Tempers always seem to be running high when Sporting Kansas City and the Houston Dynamo play. The Eastern Conference rivals have met in each of the last three MLS Cup playoffs on their way to the finals and the matches often turn physical. Even with the Dynamo struggling this season, their Friday night encounter perfectly fit the established narrative.
There were no fatalities in Sporting KC-Dynamo slugfest and the referee is the reason why
Mark Geiger deserves credit for a well-called match.
Gary Rohman-USA TODAY Sports
A lengthy weather delay -- lightning turned the skies a shade of apocalyptic -- only served to ratchet up the tensions. There were penalty shouts, yellow cards and hard fouls all over the pitch and it finally came to a head late in the first half when a shoving match between Kofi Sarkodie and Benny Feilhaber threatened to send the match over the edge (via Reddit).
But instead of boiling over, the match actually got a bit better after this. A lot of the credit for that belongs to referee Mark Geiger.
MLS referees are a, rightly, maligned lot. They are often accused of allowing for overly physical play and when they do break out cards, it’s often for hard-to-explain reasons. But Geiger played this one perfectly.
After conferring with both his assistant referees, Geiger chose to give yellows to both Sarkodie and Feilhaber. Although Geiger would give out a total of five cards and whistle 35 fouls, he never gave a red nor awarded a penalty. There were plenty of opportunities for him to do those things -- and some surely would have liked to see Geiger do just that in order to “take control” -- but no individual foul rose to the level of requiring such a game-changing decision. Instead, the World Cup veteran referee never seemed to lose his nerve and the physical nature of the game seemed to die down in the second half.
That may not be the method most referees need to use, but Geiger got this one right.
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