No, I do not Hate Referees, Just Bad Refereeing…

Tomorrow, RSL heads off to New England to play the Revolution and the game promises to be a cracker as most of the RSL games have been recently. Seriously, I am not sure that the game can reach the level of the cage-match against the Dynamo last week in Rio Tinto, but Real and the Revolution are sitting at similar places in their respective tables and both teams need points to have a chance at the playoffs.

Last week’s game with Dynamo was tough and frustrating. Just ask Clint Mathis if you have any doubt. While I agree with Jason Kreis that Clint made a mistake in showing his frustration to the degree that he got a second yellow and was ejected from the game, I sure as heck understand why he was frustrated. Hell, I was frustrated too after watching Findley brought down in the box three times with no call just seconds before. You know what, sometimes it’s nice to be just a blogger because I can say pretty much anything I want without fear of being suspended or fined, so I am going to say something that all of you – to include the RSL players and coaches – were already thinking. The refereeing last week sucked! In case we are not clear, it was horrid and it cost RSL the game. And you know what, when I watched the Galaxy versus Seattle game after that it was the same kind of off-track, shoddy refereeing and Galaxy suffered the same way that Real had earlier. In the Galaxy game – in case you missed it – David Beckham received a straight red card at twelve minutes into the match for a foul that might have deserved a yellow. The next day, by the way, I watched at least three English Premiere games where similar fouls were not carded or the player got a yellow card or a talking to by the referee.

In the Real versus Dynamo game how many cards did the refs give out? I’m not sure because I stopped counting at 57. Now here’s the thing, I watch a lot of soccer (it’s my curse), and in the English Premiere league and the top Italian and Spanish leagues, refs that are consistently bad and consistently influencing the outcomes of matches won’t be refs for long.

Okay, now that I have that out of my system, let me get back to the game at hand against the Revolution. This game matters to both Real and the Revs. The Revs are at fifth position in the east and are coming off a mid-week win over Seattle (thanks Revs, that win helps RSL) and Real is at sixth position and a win can theoretically move the team up the table depending on a game or two being played by the teams above. I won’t beat the dying horse about end of the season and all that. You all are smart and know what has to happen. But I will say that Real has a good team and they can make the playoffs. Coach Kreis said that he was pretty satisfied with the way the boys played last week, and it sure would have been nice to see what the game would have been like without the influence of the referees. Who knows, maybe if the refs had not decided that soccer games are played with way too many people on the field, we could have seen which team was actually better.

Category: MLS, RSL, Real Salt Lake, Team News