The LA Galaxy vs. DC United game was a great one last night. LA came on the field weak, was immediately taken advantage of 2 minutes in, and paid the price.
It took up to the 20th minute for them to get their energies working together, before then it was almost like watching a house team of high skilled players with no practice together. Bruce Arena's efforts started to shine at the 18th minute, when the passing became more cohesive and the general efforts of the team came together to show they were actually a bonded team.
Then, the goals started. Donovan opened it at the 23rd minute, then again put one to the back of the net at 35 minutes (from the 26 yard line, no less. Was a fantastic strike). The final goal of the first half came as a the DC United keeper, Clayton, had a hard time getting a grip on the ball but was doing a great job blocking the shots. After the 3rd rebound Gordon finally dropped it in.
The second half had much reduced energy, DC coming in at 2 minutes into the half and scoring (Khumalo is fantastic to watch, a brilliant and high intensity player with unmatched tenacity.)
What really set things out were the cards. Or in some cases, complete lack of them. There was a blatant foul on Beckham, not worthy of a card, but still a foul. The ref, Terry Vaugh, let it play on and when Beckham expressed dissent he was promptly booked for dissent. Then there were other plays that were called that seemed fairly harmless, and finally a yellow card against Simms for clipping Donovan. It was just inconsistent.
It came to a head at 73 minutes when a late foul against Beckham resulted in a straight red for Marc Burch. Now, the foul was pretty tactless and it just showed the frustration that DC United was feeling. Beckham was boxing Burch out as the ball slowly rolled to the side, and Burch just took a shot at Beckham with no real intention for the ball. Beckham did what any respectable footballer would do, he fell over then appealed to the ref. The straight red seemed to surprise everybody, including Beckham, who asked to have a word with Burch and was promptly told by the refs to leave. Beckham didn't leave, instead went around and shook hands with Burch and seemingly wished him well. Good of Beckham to do so, since it is a volatile situation.
The ref is to blame for these situations though. He let several very aggressive plays continue without calling them, and then tried to set the tone with yellows that weren't deserved. When you caution a player who isn't actively involved in an aggressive play, it isn't going to bring the aggression (or frustrations) down and restore the gentleman expectations of the players.
If Vaughn would have kept the calls consistent, and set the tone of a clean game there wouldn't have been the need for a red card, or some of the other stoppages that occurred.
It isn't as bad as some of the USL/Timbers problems, but the officials were too inconsistent for top level soccer. Consistency is key to set the tone, and it was missed.
But hey, LA is still in the running with their 5-2 victory so we can still hope on Beckham filling seats for a while longer.
I don't like to complain much about the referees at any game, but every time I go to a Timbers game it comes up. I'm not a ref, I don't want to be a ref, and I question the sanity of anybody who does ref. You're going to make bad calls, and you're going to have a mob of people angry with you. At the Timbers game, it goes above a mob and turns into an army.
Yet the refs seem to consistently make very questionable calls.
Between Scot Thompson's 2 confusing red cards (especially the one against the Sounders on August 7th; I'd love to find video but it seems YouTube has taken them down) and the red card against Dunn last night, it seems that the refs simply enjoy watching the Timbers play a man down.
I didn't see the event, but I heard from those that did that it was a bit of a hard move on the part of Dunn but I fail to see how a first offense that isn't a blatant attack warrants a red card. It wasn't a scoring opportunity interrupted, it wasn't a revenge attack, and aside from Ian Fuller rolling around on the ground (again; I mean, seriously, take up baseball if soccer is too rough for you. He was on the ground every 5 minutes) and happily popping up again after the red card, there wasn't much evidence of anything terrible happening.
The biggest issue I have is the after-the-whistle shoves on the part of the Battery players. That's enough to warrant a yellow card, and then when the players walk away from the ref when the ref calls them over to still not get booked is unbelievable.
I watch these things in disbelief but then shrug it off. Perhaps it is retaliation for the boisterous Timbers Army. Perhaps it is on purpose, to feed the army. It's not for me to judge, but it really does make things difficult to want to watch a good game (and what was a very good game) to be effectively cheated by bad calls.
A red card is a significant and serious penalty. It should be used sparingly, just like it is in the premier leagues. Both sides were playing very rough last night, and I commended the ref in the beginning for the two early yellows (thought I thought that Suzuki's yellow was completely unwarranted for that exchange) to set the tone.
I'm still impressed by the Timbers ability to continue playing with their heads up when the forces are against them (including the substitutions made, which seemed very odd to me anyway).
It was a sad 2-1 loss, not because they lost to a team that outplayed them, or had a streak of luck, but because they were going against an obvious bias by a ref. Again.
Someone needs to take the red cards away from the refs. I think next season I'll keep a red card database.
(As a disclaimer, I do call myself a Timbers fan mostly because they're my "home" team. I'm not really attached to them though. I don't sit in the North End, and when I attend I game I really just want to watch a good game.)
