Tag: Greg Vanney

Please enjoy this spectacularly dumb red card from Martin Caceres

It’s important to remember that video reviews are for referees, not for players

In the pantheon of dumb red cards, the second yellow for taking one’s jersey off after scoring is usually top of the list.

But on Saturday night, LA Galaxy defender Martin Cáceres introduced a new, possibly even dumber category: the second yellow for interfering with a referee during a VAR review.

It’s important to remember that video reviews are for referees, not for players. The referee, not the player, is called over to the monitor to review a play. Players don’t get to watch the replay and tell the referee what they think. The video control room is staffed with referees, not with players.

Cáceres is a veteran, and probably knew all of this. And yet, the Uruguayan defender still managed to earn one of the all-time dumbest (and funniest) red cards in MLS history in a 3-0 away defeat to the Houston Dynamo.

With LA down 1-0 in the second half, referee Alex Chilowicz was called over to the monitor to check out a potential penalty against the Galaxy.

Cáceres, who, it should be emphasized, has 116 caps for Uruguay and has featured in four World Cups, decided that Chilowicz needed a little help.

As it turned out, Chilowicz did not need a little help.

The Galaxy went down a man and two goals after the penalty was awarded and Houston converted. From there it was simply damage control for the visitors, who also saw Douglas Costa sent off in stoppage time for slamming Brooklyn Raines to the turf with the ball out of play.

Galaxy head coach Greg Vanney, as you might imagine, was not enthused with the unforced errors from two of his most experienced players.

“Yeah, it’s unacceptable. They know it’s unacceptable,” Vanney said in his post-game press conference. “They apologized to the group, but it’s not acceptable. It can’t happen. These guys are veterans in our team. They’re supposed to be leaders in our team. They need to set examples. They need to, again, control their emotions, and we need them available always, and they understand that, and it’s not acceptable.”

Vanney is right to be upset but for the neutrals, discovering a new category of dumb red card is nothing short of a resounding success.

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A furious Greg Vanney helpfully demonstrates the handball rule

Vanney had some choice words about the referee’s interpretation of a silhouette

Does anybody actually know what the handball rules are?

Sure, the rules exist, and are written down in an official capacity. But there always seems to be debate anyway.

Case in point: Saturday night’s game between the LA Galaxy and the Seattle Sounders.

Seattle took a two-goal lead in the first half, but the Galaxy pulled one back in the second half and were putting on tons of pressure late as they pressed for an equalizer.

As the game entered its final minutes, Mark Delgado received the ball on the side of Seattle’s box and put in a cross. With his arms behind his back but his elbows extended out, Sounders defender Nouhou blocked the cross with his elbow in the box.

The Galaxy furiously protested but no handball was called, and there was no VAR review either.

The game ended in a 2-1 Seattle win.

Vanney was less then enthused at his post-game press conference, standing up to demonstrate Nouhou’s arm positioning while explaining why, in his opinion, the Galaxy were robbed of a penalty.

“This is in the silhouette,” Vanney said with his arms at his side.

“This is not in the silhouette, this is a handball,” he said, arms on his hips as he approximated (and exaggerated) Nouhou’s arm position.

“Three games in a row, these guys don’t know what handball is. It’s getting to be obscene,” Vanney said. “Honestly, it’s ridiculous. And the game is about margins. They have VAR. They’re the only entity in the entire game that gets a ‘redo.’ None of us else get a redo. They get a redo. And it’s three times they can’t get it right. That’s their job. That’s their job.”

The “silhouette” that Vanney referenced is part of a 2019 update to the handball rules from IFAB (International Football Association Board), which stated that a handball would be awarded if “the ball touches a player’s hand/arm which has made their silhouette unnaturally bigger.”

ESPN rules expert Dale Johnson added in a 2020 thread on Twitter:

It’s all about the silhouette, the area of the body. If the arms are not within the silhouette, no matter what movement you are making, they are considered to be making the body “unnaturally bigger”. Your natural shape does not have your arms away from the body.

Did Vanney have a point? That may depend on who you ask. What isn’t up for debate, though, is the Galaxy are near the bottom of the Western Conference table in the early part of 2023, still looking for their first win after five games.

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The LA Galaxy would prefer Chicharito not offer injury updates on Twitch

The Galaxy striker got out ahead of his club in offering a timeline on his hamstring injury

LA Galaxy head coach Greg Vanney couldn’t contain his annoyance after star forward Javier “Chicharito” Hernández spilled the beans on his injury status during a live stream on Twitch.

The Mexican forward has been suffering from a hamstring injury and declared himself unavailable for Saturday’s game against FC Dallas.

“Am I going to play in Dallas? No, I’m still recovering from my injury. I’m going to be between two to five more weeks out because we have to be very careful with the recovery to avoid relapses,” Chicharito said.

At a press conference ahead of the game in Texas, Vanney admitted that Chicharito’s report on Twitch wasn’t exactly the way he’d prefer his team’s injury news to be revealed.

“I think at the end of the day, players sometimes get out in front of it and want to let fans and other people know how they’re doing,” Vanney said. “But ultimately there is a way and a time and a place to give that, because it’s also about the opposition, game management, game prep, all those kinds of things.

“It’s not earth shattering in this situation, but in different circumstances these things could be very important information that you give to the other team or the opposition that you don’t necessarily want to be doing.”

Vanney also pushed back against his striker’s assessment that he could be out for more than a month, saying he’s hopeful the timeline could be as little as 10 days.

“With Javier, he’s in the treatment phase, then he’s gotta go through return-to-play [protocol],” Vanney said. “I don’t know exactly … 2-5 weeks is a long range. Our anticipation with the grade 1 hamstring strain is 10 days to a couple of weeks.”

Chicharito scored 18 goals in 32 regular season games for the Galaxy in 2022. The club will make its season debut against FC Dallas after last week’s opener against LAFC at the Rose Bowl was postponed due to severe weather.

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