Red Card

The Champions League and Europa League have used end-line assistants for a few years now. The Confederations Cup used VAR this summer, and Major League Soccer will start using video review on Saturday. The English Premier League has popularized goal-line technology and this year will have a panel to suspend those who dive or feign injury.

It’s taken a while, but soccer is finally getting its shit together when it comes to officiating the game. 

On Monday, Romelu Lukaku showed the world that he can still do goals by doing one against Real Salt Lake, but the real story of the night was the raring, caged animal that is Jose Mourinho. The Mind Games Master was exquisite during and after the match, foretelling of a season that will either end with him winning the treble or getting sacked by December. There are no other logical outcomes.

The MLS has said they’d like to implement Video Assistant Referees during the second half of the season, but the Philadelphia Union’s Haris Medunjanin should probably win the MLS Fair Play Award for overturning an incorrect call himself during Saturday’s match between the Union and DC United.

Medunjanin was shielding the ball for a throw-in when some pressure from United’s Luciano Acosta bowled him over near the sideline. The referee marched over, believed he saw Acosta kick-out at Medunjanin on the ground and promptly displayed a straight red.

Soccer referees do not generally get the better of their opponents during fights. This can be chalked up to referees rarely fighting, preferring to try to calm a situation down even when sucked into a violent confrontation.

This referee in Argentina, though, is a bad ass mother who don't take nothing off of nobody. He red cards a player, who takes offense and starts swinging. The referee coolly ducks then squares up and hits back.

(the fight starts just after the 5:00 mark)

The shameful specter of racist abuse in Italian football reappeared on May 6 after Torino’s match against Juventus. Not a week after the footballing authorities abandoned their duty of care regarding Sulley Muntari, Medhi Benatia noticed racist comments being made in his ear by a technician during a live, on-air interview following the 1-1 draw. Stopping abruptly, he demanded to know who had referred to him as a “Moroccan piece of sh*t”. 

It’s tragic to think about the gross output of the cast of characters in the Manchester derby when bridled with the vast sums of money spent on assembling them. The latest edition of Manchester United vs. Manchester City was a sobering affair that could serve as a harrowing documentary of the wastes of our time.

Article 49 of the official Champions League regulations stipulates how repeated yellow card cautions are dealt with and when lingering yellow cards are wiped. A suspension for yellow card accumulation is a threat from the group stage until the quarterfinals, and receiving a yellow-card suspension in the second leg of the quarters will also carry over into the semifinal first leg.

Barcelona's slim chances of winning La Liga took another hit Tuesday when it was announced Neymar's rumored ban for sarcastically clapping at an official after he'd been sent off against Malaga had been made official.

The Brazilian attacker will miss three matches: April 15 against Real Sociedad, April 23 against Real Madrid and April 26 against Osasuna. Barcelona were already in dire need of a win against Real Madrid in El Clasico to keep their La Liga hopes alive, and missing 1/3 of their attacking buzzsaw will make their task that much more difficult.