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A Closer Look at the Uncalled Handball from Sporting KC v. Houston

All the angles, videos, gifs and more of the controversial non-call in the Sporting KC versus Houston Dynamo playoff game.

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2 years ago

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Credit: Thad Bell

On Sunday night, Sporting Kansas City’s 2023 playoff run came to an end. It did so with controversy laid firmly over the results against the Houston Dynamo.

Before we go any further, it seems every time we talk about a controversial call, we have to add a disclaimer. It’s not the sole reason Sporting KC lost. Vermes said as much. Russell said as much. And we laid that out in our instant reactions podcast.

Two things can be true at once. SKC didn’t play well enough, but a potentially missed handball, penalty kick and subsequent red card would have undoubtedly changed the game. We’ll never know how it would have turned out if a different call is made.

Let’s get to it.

The Play in Question

Let’s take a look at it. Here are two angles. On top, the one showed after the check was complete from the VAR and below is the initial angle they showed repeatedly.

It’s probably worth a look at what the rules for handballs are, which Andrew Weibe has ready to go at all times.

It could be argued Sviatchenko’s arm is heading behind his back, but it doesn’t make it. And the act of moving his arm down is what ultimately blocks the shot as it’s heading in otherwise. His arm is nearly at his side, but it’s not quite there. It’s slightly away from his body and therefore making his body bigger.

Many Houston fans are arguing it’s not clear if the ball hit his chest or not (and you’ll see below that’s what the ref told Russell). But you can see from the images and gif below, that the first frame of impact from all four angles, pieced together, show it hits his arm. There isn’t time for it to hit his chest, then his arm and create the subsequent arm wobble, all in a single frame.

There is also an incorrect argument being made by some that it hits his “sleeve” therefore it’s not a handball. But his shirt sleeve extends way past the bottom of the armpit, which then becomes a handball. It’s obvious it hits near his elbow, maybe slightly up on his bicep. That’s clearly the arm and not the shoulder.

If it’s a handball, it’s a penalty kick and a red card. There is no doubt in my mind the wrong call was made by the referee and the VAR. I’m frankly not sure if the VAR took enough time. The ball rolls out of play at 40:30 and play is whistled to restart at 41:57. If you are going to spend nearly a minute and a half, and the ref thinks it hit his chest, but it didn’t, why not have him come look at it?

Update 6:05 PM CST: 

MLS has Instant Replay up for more views and analysis.

Coaches and Player Thoughts

Peter Vermes gets a lot of grief for “complaining” in his post-match press conferences. Some of it is justified, but a lot of the times we just don’t type out all the quotes. Here again, for brevity, are the comments just around the handball.

“And obviously the no call on the stop the player makes (Erik Sviatchenko) inside the box on Daniel (Salloi’s) ball, I mean, it’s a handball,” said Vermes. “I don’t know how hard that was, but obviously it was…”

“It’s not a hard decision to make when you have replay,” Vermes continued after another question. “When a player kind of picks his arms up to make himself a little bit bigger, even if his hands are out to the side, it doesn’t matter. He saves the ball with his hand. Normally speaking, a player will put his hands behind his back. His hands are to the side and up a little bit on the left. I’ve seen the replay already. There’s no doubt in my mind. It’s a handball. Actually, it’s a handball and then a red card because it’s stopping a goal-scoring situation. But unfortunately, they didn’t call it.”

But seriously, what do you really think Peter?

As for Ben Olsen, he says he doesn’t know what a handball is. “I haven’t seen it,” Olsen said. “I don’t care. We don’t even know what a handball is anymore.”

As for Johnny Russell, of course he agrees it should be a handball.

“It’s a handball for me,” started Russell. “I’m not going to sit and say that’s why we lost the game, it’s not. In games as tight as this and occasions like this, I don’t understand why referees aren’t 100 percent sure. He’s saying it hits his chest, it clearly doesn’t. I don’t know why you are leaving it to VAR, the same as last night (in the Cincy/Philly game)… I don’t know. It’s not the first time we’ve had a decision like that go against us. But I’m not going to sit here and be a sore loser and say it’s why we lost the game, it’s not… for me? Penalty. We’ll probably get some form of apology as usual, during the week.”

I find a couple things that Russell said intriguing. He indicates the ref said the ball hit the Houston player’s chest. Russell is right there as Salloi shoots and is closer than the referee. Russell also seems to imply the ref didn’t want to make the call and he left it to the VAR, who also didn’t make the call.

For his part, Tim Melia thought it was a handball too.

Expert Opinions

With only four MLS playoff games this weekend, and no overlapping games, the who’s who from American soccer coverage weighed in. First, shout out to my Twitter followers who located a bunch of these for me. I went straight into the press conference, but apparently the Apple TV folks all said handball.

Christina Unkel, a former referee herself, went on Morning Footie and said it was the wrong call.

Next up is Andrew Weibe who does a video series about referring calls. He actually has a thread of comments, so click the tweet to read the whole thing. He thinks it’s a blown call too. I’ll update this story with his much sharper video when his show, Instant Replay, is released.

It’s not unanimous though, as Herculez Gomez and DaMarcus Beasley thought their TVs were just blurry. Admittedly, it’s wild the video can’t keep up. Is it because the camera is moving? Beasley obviously played for Houston and Herc and PV seem to have some sort of strife though, so take these for what you will.

To balance out Beasley, former Sporting KC goalkeeper Jon Kempin thinks it’s a handball.

And just for fun, let’s look at Kevin Lopez’s take. Hilarious stuff from him. If only I could channel that kind of energy.

What do you think? Is it a handball? We have a long time to discuss it before preseason camps open up. Head to the comments and chime in.

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Since 2014, Chad Smith has been deeply involved in covering Kansas City soccer. He's written about Sporting KC, the KC Current and SKC II for numerous platforms, including The Blue Testament, which was the precursor to the KC Soccer Journal. While his initial connection to Sporting KC was established in Phoenix covering preseason, he now resides in the Kansas City area, offering thorough analysis and a strong commitment to local soccer.

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KCOutsider

Regardless of what I think, it should have gotten a more serious VAR check by the ref. If you can’t use full video review for a call that important, what is it for?

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A&W

VAR is a joke the way it’s implemented. Eliminate all the ambiguity of what equals “clear and obvious” and just say “get the call right.” Put a time limit on it if you’re concerned about it slowing down the game. Take the final call out of the center refs hands as well. Remote VAR gets 3 minutes to get the call right. Boom, done. They missed this one, plain and simple, and it ruined a great run prematurely. Eff all the “that’s not why we lost” nonsense. They get that call right and that’s an immediate response to a Houston goal and up to 80 minutes up a man. SKC absolutely puts another one away in that scenario.

It’s not a conspiracy, it’s incompetence mixed with stupid rules, and it has marred the playoffs for the 15 years I’ve been watching MLS.

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Xander Kennedy

I have a lot of thoughts, but they all basically amount to: KC got screwed.
First of all, I’ve been pretty satisfied with AppleTV’s job broadcasting the MLS, but they dropped the ball here. How is there not a definitive camera angle of this play? It seems like the only two angles we get in which we can see Sviatchenko’s front are (as Beasley pointed out) rather blurry or shielded. I still feel like it’s quite clear that the ball does hit his arm, but a steady and unobstructed view from the front would have likely put to rest any arguments against.
Secondly, I know there is a human element in officiating and I also know SKC isn’t the first professional sports team to suffer because of a missed call. The Saints missed out on a trip to the Super Bowl a few years ago because of a missed pass interference call. St. Louis Cardinals fans are still stewing over what happened against the Royals in the ’85 World Series. The 1990 Colorado Buffalos earned a national championship in part because they got a fifth down to score the winning touchdown against Mizzou. Even just a couple month ago in the EPL, we got the listen to the VAR audio in an obvious and admitted blown call during a Tottenham v Liverpool match. So, again, I understand that mistakes happen, but that doesn’t mean we have to be OK with them. This officiating crew should be heavily scrutinized and benched for this. There is near universal (unless you have a rooting interest for Houston) acknowledgement that this was an error.
Thirdly, I have no patience for takes such as this from goal.com: “However, when you don’t do enough to win the game on your own terms, it’s your own fault. The Dynamo went up 1-0 and controlled the entirety of the match, and were deserved winners based on what we saw on the pitch 11v11.” Could KC have scored at other times during the match? Absolutely. Could Houston have added to their lead at other points? Of course, but they didn’t–and that’s the point. There was exactly one goal scored in this game, but there could have been, should have been a second if not for an illegal play. You can’t tell me that everyone wouldn’t be up in arms if Leibold had reached out and palmed away Escobar’s shot as it sailed past him. But, really, what would have been the difference if Leibold had done that and somehow gotten away with it? In that hypothetical, goal.com better be writing the exact same thing–that Houston didn’t do enough to win the game on their own terms so it’s their fault. The MLS averages fewer than three goals per match and so illegally negating one absolutely impacts/changes the result. (All of this without mentioning how much a red card would have altered things.)
One final note about this match that isn’t specifically about the handball but does deal with officiating is the foul called against Pulido in the 83rd minute. I grudgingly acknowledge that Houston did a good job of killing off the clock in the waning moments, but this play by Micael Silva crosses the line. Replays showed it was a very cynical move from the Houston defender to step into the path of Pulido and then go down at the slightest touch, writhing in pain as if he’d been shot in the back. It is almost exactly 2 minutes (from 82:26 to 84:23) before play is restarted, though a part of that is due to substitutions. This is the very definition of a dive which should be an automatic yellow. I would add to that the idea that delaying a restart is often also a yellow. And yet, this played worked perfectly for Micael and his team. I very sincerely doubt that a full two minutes was added to stoppage time because of Micael’s actions, and, again, he won a free kick. We’ve seen players fined for diving (including Kinda recently); I fully expect the league to level a penalty against Silva here, but it doesn’t give Kansas City back those precious moments of game time.

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