General MLS Discussion

I haven’t seen the “foul throw” but as long as the thrower had at least one part of one foot on the line, he’s fine. A player can step as far into the field as he wants as long as he is touching the line.

what? you can't step into the field of play. BOTH feet have to be outside the field of play, which includes the entire touchline.

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"...ON OR BEHIND..."

yes i can read. i still think his entire foot is in bounds.

The difference is that each foot has to at least touch the line, and I thought it was only one.

If that's the photo of the throw, it's awfully close.

close, yes. but I think there is clear green between his heel and the line. it's harder to see in screenshot, but have a look yourselves. (timestamped). and it'd be against philly so all the more reason to have called it.

 
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The highlights don't really do the final whistle justice. If the clip had included the 15-20 seconds leading up to it, you might think differently. Philadelphia was in full-blown attack and Atlanta was retreating to the point of being routed. The Union had every right to be steamed
The Union had possession for 30 seconds, were barely inside the box at an outer corner for 2-3 seconds, passed backwards three times, each beyond the 18 yard marker, and took zero shots. That rather stretches the definition of full blown attack.

Games are running longer because of VAR, head injury protocols, and attention to time wasting. We don’t need to indulge methodical passing after 6 added minutes.
 
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The Union had possession for 30 seconds, were barely inside the box at an outer corner for 2-3 seconds, passed backwards three times , each beyond the 18 yard marker, and took zero shots. That rather stretches the definition of full blown attack.

Games are running longer because of VAR, head injury protocols, and attention to time wasting. We don’t need to indulge methodical passing after 6 added minutes.
I understand that point, but I must disagree on this call. I was watching the game live and was shocked when the whistle blew at that moment (so was the broadcast crew). Philadelphia was literally just about to shoot.

The ref should have let them get the shot off. It would have been only a couple seconds over the allotted stoppage time; which, after all, is not a hard-and-fast number to begin with. Referees let plays develop at the end of stoppage time in multiple matches across every league every weekend in the interest of sportsmanship.

If they shoot and miss and it's a goal kick, blow the whistle. If they shoot and miss and there's a rebound and Atlanta clears their lines, blow the whistle.

If there's a rebound and Philadelphia immediately gains possession, judgment call. If they pass for an immediate shot again, let play continue for a few seconds. If they back pass and recycle, blow the whistle.
 
I understand that point, but I must disagree on this call. I was watching the game live and was shocked when the whistle blew at that moment (so was the broadcast crew). Philadelphia was literally just about to shoot.

The ref should have let them get the shot off. It would have been only a couple seconds over the allotted stoppage time; which, after all, is not a hard-and-fast number to begin with. Referees let plays develop at the end of stoppage time in multiple matches across every league every weekend in the interest of sportsmanship.

If they shoot and miss and it's a goal kick, blow the whistle. If they shoot and miss and there's a rebound and Atlanta clears their lines, blow the whistle.

If there's a rebound and Philadelphia immediately gains possession, judgment call. If they pass for an immediate shot again, let play continue for a few seconds. If they back pass and recycle, blow the whistle.

you said it. it's a judgment call. the ref judged the situation and felt the attack was not going anywhere so he blew the whistle. you can't say that it is a judgment call and then get upset when the judgment is against what you would like to see.

and as i said in my prior post, how long do you let play continue? what does "clear the lines" mean? how far away does the ball need to be before the attack is ended? it could potentially extend stoppage time 5 minutes if the ref just let philly pass the ball around trying to probe for an attack. at any moment, any of those players on the edge of the box would be "about to take a shot", but will they? time's up. ref decided in his discretion there was no longer a viable attack and blew the whistle.
 
you said it. it's a judgment call. the ref judged the situation and felt the attack was not going anywhere so he blew the whistle. you can't say that it is a judgment call and then get upset when the judgment is against what you would like to see.

and as i said in my prior post, how long do you let play continue? what does "clear the lines" mean? how far away does the ball need to be before the attack is ended? it could potentially extend stoppage time 5 minutes if the ref just let philly pass the ball around trying to probe for an attack. at any moment, any of those players on the edge of the box would be "about to take a shot", but will they? time's up. ref decided in his discretion there was no longer a viable attack and blew the whistle.
Totally disagree. That's not at all what happened. The Union were not dawdling, just passing the ball around. If they were, then fine, blow the whistle and everyone goes home. There most certainly was a viable attack happening and they were literally a second or two from taking a shot.

Bad call. Bad sportsmanship. As much as I despise Philadelphia, they were hard done by and Curtin had every reason to be pissed.
 
Philadelphia was literally just about to shoot.

The ref should have let them get the shot off.
Literally, the ball was going backwards and the receiving player was 20 yards from goal. We don't know what they were about to do. Maybe he shoots. Maybe he makes another backwards pass. The receiving player relaxed during the pass because that's when the whistle blew and it's impossible to predict his intentions. The player in the corner had the option to pass to a teammate crashing towards the 6 yard box, but chose not to, probably because he was marked. Those are the types of decisions you have to make as time runs out, push to get an imperfect shot or reset the cycle and risk a whistle.

Especially now that the time is displayed, I'd like to see more urgency from teams as time runs out. Contrary to fact hypo: I'd be curious to know how the ref handles it if Philly takes a shot 15-20 seconds into the sequence, gets the rebound in the corner, and makes the same backwards pass as 6 minutes hits. Does the ref let them continue since they showed some exigency? I'd at least be inclined to maybe let them play on in that situation. But they didn't. They futzed around and found out.

If that were NYCFC I'd have been screaming to shoot and be annoyed at the team, not the ref, when time ran out.
 
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My last word on this topic: once the Union tied the game at 77' they took zero shots before time ended. If you credit them with the one that was offside they still went the final 18 minutes including added time without a shot. They were playing for a road tie, and they got it. They can't suddenly cry that they were about to shoot after time ran out.
 
My last word on this topic: once the Union tied the game at 77' they took zero shots before time ended. If you credit them with the one that was offside they still went the final 18 minutes including added time without a shot. They were playing for a road tie, and they got it. They can't suddenly cry that they were about to shoot after time ran out.
My last word on the subject: I completely disagree. I've seen a countless number of matches where the referee exercised the exact opposite judgment in this same situation, and rightfully so.

An attack isn't futzing around simply because it's controlled rather than pell-mell.

A referee has the discretion to blow the whistle at time; they also have the discretion not to.

And I think had we been on the wrong end of this one, we'd be furious.

However, all that being said, it's great outcome for us, thanks in no small part to Lobjanidze hitting the post just before the final sequence. So, disagreements aside, I'm sure we'll all take it.
 
The difference is that each foot has to at least touch the line, and I thought it was only one.

If that's the photo of the throw, it's awfully close.
The enemy podcast actually checked with "the throw-in coach." Which, I don't know who the heck that is, but apparently they teach this kind of throw. Who they teach it to, I don't know. But there it is.

 
So, this little back and forth compelled me to go back and watch for myself.

I think you have to account for the split second between when the referee decides to blow the whistle and when the whistle actually sounds. The whistle goes off a moment after the ball leaves Sullivan's foot, after he had spent 2-3 seconds in the corner deciding what to do. So, I think the referee made his decision while Sullivan was standing over the ball and prevaricating; he probably thought Sullivan was just time wasting. The referee did not know Sullivan was going to pass the ball to the open man at the top of the box. That didn't factor into his thinking.
 
I think the referee made his decision while Sullivan was standing over the ball and prevaricating; he probably thought Sullivan was just time wasting. The referee did not know Sullivan was going to pass the ball to the open man at the top of the box. That didn't factor into his thinking.
I get that, but Philadelphia clearly was going for a goal, not wasting time to get out with a point. He just had to wait a couple more seconds before blowing the whistle.

Funny thing is, almost the exact same scenario developed in Serie A yesterday, except it was the home team attacking. Atalanta vs. Hellas Verona. They were level at 2-2 in stoppage time after Atalanta had gone up 2-0. Five minutes were allotted.

Just a couple seconds before stoppage time expired, Atalanta was on the attack and the referee let it develop. Atalanta lofted a ball to the top of the box, the Verona defender got there first and headed it away and the ref blew time at 95:08 and everyone collapsed to the floor. (It had gotten pretty end to end after Verona fought their way back in.) No complaints.
 
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was watching lafc v red bulls ...

seeing chanot in LAFC black and gold... painful.

more importantly, red bulls look very well drilled and organized. HRD this year is going to be interesting.
 
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chanot was probably told him to come to LAFC (/s).
Possibly. And that brings up an important point. We talk a lot about what the front office is doing, should do and hasn't done in terms of player acquisition. But it's important to keep the constraints we operate under in mind.

I know I've said this eleventy billion times, but we're not an independent club in association football. Unlike the Mothership, we can't identify a need and just ring up Abu Dhabi and ask Sheikh Mansour to root around in the couch cushions and scoop up a few million gold coins and stuff them in a money bag for us to drop in some agent's lap.

There are three things we have to consider when looking for a player:

  • They have to be available
  • They have to be affordable
  • They have to want to come

The last one might be the trickiest part of all. Even if we can match a bid for a foreign-league player, they may prefer to stay closer to home, for a lot of reasons. That might change as MLS rises in prestige, but for now, given the choice between the same money here and someplace where a club may qualify for European tournament play -- and the player bonuses which come with it -- there's a very wide gulf between the total transfer pool and the relevant transfer pool.
 
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We also don't have any roster spots available so if we were going to look at signing Giroud, someone's gotta go. And I think based on the salary cap rules, it would have to be one of our top 20 salaried players.