Mile High Soapbox

I just watched the worst officiated Major League Soccer match this evening. It was horrible and led to one Los Angeles Galaxy goal and almost allowed it to be tied by the Colorado Rapids in stoppage time at the end of the game.
I coach young boys in soccer and always tell them respect the referee and you can’t depend on their calls or be beat by their calls, but tonight I was totally disgusted by the officiating by the official Major League Soccer brought to Dicks Sporting Goods Park.

One call led to a goal for LA Galaxy. I watched the play and there wasn’t even a foul. The referee blew the whistle out of no where. Beckham does what he does and serves it into the box and ball ends up in the back of the net.

Later, Robbie Keane takes a dive and gets the foul. It was a horrible call and the referee throws a yellow at Larentowicz for dissent. I saw the LA Galaxy players do that several times and no yellow was given.

Later in the second half, Drew Moor goes up for a goal kick against a Galaxy player and gets called for a foul. Both players were going for the ball and it was a 50-50 ball. Just horrible call. There were many worse plays on headers including Tony Cascio getting leveled in the box in the first half.

Now Galaxy supporters will point to the penalty kick given to the Rapids later in the match. I saw it pretty clear and was a horrible call. There was no penalty on that play. But I guess the referee thought he should give the Rapids a chance. The referee was so out of position he couldn’t have called it.

Now Omar Cummings take of the penalty was even worse, but that is another story.

All the people who love soccer and Major League Soccer are getting quite tired of the horrible officiating that occurs on the pitch. It needs to be fair and accurate both ways. Officials need to be in the correct position throughout the match. If they can’t do that, they don’t deserve to be on the pitch.

Let’s hope Major League Soccer does something about it.