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If you follow me on social media or read these articles for long enough, you’ll find out that I don’t often go in for personal criticism of players or referees.
There are good reasons for that. I can’t do better. I don’t want to be a referee. I really enjoy watching, playing, and coaching soccer and none of that would be possible without the officials. So, with that preface, I would like to talk about something that I think the officials got wrong this week.
In the 62nd minute, Kelvin Yeboah is on a breakaway run, full speed straight to goal. As he approaches the box, the Montreal left-center back, Luca Petrasso comes across to attempt a tackle. There’s contact between the players just as they cross into the penalty box and Yeboah goes down. Center Ref Sergii Demianchuk points to the spot and everyone, including me, the commentators, the MLS 360 crew, and the Designated Pundits group chat said “that’s a penalty.”
Surprise and confusion took over as VAR recommended a review and Center Ref Demianchuk came back from the monitor and waved the whole thing off. He made a short statement that after review a foul had not occurred and the play would be restarted with a drop ball to the goalkeeper.
Before we continue, please watch this video. The posting account clearly has a bias here, but the video has a few really good looks at the play.
There are a few things you need to see here. And please refer back to the video so you can see these. Some of them can’t be seen in an image, you’ve got to watch the movement.
First, just at 2 seconds into the video, when Petrasso stretches his leg out you can see the ball take a bounce. He absolutely makes contact on the ball, which had been rolling flat before. This is an important point.
Second, notice Petrasso’s position at the moment of the challenge relative to Yeboah. He’s just slightly behind Yeboah, so he needs to stretch out in front and across him to reach the ball.
Third, watch the running lines of the players from 6 to 7 seconds in the video. Note that the players are definitely on a trajectory to come together and both are prepared for the contact.
Fourth, at 7 seconds in the video you can see 2 very important things. You can see again that the ball takes a bounce because Petrasso has touched it and you can see that Petrasso’s challenge has come across Yeboah’s body and strikes him on the right leg, below the knee.
Got all that? Based on the touch on the ball, I think Sergii Demianchuk and the Video Review Assistant have determined that Petrasso made a legitimate play on the ball and therefore a foul did not occur.
Let’s go to the laws of the game and see. According to MLS's Competition Guidelines, MLS follows the rules outlined in The International Football Association Board’s Laws of the Game.
As an aside, I strongly recommend you download the PDF from IFAB’s website or download their app. Being informed about the rules is one of the best things you can do. I don’t care how long you played or coached or whatever, you don’t know the rules as well as you think you do.
Here is the opening criteria for Direct Free Kicks: “A direct free kick is awarded if a player commits any of the following offences against an opponent in a manner considered by the referee to be careless, reckless or using excessive force: - charges - jumps at - kicks or attempts to kick - pushes - strikes or attempts to strike (including head-butt) - tackles or challenges - trips or attempts to trip
If an offence involves contact, it is penalised by a direct free kick.”
Straightaway, we can see that our Center Ref considered that this play in real time was worthy of a direct free kick because it met the criteria for “tackle or challenge” or “trip or attempt to trip” in terms of a foul. So let’s look at the specific criteria of the action being “careless, reckless or using excessive force.”
IFAB provides the following definitions: - Careless is when a player shows a lack of attention or consideration when making a challenge or acts without precaution. No disciplinary sanction is needed.
- Reckless is when a player acts with disregard to the danger to, or consequences for, an opponent and must be cautioned.
- Using excessive force is when a player exceeds the necessary use of force and/or endangers the safety of an opponent and must be sent off.
I don’t think this action fits super neatly into any one category. We can immediately disregard the excessive force category. It didn't fit that at all, but there are elements of the careless and reckless definitions that could apply to this action.
The question we have to answer is, does Petrasso’s touch on the ball change this action from a foul to a valid play on the ball? It’s a valid question. If Petrasso had swept the ball away into another part of the field where Yeboah couldn’t play it, with the same contact on the player, we wouldn’t be here now. No question that would not have been a foul. It’s a contact sport and defenders can win the ball with contact.
However, the point is that Petrasso doesn’t really change the overall playability of the ball. He touches it, but he doesn’t push it out of the reach of Yeboah. Yeboah can’t play it because the contact on Yeboah’s right leg disrupts his running stride and causes him to fall. It's not the bump on his hip. If Yeboah could stay up, he has every chance to reach the ball before it gets to Sirois.
Petrasso gets an insignificant touch on the ball, but he takes out Yeboah to do it. He comes from behind Yeboah and causes him to trip by reaching across the lower right leg. Petrasso’s touch on the ball from the challenge is insignificant to the outcome of the play. It should not override the fact that the physical contact of Petrasso's challenge is what prevented Yeboah from having a goal scoring opportunity.
You cannot go down a road where inconsequential and irrelevant touches on the ball are excusing careless or reckless tackles. There are already plenty of examples of players going in for absolutely horrific tackles and coming away pointing at the ball as if that somehow justified it.
I’ve said this for years and I will continue to say it. How you win the ball matters.
Sorry PRO, you got caught up in the minutia of the touch and missed the bigger picture. Sergii had it right on the field.
Penalty.
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