Podcasts
Do referees incentivize diving?
We’re talking about the dark arts of diving after Salloi was denied a PK for staying on his feet.
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.
Find the KC Soccer Journal wherever you get your podcasts. Please subscribe, rate, & review! You can follow Cody @ThatCodyTho, Thad @TheBackpost, and Robert @SpKCLife.
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Cody’s absolutely right, the rugby mic’d ref and the cricket mic’d VAR ref with television visuals of all the angles and information they are looking at is a “superior experience” that is so refreshing for the fan.
I really like the ref mic idea. And all they really have to do is have Apple add another audio channel into the options. If you don’t want your kids to hear what players yell at the refs than you can just listen to the announcer audio channel. Every possible chance for transparency about this can only improve things, don’t let us imagine the VAR ref saying “it is a really close call and LAFC has more Apple TV subscribers, so…” because it is way too easy for me to imagine that.
Y’all hit the nail on the head about Shelton: PV is the reason why he’s out there and getting paid $650k for the next three years. It’s such a bad signing.
I will agree that we can’t place all blame on Shelton since he’s playing out of position and would not be in these situations if PV didn’t put him there. That said, I feel pretty strongly that Vela’s goal is on him. I know others felt differently, but even if that’s not your position, you have to be aware of where your back line is and where the opposing players are. He was completely unaware and that led to Vela being onside. I don’t peg the revoked goal on him though. I agree with y’all that he wasn’t going in reckless and just got a bad break with VAR.
In the end, Shelton needs to go for his own sake. He continues to be put in bad spots by PV and is taking some deserved flak from fans and a lot of unnecessary hate. You can hate how he plays, but no need to hate him personally. It’s hard to separate that in the heat of the moment, but I think it’s important.
I don’t think it is fair to gripe about the officiating when PRO had to suddenly use sub-optimal candidates to accommodate the new game times/schedule. I don’t feel like this game was horribly inconsistent like others have been. VAR definitely changed aspects of the game immediately but the full effects of it have not yet been realized. Going with Cody’s thought that play should continue AND then also grant the PK is giving the attacker too much of an advantage. Sure VAR bails out refs to some degree because they no longer bear the sole responsibility of a bad or controversial call and that leads to the “I have to go down to get the foul called” mentality.
I think there is a grey area between diving and playing through contact that you didn’t discuss. Accentuating and highlighting a foul definitely isn’t diving. To me, diving is making a foul out of nothing. Whereas accentuating a foul is when you acknowledge that the foul has prevented you being able to score or maintain possession. This is an important difference that is often overlooked in my opinion.
The sporting game was frustrating because of the failure to finish chances early on and then match management subs that clearly put us in worse positions to win. Vermes solely focusing on the officiating is failure to own his role in 3 dropped points. Shelton (as nice as he is), made 2 fatal mistakes, one of which he should 100% own. I would be more lenient with his kicking a defender EXCEPT he consistently gets subbed on and commits silly fouls. I’m not sure if it is overzealousness or just lack of bodily awareness, but he keeps doing it. His failure get back in position as a defender is slightly more forgivable, even though his jogging makes me not want to be so nice. The icing on the cake is being told that Khiry should have taunted fans after his goal. Is anyone going to ask vermes about whether or not he still should have done so?
Vermes still hasn’t learned. There is no reason to not play Afrifa, or Voloder in those moments. As either of them would have given more defensive or offensive effort. I loved the discussion about how LAFC made impact subs whereas ours diminished our abilities. The thing is, vermes hasn’t thought about impact subs since he tossed away Rubio.
I won’t look back on this as the game we “should have one” or the sole reason we didn’t make playoffs. Ignoring the larger problem of vermes and the first 1/3 of the season is a myopic view of the larger trend and issues plaguing the organization. Complacency and misplaced trust in individuals that are not contributing statistically like they should be while ignoring opportunities for individuals that should be given a look. A managerial issue.
Probably an unpopular opinion, but if salloi just focused on the ball instead of pushing back and grabbing a jersey- he either would have scored or been given a PK. Scoring from that position doesn’t require tremendous power so much as placement. That is the reason VAR couldn’t overturn the on-field decision and why defenders can consistently neutralize his offensive prowess. He has improved and is not committing egregious retaliations like he used to, but he still does it consistently enough to render him not as effective as he could be. Not to mention that thinking VAR should give him a PK also means that LAFC deserved a PK in the 3rd minute.
TL/DR – officiating didn’t cost the game, nor did it obstruct the flow or SKC’s ability to play. Vermes provided more evidence for why he needs to go.