Columbus 1st Leg ECS - Postmatch

It's pretty egregious how he held his chin exactly in the spot where Callens wanted to put his elbow.
Sarcasm isn't always becoming of you. You'd be right except that per the other replay Callens' elbow actually doesn't make contact with Meram's chin; he extended his arm parallel to Meram and not into Meram, and Meram made contact with the arm. Forearms to the back of the head are routinely not called or given a yellow - look at Maxi and Villa this season with the number of times they've endured it and gotten nothing. Two guys going for a header routinely get popped by the other and nothing is called, or if it is, a simple foul at most, unless there's blood. Meram made a meal of it with his writhing around on the ground.

I'd have had no problem with a yellow being given, but Elfath made the match about him with a Red on that play.
 
Mata quit on a play leading to a crushing late goal in the first leg. Again.
He's an absolutely horrible Left Back - His defense was atrocious on at least one goal (Afful) and he didn't get back on the 4v2 goal. It'd have been one thing if he came on as a wing, but he was a LB (so was that Vieira's tactical fault or Mata's implementation?).
 
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He's an absolutely horrible Left Back - His defense was atrocious on at least one goal (Afful) and he didn't get back on the 4v2 goal. It'd have been one thing if he came on as a wing, but he was a LB (so was that Vieira's tactical fault or Mata's implementation?).
Both. But the giving up part is what kills me.
 
Would anyone have predicted that the team's new spine (Ring-Callens-Johnson) would be the reason we are down 3 going into YS? Not me. Never.
 
Lots of people talking about defensive / goalkeeping mistakes but I agree with Paddy in focusing on offensive issues. And yes, Columbus had a lot of missed chances too, but away goals are worth more.
  • Harrison in on goal: A bad touch
  • Harrison in on goal 2: A touch 2 much
  • Rodney one on one
  • Villa off the post
Not to mention that if we had scored an early away goal, Columbus wouldn't have been able to bunker and counter and we may have had more.

We have some mental issues to sort out.
 
Lots of people talking about defensive / goalkeeping mistakes but I agree with Paddy in focusing on offensive issues. And yes, Columbus had a lot of missed chances too, but away goals are worth more.
  • Harrison in on goal: A bad touch
  • Harrison in on goal 2: A touch 2 much
  • Rodney one on one
  • Villa off the post
Not to mention that if we had scored an early away goal, Columbus wouldn't have been able to bunker and counter and we may have had more.

We have some mental issues to sort out.
On top of those that you just listed, there were far too many buildups where we had an attacking advantage and lost possession. There was also the great through ball by Brillant to Villa who put it wide. We had lots of chances.
 
Hivemind saw lots of NYCFC passes that were just a foot or two short of being perfect. Our team was clearly tight / nervous all match. The manager needs to do a better job of getting the players in a more relaxed playoff mindset.

Hivemind hasn’t read any posts in this thread yet so not sure if this has already been covered.
 
It's pretty egregious how he held his chin exactly in the spot where Callens wanted to put his elbow.
he extended his arm parallel to Meram and not into Meram, and Meram made contact with the arm

When you can't help but make in earnest the exact argument I mocked with sarcasm 3 lines after you call out my sarcasm, then I'm pretty sure my sarcasm game is on point.

Look, we're in VAR world now, which means every contact with an opposing player's face is a potential red card. You can't analyze this like the Zapruder film. There's no umbrella man. Arm/face/contact = potential red, at the discretion of the refs. As was foretold in February:

Villa gets a red card against Houston for hands to the face. If they implement this he better be careful. He's not a dirty player but he has had a number of incidents since he came here where he kicks or lashes out at an opponent in a minor and plausibly deniable way. Most recent before last night was game 1 against TFC. The TFC fans moaned about it all week.

Review changed the way a catch is defined in the NFL such that nobody is happy or even knows what the rule is anymore. In baseball, it altered how they call sliding over a base. I expect in soccer strict enforcement of minor offenses will likely become the norm under video review.

Be careful what you wish for.

I'm pretty sure you saw this coming back then too. And we're not the first victim. Kaka got a red a month or two back after VAR when he playfully put his hands on a guy's face while the ball was dead and the "victim" laughed. It's the system now. It's a bad system. But we're not unusually aggrieved.
 
I’m still shaking my head that the Callens red was on an attacking corner kick, not while NYCFC was defending a corner kick. Are you kidding me.

The team completely wilted under pressure. That’s on PV. But now they realistically have to score four Sunday when they haven’t scored more than two goals in two plus months.
 
Sarcasm isn't always becoming of you. You'd be right except that per the other replay Callens' elbow actually doesn't make contact with Meram's chin; he extended his arm parallel to Meram and not into Meram, and Meram made contact with the arm. Forearms to the back of the head are routinely not called or given a yellow - look at Maxi and Villa this season with the number of times they've endured it and gotten nothing. Two guys going for a header routinely get popped by the other and nothing is called, or if it is, a simple foul at most, unless there's blood. Meram made a meal of it with his writhing around on the ground.

I'd have had no problem with a yellow being given, but Elfath made the match about him with a Red on that play.

Meram absolutely makes a meal of the contact, but come on, that's a red card. Callens is looking right at him and throws that elbow up.
If that elbow caught him inadvertently while Callens was jumping for the ball, I would get being upset about a red card, but there is no reason for that elbow to be that high when he is just making a run

Let's also talk about how he was dumb enough to do this on an OFFENSIVE corner.
 

Meram absolutely makes a meal of the contact, but come on, that's a red card. Callens is looking right at him and throws that elbow up.
If that elbow caught him inadvertently while Callens was jumping for the ball, I would get being upset about a red card, but there is no reason for that elbow to be that high when he is just making a run

Let's also talk about how he was dumb enough to do this on an OFFENSIVE corner.
My read of the situation was that he saw Meram coming, put his elbow up to establish his space (if he gets his shoulder in front of Meram, Meram has no right to get him out of the way) but put it up too high. I don't think he aims his elbow at Meram's face, but his elbow and Meram's face are going towards the same place. It was naive and maybe a little clumsy, but I don't think he's dumb enough to attempt, or gains any advantage out of, clocking Meram. Call it a geometrical miscalculation.
 
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Meram absolutely makes a meal of the contact, but come on, that's a red card. Callens is looking right at him and throws that elbow up.
If that elbow caught him inadvertently while Callens was jumping for the ball, I would get being upset about a red card, but there is no reason for that elbow to be that high when he is just making a run

Let's also talk about how he was dumb enough to do this on an OFFENSIVE corner.
There’s no reason for any defender to have their hand out when a cross comes into the box, but they do all the time while looking at the ball (intent?) even if they don’t make contact. <sarcasm but serious>

My issue with the red last night is that the elbow did not make contact. The head wasn’t hit by anything. It was his forearm and Meram’s upper chest/maybe neck. Of course Callens looks at Meram because he knows the play is about the start and Meram is marking him - to not look would be crazy - but that doesn’t mean he was sizing him up for a hit, as Christopher Jee Christopher Jee points out, it looked like Callens was boxing out for position. Meram is contorting his body away from the ball, with his right arm wrapping around Callen’s body, as it’s coming in - that’s not playing the ball, that’s playing the man, or in this case the arm.
 
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I'd have had no problem with a yellow being given, but Elfath made the match about him with a Red on that play.

I disagree - can't blame the ref that Callens decided to put his elbow up there. Yellow would have been fortunate. I blame the player.

I was having flashbacks to Klinnsmann - some kind of naivety to think that we can just go for it at 1-0 down a man. When we got lucky to get it down to 3-1, we should have been killing clock to escape and thank our lucky hides that we escaped only needing 2-0. Europeans seem to struggle with the concept of switching gears in the playoffs - the only thing that matters is the result - not possession or playing pretty or scoring buckets. A team playing together and with heart against a casual possession team often ends this badly.

Surprised by all the Maxi talk - he at least showed heart and ran his ass off. And as bad as our defense let us down, Wallace did us no favors with the giveaway on the first goal.

How were we slipping all over the place all game? What was up with that?

Harrison may lack the fire in his belly to be as good as we want him to be. I'm okay with not playing that well, but how about showing some heart?

Johnson wasn't any better than Saunders last night.
 
There’s no reason for any defender to have their hand out when a cross comes into the box, but they do all the time while looking at the ball (intent?) even if they don’t make contact. <sarcasm but serious>

My issue with the red last night is that the elbow did not make contact. The head wasn’t hit by anything. It was his forearm and Meram’s upper chest/maybe neck. Of course Callens looks at Meram because he knows the play is about the start and Meram is marking him - to not look would be crazy - but that doesn’t mean he was sizing him up for a hit, as Christopher Jee Christopher Jee points out, it looked like Callens was boxing out for position. Meram is contorting his body away from the ball, with his right arm wrapping around Callen’s body, as it’s coming in - that’s not playing the ball, that’s playing the man, or in this case the arm.

He looks, fires his elbow and keeps it out there. Trying to argue that isn't a red card sounds pretty homerish to me. That's no box out, that's a totally unnecessary elbow.
 
There’s no reason for any defender to have their hand out when a cross comes into the box, but they do all the time while looking at the ball (intent?) even if they don’t make contact. <sarcasm but serious>

My issue with the red last night is that the elbow did not make contact. The head wasn’t hit by anything. It was his forearm and Meram’s upper chest/maybe neck. Of course Callens looks at Meram because he knows the play is about the start and Meram is marking him - to not look would be crazy - but that doesn’t mean he was sizing him up for a hit, as Christopher Jee Christopher Jee points out, it looked like Callens was boxing out for position. Meram is contorting his body away from the ball, with his right arm wrapping around Callen’s body, as it’s coming in - that’s not playing the ball, that’s playing the man, or in this case the arm.
So watching last night, I absolutely thought it was a red, and still do. I just can't argue against it at all.

The ONLY issue I could potentially have with this (and really, its not with this particular call) is around other contact to the face/head that goes unpunished. And mostly I'm talking in regards to Maxi.

Sure, a lot of that has to do with the fact that he's only 5'2" and players are taller than him, but there are size differences all over the field, and I think the size difference between Meram and Callens had a lot to do with this red. But if my memory serves me correctly, I feel like I've seen Maxi take many shots to the head from hands/arms/elbows over the year.

As mgarbowski mgarbowski pointed out, now that we are in the VAR world, this will rear its head. I was a proponent of VAR and still am, though I agree that these types of things are going to be much more scrutinized and teams will get fucked by them, as we did last night (not saying that we were fucked by a non-deserving red). I won't pretend to know what the solution is, or even if there is one.