It took me 24 hours to calm down from the farce on Friday night, then I found out what happened before the game and it took me another 24 hours before I felt like writing this. I'm going to dispense with the game recap just to hit the big issues.
The Dever Post reported yesterday that the Rapids got screwed by MLS before even taking the field. They arrived at the field from the Dolphin hotel a little after SKC did. Because of lightning in the area the Rapids were asked to stay in the bus instead of going into their locker room, while SKC was already in the locker room. Then, after 30 minutes of being cooped up on the bus, they were allowed out but they were told they weren't changing the kickoff time, so instead of their normal changing in the locker room, warming up, then returning to the locker room for final preparations the the team had to go straight to the field and change pitch side, then get in an abbreviated warmup. Meanwhile SKC had their normal warmup having already changed in the locker room. This is not how you run a professional sporting event.
Once the game got underway it started well, with Acosta getting the early goal. The Rapids were very lucky not to be down a man right before half as Benezet sent an elbow into the face of a KC player. Most VAR officials would have sent that down for review, and I expect to hear tomorrow that Benezet has been suspended by the Disciplinary Committee (DisCo) for it.
Then we saw the 15 minute meltdown by Gantar and the VAR. Wilson hauled down a SKC attacker as the last man. The attacker hadn't yet corralled the ball and wasn't going right at goal, but if Gantar had called the red I probably would have grumbled a bit but moved on. Gantar showed yellow. Then the VAR official alerted him that he had made a "clear and obvious" error, and Gantar reversed the call to a red. I don't think the mistake was "clear and obvious" but fine, call it a makeup from not giving Benezet the red he likely deserved.
12 minutes later a long shot across the box went out for a goal kick, but the VAR alerted Gantar to a possible handball in the box. On further review its possible the ball touched Rubio's arm, but again, it did not appear to be "clear and obvious" it was a handball. Still, the call was made and a PK given, and converted.
Immediately after kicking off from the PK the Rapids sent a long ball into the corner that Kamara headed on. Lewis tried to come in and play it with a high boot but was late. He was right in front of the AR who signaled for the foul and Gantar ran in and flashed yellow. He then turned, pointed towards the center of the pitch where Jack Price was (off screen) and showed Price a straight red. It was, apparently, for Offensive or Abusive Language. Nobody yet has reported what Price said, and as he went off the field you can hear him asking Fraser "How is that a red card?". If we assume, probably fairly, that Price didn't use some slur that would obviously be out of line (racists/sexist/homophobic/etc.) then what he likely said was some cursing at the ref and/or openly questioning his impartiality. Given my questions about Gantar's judgement up to this point in the game and from what we could see on screen (Jack telling him F*** You, which is bad but not necessarily a red) i have my doubts that what Price said would normally be considered a red by most refs. In the end though, the ref has the final say on what is or is not Offensive/Abusive to him.
Down two men and a goal the game was thought to be over, but kudos to the team for fighting back and leveling the score before an unfortunate deflection off Vines in stoppage time lead to an own goal and a loss. Post game both Benezet and Shinyashiki (and retired former Rapid Jared Watts) have been quite vocal on social media questioning the quality of the officiating and suggesting that things weren't on the level.
This is one of those cases where you can find justification for all the calls made, but having a VAR red, a VAR PK, and a red for language in a 15 minute time span is indicative of a game the ref let get away from him. Combined with the mess of a pregame (not the ref's fault, that's on MLS), you had a team that was likely on tilt and that's what probably led to Price losing his head. That' no excuse though, a player, especially a team captain, has to be more aware of things than that. The postgame ongoing critique from Benezet and Shinyashiki is bush league stuff. Somebody should have stopped it as soon as it started. It will likely lead to Shinyashiki (who's done more) being suspended, and if Benezet isn't suspended fro h is elbow he'll likely get one too.
So we're going to go into Wednesday's match without Danny Wilson and Jack Price for sure, and likely without Benezet and Shinyashiki. That leaves us a midfield of something like Warner - Acosta - Lewis - Namli - Bassett. Which isn't ideal for a must win game. Its only a must win if FSL beats SKC that morning, otherwise we'll be eliminated before we even kick off. If FSL does win, we need to win and we need to make up 4 goal differential on SKC (or 3 and outscore SKC by 3). That, alone, may not be enough because we'd still need to be one of the top four 3rd placed teams to advance.
Barring a miracle, the Rapids are headed back to Denver Wednesday night/Thursday morning. They let themselves get completely outplayed against FSL, and then they made mistakes at critical times against SKC while still likely being the better team. Then they compounded the error by letting the officiating get in their heads. Barring surprise advancement there's no way to look at this tournament as anything but a failure, and if the league finds some way to have a regular season after this, Colorado needs to decide what kind of team they really are.
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