RSL's Javier Morales issued a retroactive red card for foul in Seattle Match

This isn’t new. They review every match on video

Don’t understand this. This is like the only time I’ve seen this happen. The most fouled player in MLS is the one that gets suspended. Great guys – makes perfect sense.

If FIFA, MLS, and other leagues have taught us anything, it’s that, under no circumstances, will they review a game and decide to change the outcome of the game. This is not special to soccer either. Take a look at Super Bowl XL for example. It’s mildly humorous that you have to go all the way back to the April 1st RSL-Houston game to find a league match with a call worth crying about. As a Sounders fan, this is a weekly occurence. I don’t have to go back past Thursday to find something. RSL got a penalty shot (which “US national player” Robbie Findley failed on) but moments later Alvaro Fernandez was pushed down from behind in the box and no call was made, no penalty was given. If I bitched about every one of these missed calls, I’d never sleep.

Your crying about the RSL-Houston game demonstrates a severe lack of thinking though. How do you propose they fix it? Take away one of Houston’s goals and declare the match a tie? Would that make you happy? Should we replay every match with a questionable call that affects the outcome of the game? Get ready to double the length of the season then. It’s easy to cry about something that’s not fair in sports. It’s a lot harder to propose a legitimate solution that isn’t equally unfair.

Moving on, this type of review is not intended to review every decision made by the referee. It’s to ensure that jerk offs like Morales don’t think they can knee a guy in the nuts and get away with it even if the ref didn’t see it. Morales committed a red card offense and he’s getting a red card level suspension and fine. MLS is experimenting with these types of reviews, and I for one totally support it. If players think they can get away with this crap when it’s done behind the referee’s back, then something needs to be done about it. I’m really glad MLS is willing to experiment like this. The sooner cheap shot artists like Morales are forced to change their ways, the better.

For completeness, I should point out that there is indeed a review of referee decisions each week as well, but that is not done with the intent of overturning game results, but rather for referee education and improvement. I whole heartedly support this as well. If a game has an unfair call, we need to learn from that. I don’t think we should attempt to reverse these mistakes after they’ve happened, but focusing on not repeating them is a noble effort.

If the World Cup taught us anything it’s that referees can make mistakes (very bad mistakes sometimes) but teams need to suck it up when that happens and keep playing. The world is not fair, especially not in sports. If you’re going to complain about mistakes referees make (way back in April) then at least propose a fair solution rather than sitting in the corner and crying about it.

I don’t believe that MLS should be going back and second guessing their officials and handing out punishments to players for things the officials miss. The only exception would be if all 4 officials miss something that causes an injury to a player.

I have watched the incident in question and while the move to “knee” Alonso in retaliation for the foul committed against him just second earlier was a stupid move by Javi, but the reality is that appears that any contact was very, light as it caused no real reaction from Alonso, it didn’t cause him to fall down, it didn’t cause him to leave the match, and it didn’t impact his ability to cover Morales on the set piece.

It is funny that just seconds later Alonso clearly kicks Andy Williams in the ankle but no call is made during the match (it was off the ball) and no secondary punishment has been issued to him.

This is clearly an over reaction by MLS, who failed to look at the impact of the foul on the match, just as the official failed to issue the yellow card for the foul on Morales that was late and easily could have gotten Alonso a yellow.

trying to second guess every decision is not what I am suggesting, just saying if MLS is going to selectively go back and chose plays to review, then they better open that can of worms the full way and be subject to that issue, because choosing and picking what to review simply looks a bit fishy to me.