Using Hamlet to close the book on Sunday's overturned penalty

Last weekend's Houston Dynamo draw against Sporting Kansas City has been reviewed heavily due to several controversial moments including an overturned penalty and a denied penalty late for the Dynamo.

Everything that needs to be said has probably been said, so for one final look at the penalty decision that was overturned in the first half, we turn to William Shakespeare to help us provide a final verbal illustration of the scene at Sporting Park.

Our SCENE OPENS as Oriol Rosell makes an excellent tackle in the Sporting Kansas City box, Brad Davis goes down as an apparent result of the contact.

After a mere moments hesitation, referee Drew Fischer points to the spot, awarding a penalty.

As Davis remains on the ground, Jimmy Nielsen and Paulo Nagamura approach the Dynamo midfielder and reproach him.

Nielsen: "One may smile, and smile, and be a villain."

Nagamura: "Conscience doth make cowards of us all."

Davis defends his innocence.

Davis: "Doubt thou the stars are fire; Doubt that the sun doth move; Doubt truth to be a liar; But never doubt I was fouled."

Meanwhile, several Sporting Kansas City players -- including Graham Zusi, Claudio Bieler, Peterson Joseph and Oriol Rosell -- surround referee Fischer protesting the call and demanding that he discuss the call with his linesman and making angry remonstrations towards the referee.

Zusi: "I am but mad north-north-west. When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw!"

Zusi is joined by his teammates.

Bieler: "Something is rotten in the state of Kansas!"

Joseph: "So full of artless jealousy is guilt, it spills itself in fearing to be spilt."

Rosell: (making furious gestures to explain he got all ball on the tackle) "Brevity is the soul of wit."

On the sidelines, Dynamo head coach Dominic Kinnear watches the chaos on the field, shakes his head and mutters under his breath.

Kinnear: "When sorrows come, they come not single spies. But in battalions!"

Sporting head coach Peter Vermes rages at the fourth official, Daniel Radford and the near side linesman, Daniel Belleau.

Vermes: "This goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?"

Radford & Belleau: "Words, words, words."

Back on the field, the referee has been convinced to discuss the play with the far side linesman, Kevin Duliba. Before he can arrive, Zusi and Rosell run over and continue their protest.

Zusi: "This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man."

Rosell: (still making furious gestures to explain he got all ball on the tackle)

As Fischer arrives next to Duliba, waving away all the players, Dynamo midfielder Adam Moffat offers a final thought on behalf of his team.

Moffat: "The Sporks doth protest too much, methinks."

Alas it is not enough, as Duliba convinces Fischer that the penalty was mistakingly given and the decision is overturned. A correct decision, but hard none the less for the Dynamo to take.

Kinnear, frustrated by the decision, returns to the bench and sits before taking a deep breath and offering his final words on the matter.

Kinnear: "To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them?...When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause: there's the respect that makes calamity of so long life; For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, the oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, the pangs of despised love, the law's delay, the insolence of office and the spurns."

SCENE ENDS.