Estimated read time: 5-6 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
The punishment for Chivas USA forward Marcos Mondaini's "clumsy" tackle on Real Salt Lake midfielder Javier Morales was announced on Wednesday.
The suspension? Just four games and a $1,500 fine. (Officially that would be three games and $1,250 fine because the red card Mondaini received carried a one-game suspension and a $250 fine.)
Many across the country consider this to be a very light punishment on Mondaini, who tackled Morales from behind, leaving him with a broken ankle, a dislocation and some torn ligaments. Mondaini was beat on the play, and to prevent Morales from shooting and having a great chance at scoring, he lowered his body to the ground to get under Morales' legs and take him down. But, this time Mondaini's butt came crashing down onto Morales' left ankle, resulting in the painful injury.
The behind-the-back tackle is not an unusual thing in soccer, but each league around the globe has a different way of handling such a play to prevent injuries like the one we saw May 7.
For a league like Major League Soccer, this is somewhat a problem since the skill level of some players exceeds others on the field, and development of players to compete against top level athletes in the United States is limited. More injuries with fouls that are potentially dangerous happen, and this year it has finally reached the breaking point (literally).
So was the tackle from behind wrong? No, that sort of tackle happens all the time. In fact, a week before, Robbie Russell made a play in the CONCACAF game where he slid right from the back side of a Monterrey forward and kicked the ball out. The Mexican player wanted a foul, but no foul was called and the announcers talked about how good of a tackle it was. Dangerous? Yes, but under control. That is why when describing the Mondaini tackle the word "clumsy" is used. Mondaini lowered his body in a way that was too close to Morales' feet and with the right stride, the bottom end of Mondaini's body and Morales' ankle met.
The punishment given was a little light, but right in the area it needed to be. I thought a five-game suspension would be sufficient. Now, we get into the unique area that MLS players live in - pay.
Mondaini doesn't get paid very much to play soccer. In fact, he makes less than $45,000 a year to play in the league. The $1,500 fine is basically one pay check, which would almost everyone financially. If he doesn't have some kind of cash saved up then he might be missing a few bills this month.
We understand he didn't go after Morales with intent to hurt him. He went at Morales to stop him from scoring. It just happened that he landed on his ankle on an already dangerous challenge. The bigger issue happens to be on the referees of the league.
Would that play have happened if referee Paul Ward had come down hard on all the other fouls occurring on the field that led up to the injury of Morales? Maybe, but there's no question the league's referees have underperformed this year. A soccer referee's main priority is to keep the game clean, and this has not been the case in MLS.
We can break down numerous games were there are just too many hard close-up bully fouls from players, with the only punishment being a slap on the wrist, which doesn't stop them from doing it again. One such foul occurred earlier in the RSL-Chivas match that could've stopped the fouling once and for all.
Andrew Boyens' foul on Alvaro Saborio in the 15th minute is a perfect example of the ref being too lenient on the call.
Saborio had broken in front of Boyens and had no one but the goalkeeper to beat. Before Saborio could get to the ball, Boyens pulled him down. It was an obvious foul, and in most other leagues that foul would've been a straight red card. If a red would've been shown then, it would've been a good warning to the other players - knock it off with the stupid plays or you'll be gone.
In this case a yellow was shown, and RSL couldn't generate anything from the free kick. Boyens wasn't done, committing another foul just ten minutes later. He again knocked Saborio to the ground, preventing him from meeting a pass on a free kick. Another yellow card resulted in a red and Boyens was finally shown the exit. That foul again was a intentional bully foul and should have been a straight red. Boyens was out of control.
The first yellow didn't stop Boyens from playing dirty. If referee Paul Ward hadn't lost control from the first foul, then he certainly lost it on the second. The rough play continued, and had Morales not broken his ankle, it's hard to believe that more hard fouls wouldn't have occurred in that game.
So if MLS wants to really address the rough fouls in their matches and prevent them, it's time the players start fearing the ref. As I watch some of the other leagues around the world, it's understood that a tackle from behind with no chance to get the ball will result in a red card. It's also understood that if you intentionally take a player down to prevent him from scoring, it's a red card. So if you want to get control of players' rough play to prevent ugly injuries to your star players, how about showing red cards for a while? It might take a season or two, but the players would catch on and maybe the cowardly fouls will drop a little bit more.
Email: bschroeder@ksl.com
