Why Kyle Beckerman saw red after final whistle in San Jose loss

It may be the most Kyle Beckerman thing to have happened in MLS is Back.

Following Real Salt Lake’s — uh, shall we say, really quite bad — loss to San Jose Earthquakes (I mean, you can read the match report if you want details), he, uh, kind of kicked the ball into the back of referee Drew Fischer.

See! There you go. There’s a video.

I mean, it’s totally unnecessary, and it’s pretty dumb, but if it isn’t just the perfect ending for Real Salt Lake’s disastrous match against San Jose, in which all problems were utterly self-inflicted, then I don’t know what is.

The best part is that he knows immediately that he’s made a mistake, walking up to the referee and looking circumspect. It’s what keeps him from being a true villain and merely a pantomime villain, I think.

Beckerman will certainly see a few games out for this, although nobody really knows when that’ll be. His red card will presumably carry over into the regular season, although really, this is MLS, and you never know what’s going to happen.