feel particularly aggrieved because.
You feel you feel agrieved because got handed to opportunities. The first one, it's a penalty. It's just super soft, like he's looking for it and Brooks Lennon leaves his foot there. Brooks doesn't kick him, but his foots there and the guy d In my opinion, Brooks leaves his leg there. The guy knows it's there and drags his foot over it to go down and draw the penalty. He's looking for the penalty in that situation, he finds it. More fuel for the fire for everyone who wanted Brooks
Lenin fired into the sun. That for me, that one. Ronald was fine when he was on the outside back. It's when he got forced to play center back that shit got weird. And that second penalty was even more bullshit because the the tugging and the foul start.
To I'm not talking about this particular game. Ronald is very good at making stupid decisions defensively where he plays on any game. But you know, you guys like the Lebron. I don't see him as a valuable piece of other than.
I see him as a valuable depth piece.
Yeah.
I see him as a valuable depth piece on this roster, and right now that.
Thing he can get paid to be Maggie's best friend and hang out in the clubhouse.
I agree he right now, he's better. He's better at right than what Brooks has given you because his chemistry with Miguel was actually existent, as opposed to Miggey and Brooks having a non existent chemistry. Bus He's on a cheaper number, so that makes it easier stomach for me going forward.
They should have it much cheaper.
Well, go address that in the off season, because well, there's no one twisting their arms saying you have to bring Brooks Linne back. The second penalty infuriated me because the foul starts like ten fifteen yards outside the box. The guy's riding the contact, he gets to the edge of the box and throws himself down, and the referee is like, yeah, that's that's personal. That's perfectly reasonable process of events. Uh, it sucks because you did actually generate
multiple chances. You put multiple goals in the back of the net and then Pumas basically flopped around like a fish on the shoreline and was handed to opportunities. Brad Guzan saved one of them. Yeah, and then had then had the rebound put back.
And that's another thing that we haven't gotten into yet, the repound.
Okay, okay, I agree with you, but I'm also gonna halt you on this, and I'm gonna halt everyone on this conversation the same way we did in the women's ros. The look, this is something bart would have to deal with as an official, because this is something they run into more than we as people who watch the game, because they have to officiate so many more games and they have to deal with this on a daily basis.
If people who are writing the laws of the game and have to impact the laws of the game and enforce them want to have this conversation on a more consistent basis, that is fine about the idea and the thing in question being the putting a rebound. Basically, the fact that a penalty is not is not immediately a dead ball. We only ever discussed this shit whenever it
dirictly impacts us in a negative way. It is the same thing in the NFL when someone fumbles through the end zone for a touchback, it happens, and everyone bitches up a storm wanting to I need to change that rule. You don't give two damns about that rule nine times out of ten, But when it impacts you directly, then it becomes a talking point.
Right, Yes, well, let's talk about it, because I do think that I think there's validity to this.
You are more than welcome to talk about it because you have to deal with it in a different way.
Than others, and some level of validity to it, and the fact that like that, the problem is it goes outside the scope of what soccer is. No other free kick, which you know, it's kind of what we're going by. Another free kick is a true dead ball, one and done scenario, right, And so that is the slightly outside of the spirit of the laws of the game that we would get into. But I don't disagree that we We could possibly just make it a all right, well, you
get a penalty kick. Everyone else go line up behind the you know, the center of the midfield line, and you take it. Great if you make it, fantastic, Congratulations, you did the easiest thing in soccer. If you don't then shame on you for fifty years, you know, and
we're just done. I don't think that would be a bad but I would just say, yeah, well, it just goes outside of the spirit of the laws of the game, if you will, because no other free kick is done in such a manner, and that's kind of where you're going to find. The people who are making these laws do try to make sure the laws of the game are upheld or the spirit of the game is maintained. And that's just that rough. But I don't disagree with
the idea. I think it's kind of like a I mean, I'm also a personally I would rather see fewer penalty kicks because sometimes I think we're given penalty kicks for things that ain't ain't gonna, you know, result in a goal, and we're just like, well, okay, this foul that happened to occur. You know, still, some how twenty yards away from goal is resulting in a free kick twelve yards
from goal. That seems crazy to me sometimes too, but you know whatever, The penalty kick is an imperfect way to administer punishment, but it is what we have.
Should we just do a bunch of indirect free.
Kicks honestly, yes, yes, unless it is not a dog so situation. I think it should be a indirect free kick inside the penalty area, which Jared is way more chaotic and therefore more fun.
So oh yeah, like indirect free kicks from like where the keeper picks up a back pass like three yards from the actual goal line and then you have like nine bodies just standing in front of the goal. I also go back to was it, oh god, was it the twenty twelve Olympics women's game.
Yeah it was. It was where Abby.
Wambach was counting off the Canadian goalkeeper and finally the ref called it and gave him that indirect free kick like two yards from the goal.
Yep, yeah that was That was Canada. The Yeah, that was Canada finally getting called out for their shenanigans.
Yes, okay, all right, We've got like several other games and things to get into. I know that Jared mentioned Orlando and that less in the end of it there.
I know this Atlas has been Atlas has been a delight because they've been involved in the weirdest games so far. Yes, like like they lost to MESSYFC on a goal that you like I'm still not sure it was actually on side, but you can't disprove it because there's not a there's not a camera down the line. I think that they're using semi automated. They are and like it did nothing about it looked on looked, it looked like clear and obvious to me. But you gave it on the field,
so I'm totally okay with you leaving it. But then they got in basically a basically got in a West Side story brawl with Orlando. Yes, in your second game, absolutely was all right.
So you wanted to bart bring a Copa America Feminina to the table for yeah, for some I mean look, look, Summer Slam was in the Northeast on the weekend and Cope America Feminina did their damn just to try to make it.
Look like it was a battle royal at points.
Well, first off, this was the most entertaining game of the year so far. You missed out if you weren't watching it, I'll say that, No, there was an incident between Caravali and another a Brazilian player who I cannot remember who it was off the top of my head, and Karravally puts a great shoulder and and a forearm into the head of and I think her head as well. She just kind of comes up and puts her head
right through it through the player. And this was again an example of of all has different rules in a lot of places. I think. Yeah, but I just want to say contact to the head is violent conduct, slash, serious foul play and should be a red card. And the fact that Kyravali got to continue in this game. I don't know what candle she lit or prayer she said before this game, but it worked because she she got to play, uh the entire rest of the match.
But she was very lucky. And I just again want to point out that if you make contact with someone's head, you should probably be sent off.
And I mean, it was it, and it was a series where it was, yes, literally you're like grappling and you missed the first time, you come back after it the second time, and it's just.
This is where I'm shocked that, I mean, you could have easily had two red cards because the Brazilian player kicks out at her as well.
You know it mm hmm, yeah, it was.
It was very entertaining match, but that sometimes comes with referee decisions and player decisions that are questionable.
Yeah, yeah, that's that. That's definitely one way to phrase it. Katcha eats so Garcia and this is completely and totally unacceptable under any circumstance. This is uh, I want to find folks that do this kind of stuff.
What matches us?
Sorry, well, this is just general abuse online.
Oh okay, yeah, Katcha eats so Garcia was basically, I mean, the short version is Katcha eats so Garcia was told on social media, and we all know how wholesome that environment can be.
Social media is a bunch of people who think their balls feel big because they can hide behind anonymity. So yeah, you take it for what it is. And if you avoid social media, your life's probably going to be better off.
Yeah it was.
You had Katcha eatzel Garcia, who was basically threatened on social media for calls that she made and or did not make in the Copo America in the Copo America Feminina, and the FMF has come out, yeah, and it's like, yeah, this stuff, this stuff facing death threats after sorry, it's taking charge of month today and FC Cincinnati and so it was in League's Cup and so the FMF has come out and said some things, and it is just it's disgusting what what folks like to do with their
Twitter muscles these days. And so with her being in the middle for Mont Today, NFC Cincinnati Montday fans or hot and so they decided to sit there and say things that you're not supposed to say.
And I hope they find them and I.
Hope they're prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, whatever that takes and whatever that means. So it's just it's disgusting stuff that happened involving a Cutchy Eatel Garcia with the FMF.
Yeah, this is especially for someone who has refereed. I mean, we've seen her a lot in men's matches, a lot of US women's national team matches.
She's and she went ahead and posted the messages that she was holding with her death threat. She posted them that were sent to her Instagram account.
She posted these things.
I think what bothers me is, Yeah, this is someone who has been a part of the men's game for a while, and and the fact that I mean, I think forget which one it was, but we definitely had her for some A USM and T match. I'm pretty sure it was her this year or last year. So this is one of those where criticism is one thing, obviously, but it does feel motivated by her gender, unfortunately, and that's to me the sad part because you're look, we
just talked about it. You can you can be critical of a referee and say they did a terrible job, which the referees in the Atlanta Pumas match were not very good. It's a soccer game, you know, kaylor Herrera, I don't think should be refereeing at this level anymore. But that doesn't mean he shouldn't be allowed to live.
You know. That's there's a fine line people, And at the same time, you know, it's sad to see against someone who has been working so hard to get to this level and overcoming a lot of obstacles to get to this level because she has been part of the men's game circuit and hasn't had these issues before, you know.
So, so I wanna let me let me ask you this. When it comes to officials these days, are you seeing how are the numbers when it comes to folks that want to be official, sticking with the craft, those kinds of things First off, how are the numbers these days and how have they been.
That's a tough question for me to answer, John, because I don't have exact data.
But I've always it's anecdotal at the grassroots level.
Yeah, the anecdotal data I can provide is that we always need more officials. Everyone every weekend says we need more officials. Part of that is because and as you know, again we're talking about a tournament that's been made up
because Don Garber wants to feel good about himself. This problem is that we have a ever increasing amount of matches because especially at the youth ranks, every year it seems like there's a new league that gets popped up saying they're elite, right, and therefore they then demand elite referees even though they've been around for one minute and
the play is no better than organized rex soccer. That is the problem we face when it comes to numbers of officials is there's a lot of people who or there's just a lot of matches, right, and there's there's never enough referees because part of the issue is for these elite level elite quotes heavy air quotes, by the way,
on that term elite. They demand a certain level of referee, which usually means adults, especially if you're talking about seventeen and up, because you know, you can't have a seventeen year old refereeing seventeen year olds, and so generally we just always need referees. But where I always say we need referees and need support of referees is on the women's side, because we do not have a lot of women's referees. Period. We do not have a lot of
female referees. We don't have a lot of female coaches. It's getting a little better, but not of times that I like it as a celebration if I see two women's teams playing or two girls teams playing with a female coach in charge. Similarly, if there's ever a time where you have a woman referring in the middle for women for girls games or women's games, and we have women's adult leagues that barely have enough women to staff one full crew, let alone you know, the entire league.
And so that specifically is where we have a lot of issues. We just don't have a lot of female referees. And if that is something that I do think that US Soccer and the state associations need to do better. They're trying to do better. But for me personally, being a good referee does kind of have to start at the youth level. You need to be getting into it at a younger age because you need the experience, you
need the training. You know, you don't want to go on one year one year as you're moving up through the ranks. You really do need to amass time of understanding all aspect of the game. And we just aren't recruiting enough girls to be referees who they become women
who are referees. And so when you see someone like Katya refereeing at this level, you, I think, again, you have to understand how this is an impressive feat for her to be refereeing Gold Cup matches, right, I mean, refereing Leads Cup because she has had to do this for so long and she's being selected because not because she's like, you know, nothing other than she's a darn good referee. And that again, to bring it home, just is the saddest part about this story is because she
is a good referee. I think she is a pretty good referee, you know. I know Tory Penzo seems to get a lot of hate, and I'm like, yeah, there's a lot of referees out there who are way worse than Tory Penzel, and no one's as a darn thing about them, you know, or says the things they say about Tory Penzo that they'll say about her, And that's it's just sad.
I've got.
Let's see, so Jared mentioned the end of Orlando and Natolas. I have the play in the twenty seventh minute with Seattle from Santos Laguna last night that had like ninety eight different steps that were attached to it where you had a goal that was taken off the board. What else is on your mind, sir this one.
I don't have any of those on my mind. I've said the things that I wanted to say.
So okay, so then let's go back and let's do one more before I do a gossip bremery and you Windo and what to watch before we get out of here. Let's go back to the chaos from Seattle and Santos
Laguna Oka from last night. Here is the link and the specific to the highlights themselves, and we go into the highlights at about two minutes and ten seconds, and it's what happened at basically twenty six eighteen, and you end up with and I'll walk everybody through it, so I've got to figure out where my play button is. So it's a long ball over the top, Musoski is chasing contact, and then you end up with Mussovski trying to chase after the ball, so you have keeper contact.
Musosky drags a player down. Play continues and Mussofski eventually is taken down inside the six.
Penalty is called.
Initially, so literally that was that is everything that happened about ten seconds. All of that happened in about ten seconds. So ball over the top, Musofski is chasing. Musoski has a basically a two v one almost collision brush off with the Santos keeper and the defender as they go past the keeper. Now they're inside the eighteen, Mussoski makes contact with the Santos defender. Santo's defender goes down, Play continues, Musofsky, back on his feet, gets bowled over at the top
of the six. Keeper ends up making contact with the ball. Center f calls penalty YEP. Eventually all of that was wiped off the board because Mussovsky fouls the Santo's defender yes, inside the eighteen, So everything winds its way back to the first action, which wipes out the penalty kick opportunity. So first off they're checking for a penalty and then it's like, okay, so Mussovsky makes contact with the ball.
Then it ends up with Mussofsky called for the foul that wipes everything off the book, which it's just this.
Is just chaos, right, Like, I think that's the thing that we're looking at here is it's just it's just chaos because the keeper comes out does not commit a foul. I think that's fair to say there's not a foul committed in that particular key incident in the sequence Musaski. Then it in live play looked like he absolutely drug him down. But you also are kind of saying, okay, well, maybe.
There's momentum calling and.
Able to you know fully, yeah, yeah, Although if I'm going to be critical of the referee, which a candy, yes, I don't think he's in a great position to make any of these calls until the very very end where he finally gets inside the penalty area and is able to make the final decision of the sequence. This musoski foul which looks like he pulls them and then trips them. Yeah, one of those two fouls you could call. The referee
is not in a great position to call it. I do wonder why his ar was not able to help him out on this, because his ar is in fairly decent position and probably could have said, hey, he tripped them.
But it's just.
Chaos, John, just chaos.
Yeah.
Stefan Douer of Jamaica was the center ref in this particular situation. But yeah, there was chaos in that. And but basically the reminder in that particular play is that you have to while you have all of these things in play over fifteen seconds of live time, you have to go back to the beginning, or you've got to go back all the way to the beginning of the
play to figure out, okay, did something happened first? That led to act number two, which led to act number three, and then that first act, which was the musofsky foul, wipes out everything else that happens later in real time as you review it going back, and so that's.
It's it's tough because it it is a you have to work backwards from all of it. I think we've talked about this a lot, especially, I think we've we mentioned this was the RSL game last year with the goal was scored, but then there were like two other incidents that they checked eventually leading to a oh no, there's a foul in the initial moment of the attacking phase of play. So again, it's not a single moment, it's not the final decision. It's the attacking phase of
play that we're looking at. And in the attacking phase of play, the attacker commits foul and the defender and therefore, you know, I think again when you this is a good example of using VR in a chaotic situation to make sure you get the call right, because I think it's fair that the referee kind of let things play
because the foul was not well. I think it's obvious to me watching from you know, the angle we had, maybe the free wasn't in a good position to see it, or maybe the ar didn't feel comfortable making the call and so being able to use VR to go back and go, okay, yes that was and maybe at the same time, you know, there's a possibility that the referee says, oh, I'm not going to make that call until the very end, because I know Var can check it, and I'll just
let the play run out the way the play needs to run out. That's also a possibility. I do not have that insight because I do not referee with Var. You know that that idea of letting the play run in a situation like this is not uncommon for Var, because you do know that you have that tool to kind of go back and say, Okay, I think that may have been a foul. I want to check it.
Yeah.
And then at the tail end of Orlando and Atlas, you had a boatload of pushing and shoving and cards and chaos and it took three minutes to decide. You end up with another red and folks trying to take folks with you, And I mean, it was some nasty stuff at ninety two plus and it took four minutes to sort all of it out. Mattias is the one that starts to get after it and then hands to
the throat for Johnson. But Johnson decides he's gonna fall like a tree in the woods after the slightest contact, and you end up at one O two finally, uh, wrapping.
That one up.
But yeah, that one was chaos upon chaos north of ninety minutes, but that one, that one gets to stay on the table.
Uh.
So yeah, it's just one of those weeks for you where nothing happened.
Eh.
Yeah, not a lot going on. Yeah, nothing really to talk about. You know, well, I'm sure we'll have more to talk about next.
Week, Yes, among other among other times, if if if the if, the bat signal comes in and then it's like, yeah, we got to talk about other stuff soccer for USPOD, what's going on?
We are we have an official recording schedule tonight, so we will actually no one's on vacation.
Well I mean, I mean, I mean legit, good for them, but you know, I mean come on now, and I mean that's uh, that's the uh, the the idea of figuring all of that stuff out. Okay, thanks as always for dropping in, and we will catch up with you. And you know, obviously you always like to come in on Fridays anyway and discuss what's going to happen on the weekend.
And unfortunately I won't be able to do this Friday. Will be in office on Friday, which is a crime, but that's what it does. This week Final Market of the season.
So yeah, all right, well, as always been friend, great to see, thanks for your insights and thanks for the wisdom, and thanks for being one of the voices from the sides. With the whistles and the cards, we can kind of understand what the wide world of sports is going on, especially when folks lose control and we have to walk everybody through it.
Yeah, I know.
Well, luckily we all get to not have to watch Je Lanning out of this week, right, there's no games. Oh wait, god, come in.
Wednesday and Saturday. You got Wednesday, Wednesday with hot lesson and you got Saturday and all. So it's all right.
Well, hopefully those those going up to montre all have an enjoyable time there.
So all right, well, as always, my friend, be safe and we will catch up with you soon.
By y'all.
There goes Bart