What a hot mess that was on Saturday night at Robertson Stadium. More offensive struggles, two straight red cards and lots and lots of angry Dynamo fans who let official Kevin Stott have it in full force. It's exactly how the fans should react in the stadium and the heat of the moment, but after taking a look at the replays on both calls, Stott got both red cards right...and it kills me to admit that.
Colin Clark let his feet and went studs up in to the leg and ankle of Aurelien Collin right in front of the referee. Simple dumb frustration and when you're leading at home it those kind of mental breakdowns you can ill afford. The tackle could be defensible if Clark made a play on the ball, but he didn't and even the most incompetent referee in MLS (and we all know it's packed full of them) is going to show a red in that situation. If they don't, they are not doing their job properly.
Brian Ching's straight red earned was a bit more debatable but I still can see where Stott was coming from. While the tackle itself was cynical and late, the ball had been gone for at least a couple seconds, it wasn't really violent. Still, it was an incredibly stupid decision by Ching and he admitted as much after the match.
"I made a bad decision and we got punished for it," Ching said. "I cost the team two points. They did extremely well to be men, stand up, and not give up and fight till the end."
However you feel about the color of card Stott should have shown, you can't put the referee in a position late in the game to even have to make a choice about showing a red card.
My defense of Kevin Stott ends there. The remainder of the match was much of what we've come to expect from the clowns with whistles from the USSF. Unbalanced decisions, several hard tackles by Sporting KC players went unpunished and as usual, he wasn't very good at controlling the game. It's the same song and dance routine we seek all the time in this league. These referees have no consistent ability to manage the game for 90 minutes and worse, there is zero consistency not only between different officials but by the same damn idiots each week. These morons never react the same way to similar plays.
Stott also marched right off the field after the final whistle, refusing to even shake hands with coaches or players. He was likely trying to avoid any confrontations but I prefer to just call him a dick.
Despite all that, the Dynamo gave away two points at home yet again thanks to poor decision making. I really don't know where this team's head is at sometimes.
On top of everything else, Jermaine Taylor went down with what looked like a rather severe head injury. The Dynamo haven't released anything official about his condition, but Taylor wanted to return to the game in the second half but was kept out for precautionary reasons. Good decision in my book, no need to mess around with potential concussions.
The team now faces a meaningless mid-week friendly (money raised for charity aside) and then a trip to Los Angeles to face Chivas USA missing their best forward, one of their starting center backs and a key midfielder. It's hard enough for the Dynamo to get points without them shooting themselves in the foot like they did on Saturday.
Oh yeah, Tally Hall was spectacular yet again. He's quickly becoming one of the Top 5 goalkeepers in MLS.