Well, well, well! What a match that one was. Four goals, one San Jose team that looked very poor, and one dodgy penalty that will inevitably dominate the headlines. I’ll address that in time, but I’ll lead with a bit of hedging: It was probably a dive. But to be honest, that didn’t define the match for me.
Sometimes, in the beautiful game, a wrong decision is made. It’s happened to us many a time. But it’s never an excuse for a win or a loss. It may swing the balance, but I’ve seen teams battle back from 1-0 while a man down, from the most egregious decisions. But tonight, San Jose forgot the basics of defending, and unmarked players took full advantage of that. Saborio snagged his second on a rebound while unmarked, Beckerman capitalized on the ball bouncing wildly around, and Olave had no defender anywhere near him.
So, yes, I’ll buy that the penalty and red card swung the balance of the match, but the reaction of San Jose players sealed it for me. Bad defending, a continued lack of attacking impetus, and some of the worst behavior to a referee I’ve seen. How the referee opted to not issue a few yellows to San Jose players is beyond me. Their crowding of the referee and the very ill-advised decisions of some to even lay hands on the referee and his assistant: That’s all worse than any weak dive. Even when a decision seen as a wrong is made, assaulting the referee is insane. They may not always do the best job, but who would get better at their job with a bunch of muscular men in their face? The Respect Campaign in England was started for a reason — and we should take the same approach.
Yes, improvement in refereeing standards is needed, and nobody will argue there. But referees should be afforded a deal of protection from players. Criticise them for bad decisions certainly, but that’s our role as fans. The role of players is to get on with it and play the game.
Still, we had a very nice win tonight. It was brilliant to see Kyle Beckerman kissing the post (you see, he’d not scored at north goal) after his poaching. He’s a man that deserves a few more goals. But what you saw tonight was a team united. Even the moody Saborio was celebrating with the team, and I hope fans don’t slate him too much.
So, on to the errata of the night. I got the shaky Jon Busch to personally respond to my heckling. How often does that happen? He grinned at me just before the second half (I sit at north goal) and winked at me a few times. I did, of course, ask him to marry me, which may have kicked the whole thing off. And I did sing songs like “There’s only one Jon Busch” (after he conceded two) and “Oh, Jonny Boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling” — so it was all a bit of good fun. He’s an odd one, with his reaction (http://twitpic.com/5uwmlz) to the penalty, and I don’t rate him, but it was fun interacting with a player. At least he didn’t kick me in the chest Eric Cantona-style. That likely would have hurt a bit.
Any how, that’s all a bit off topic. The three points tonight put us two ahead of Colorado in the West’s 4th spot (incidentally, it’s also the 4th spot in the league), and we have four games to play ‘till we catch LA Galaxy and FC Dallas. With us sitting six points behind Dallas, five behind Seattle, and nine behind the Galaxy, the league is ours to win if we can capitalize. And we do get to keep our 12-goals-scored-against record, which is nice!
So, a more measured response tomorrow, and I’ll address some of the things I think Jason Kreis pulled off tactically and some that did not come off as well, but this will do for tonight.
‘Till tomorrow. Up the RSL!
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