Bakrar works extremely hard - running off the ball, high press. If his finishing comes around, he really does remind me of Taty. (Minus the yellow cards.)
MLS - March 16 - Toronto (Home - YS)
- Thread starter LionNYC
- Start date
When has that ever stopped any of us?
My immediate thought after the red card: “Cushing’s dream! More defenders!”
He put on Haak at 89’ because he can’t help himself. At that point it was eight defenders (Ilenic, Martins, Risa, OT, Sands, Perea, Gray, Haak) and Santi. It got the job done but woof.
It's also the right move at that point in the game down a man. I had an issue with doing it so early against Portland, but when you'[re down a man entering extra time, it's the right move.
My kids were debating what would happen when the clock hit 100 minutes. Turns out my 16-YO was correct - its started over at 0:00. This wasn't true for the big scoreboard, but it was for all the other ones around the stadium.
I made a note to go back and look at the Apple broadcast. There was one angle live and a slightly different one on replay. In both cases, the shot was too tight on the ball to see where the players were.
One strange thing is where they were on restart. If it's offsides, the ball is supposed to go back to where the player was at the time of the pass, which in this case was up by midfield. Instead, the restart was back near the penalty area. Makes me wonder whether the actual call was a foul on Bakrar, but who knows.
Did anyone else notice on the Apple broadcast what happened when Risa was called for the foul on the ball over the top? This is the one in the 42' when the ball was well long and ended up easily in Freese's mitts.
Risa and Owusu came together slightly and Owusu went down. The referee called the foul, and then he reached into his back pocket and started to pull out a red card, presumably for DOGSO. Then he thought better of it and put it back in his pocket. He settled on a yellow card about half a minute later. I can't imagine how the stadium might have erupted if he had red carded Risa there. There was no way Owusu was ever getting to that ball. I was enraged enough at the foul call and yellow.
I personally think the replacement refs have been poor in the two games I've seen in person. Not so much for blowing any major calls, but more for managing the games very poorly. Probably a subject for a longer (different) thread.
Risa and Owusu came together slightly and Owusu went down. The referee called the foul, and then he reached into his back pocket and started to pull out a red card, presumably for DOGSO. Then he thought better of it and put it back in his pocket. He settled on a yellow card about half a minute later. I can't imagine how the stadium might have erupted if he had red carded Risa there. There was no way Owusu was ever getting to that ball. I was enraged enough at the foul call and yellow.
I personally think the replacement refs have been poor in the two games I've seen in person. Not so much for blowing any major calls, but more for managing the games very poorly. Probably a subject for a longer (different) thread.
We had the same reaction of fear when he reached into his back pocket, but then were joking that he had kept the yellow card in the wrong pocket. (But sounds like that’s not what happened, and he switched).
I'm definitely not defending Bakrar here on this. In Kevin Nelson's latest in The Outfield breaking down Mijatovic, he actually goes into Bakrar's finishing a bit and how xPlace comes into play (ie Bakrar isn't just getting unlucky, he isn't shooting it well). But just wanted to point out some of the names listed here. Combining last season and this season:
- Cucho: -2.96 G-xG, -3.16 xPlace
- Benteke: -4.33 G-xG, -1.95 xPlace
- Joveljic: -2.68 G-xG
Now, Bakrar is worse than most of these (only Heber is worst) in G-xG per 96 mins (minimum 800 minutes), but the overall point is that larger sample sizes will provide more goals and that even larger sample sizes will demonstrate strikers in a positive light even if they are well underperforming xG, because ultimately enough goals will go in.
Hopefully our leading scorer this season will be a guy named Variance. (Though I still am concerned Bakrar could defy sample size issues).
I'm not 100% sure that it was the right move. I felt like it was overkill to put both Gray and Haak on for attackers. It worked out but there is some argument for subbing on an attacker to act as an outlet and press high to slow the TFC build-up. Jasson could have filled that roll perfectly. Having so many defenders on the pitch can also backfire as teams have no practice with that formation and players are unclear about who should be marking what space.
If we had given up a late goal as a result of going all-defense there would be plenty of complaints right now about his subs.
There was also a ton of time wasting. I thought 11 was right. (I actually guessed 12.)
There were also moderate delays when Martins took a ball to the head, and when Bakrar was called offsides (or something), and about 90 seconds when Bakrar was elbowed in the head (and no foul was called). With all that I predicted 8.
Yeah, the VARs (who are experienced, retired PRO referees) are getting into the ears of the referees during the course of the game to "help" them out (which isn't what a VAR is supposed to be doing!).
The VAR was Joe Fletcher (only announced when the PA announcer, Joe Tolleson for this one, before the match) with MLS from 2014 - 2019 and part of the 2014 and 2018 World Cup as a Canadian referee. I'd put money on him saying, "NOT A RED CARD. NOT A RED CARD." to referee Muhammad Hassan during the course of play when he was reaching for his back pocket.
Since there seems to be no massive uproar from the fanbases, it looks quite likely that we'll spend several more weeks with the scab referees. MLS/PRO are not going to back down if they don't have to. As a negotiating tactic, doing a work stoppage and the realizing that you can be replaced with less qualified people without the customers receiving the service (us, I guess) ever complaining it's just a losing hand. I feel for the unionized referees. Not that they were that good either, though.
I would be thrilled to see signs like “Scabs Out” and “pay the union refs” or whatever over “Cushing Out” signs.I’d also be fine if the players joined the ref.’s and sat out in solidarity. Could Messi like give a portion of his Jersey sales cut to pay the refs?
Game officials in all sports are inherently in a weak bargaining union position. I'm not aware of any strike or walkout by sports officials that was honored by players or fans. Players have too much to lose. Fans will attend and watch as long as the games count. Baseball umpires have fared poorly in strikes, lockouts and walkouts. There was an NFL ref lockout in 2012 which the league abandoned when the replacements refs were clearly inferior culminating in the embarrassing Fail Mary incident. The sub refs were slow to make decisions and the game stopped after routine plays while they considered what to do. They misapplied rules multiple times, because American football rules are not uniform. Soccer rules are theoretically uniform worldwide and play rarely stops, so so the soccer refs don't have as many opportunities to make everything stop while they confer. Soccer calls also IMO have a high subjectivity quotient which makes it harder to discern how they compare.
The players have contractual clauses specifically barring any sympathy strikes.
