Do referees incentivize diving?

In Sporting KC’s 2-1 loss at the hands of the defending champs LAFC on Saturday night, Daniel Salloi was denied a penalty for staying on his feet and getting off a (weak) shot. Much of the discussion was around the idea that Salloi would have been awarded a penalty had he simply gone down.

And therein lies the problem. That’s right, we’re fixing referees on this episode of Shades of Blue!

Yellow cards haven’t worked. So how do you stop diving? You give the players both the advantage, and then the foul.

We also look at the tactics and what went wrong against LAFC. Khiry Shelton was once again playing at right back, taking a lot of the heat for the match-winning goal. Erik Thommy was also deployed on the wing for the first time in KC.

The MLS standings are still looking much nicer for SKC, although they’re back below the playoff line. We talk about the Los Angeles Galaxy game on Wednesday and what to expect. And we are also discussing the KC Current without talking about their loss to the Washington Spirit.

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