19 August 2006

First Impressions - DCU 1 : 1 Colorado

Simply put: Better, but not good. United showed better touch and skill in this game than last, but also had stretches of maddening play (like, say, the first five minutes.) However, this team is tired. By the 80th minute, pretty much everyone who started was looking to conserve energy, and even Walker was finding moments to walk around a bit.

More in the debrief tomorrow, but one other thing -- the worst thing on the pitch was not David Stokes. No, it was referee Jair Marrufo. I have, at times, praised refs. I defended them during the 2 PKs given in the RSL game. But Marrufo's calls were without reason. He played the advantage sporadically, he seemed to have no consistent definition of a foul (or even the laws of the game), he invented reasons to blow the whistle... simply, this was the worst performance by a referee at RFK this year that I have seen. Atrocious. He was known for an awful performance last year as well, which involved him carding Kovalenko. Say what you will about Hall (whom I actually think calls a fair game), Kennedy, or even our old friend Abby... Jair Marrufo is the worst official in MLS and it is a travesty that he continues to be allowed to call these games.

5 Comments:

At 20 August, 2006 07:08, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Freddy has been getting fouled *a lot* lately and he hardly ever gets any calls. I'm not saying he deserved the penalty yesterday, but he should certainly be getting the stuff in the middle third. I guess this is the price he pays for falling down so easily last year?

 
At 20 August, 2006 10:15, Anonymous Anonymous said...

The thing about Marrufo was that he was always out of position when he blew his whistle - or didn't. There were at least two handballs in the Colorado box. Maybe they were inadvertant and maybe they shouldn't have been called, but Marrufo was in no position see them one way or the other.

And you're right about the advantage calls; there was no consistency.

 
At 20 August, 2006 10:16, Blogger Joel said...

Clearly, Eric Wynalda has a BIG man crush on Joe Cannon... Not since John Madden used to get really, um- "excited" about the sweaty asses of the Cowboys offensive line has an announcer had such difficulty surpressing his lustful urges for a player.

 
At 20 August, 2006 12:33, Anonymous Anonymous said...

rwhgeek,

The linesmen looked fine on the offside calls. Esky got called offside a couple times because he was playing lazy and a long ball found it way through to him but he had been loitering offside.

Why Freddy Adu can't buy a call, I just can't fathom. Mastroeni's tackle on him in the box was a clear PK in my mind. Freddy had even taken a bit of a poor touch and Mastro just cleaned him out!

 
At 21 August, 2006 08:08, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well, we're just lucky that Stokes missed when he tried to trip that guy in the penalty area. Idiot.

 

Post a Comment

<< Return to The DCenters Main Page (HOME)