Today's News, Monday, July,22

[denime]

Mornin'




TFC TV




MLSE can’t keep giving TFC fans weak teams


Nelsen Critical Of Referee Decisions


Goals hard to come by as TFC and New York Red Bulls play to scoreless draw






TFC Related Blogs !!




SUNSHINE

[backbeat]

morning d....

1st and 2nd link go to the same article....

[CoachGT]

The first article is in the Sun and is fairly well written by a reporter who was a season ticket holder in year one. Not a bad piece.

Looking back on the game Saturday, I think that it was fairly well played, although roughly even between the teams. Neither team looked terribly dangerous in the attackng third. As far as the refereeing goes, though, it was passable. Replays show the NYRB goal called back was in fact onside, so we got away with one there, even if a penalty wasn't given. This is not the EPL or the Championship, where more qualified referees are abundant. We've had many threads on this board about refereeing over the years and about the apparent raw deal Toronto FC seems to get from them. The current ramblings of Nelsen are roughly equivalent to those of John Carver from second year. As a former player in this league, you would think Nelsen would be used to the decisions.

[jabbronies]

This is not the EPL or the Championship, where more qualified referees are abundant. We've had many threads on this board about refereeing over the years and about the apparent raw deal Toronto FC seems to get from them. The current ramblings of Nelsen are roughly equivalent to those of John Carver from second year. As a former player in this league, you would think Nelsen would be used to the decisions.

Doesn't matter if he's a former MLS player - this level of reffing is unacceptable. There is no consistency. something that is ok with one ref is not ok with another. heck - even within a single game you find varying degrees of tolerance by a ref or the same thing.

[[NBF]]

Jabbronies, IMO, its not like there's other choices for referees. My guess is there's a list of problems to be fixed with referee's around the league and they eventually review the complaints from the MLS teams. Those referee's that can adapt to changes will stay and those who can't get dropped. Really, its not like you can rent a referee from another country.

MLSE Weak Sauce Teams: It literally is one step forward and 3 steps back. Its horrible, I only watch TFC games, because I'm curious to see whether this is finally the bottom. Its a total joke. The guaranteed contracts are a problem, but the team can still be better than this. I will give some credit where credit is do, but I hope they get better quality on the team other than fringe/depth players.

[Dreadlocks]

http://www.torontosun.com/2013/07/20...teams-any-more

[jabbronies]

Jabbronies, IMO, its not like there's other choices for referees. My guess is there's a list of problems to be fixed with referee's around the league and they eventually review the complaints from the MLS teams. Those referee's that can adapt to changes will stay and those who can't get dropped. Really, its not like you can rent a referee from another country.

Agreed. No other options...but what is being done to change the problems?
Guys like Baldomero Toledo - he's been running a muck for years and there doesn't seem to be anything being done to change it.
He is such a blatant example of what is wrong with MLS refs yet no change. So if something this big isn't being fixed - how can we know that anything at all is being done.

[Eastend]

I know it's been mentioned a few times but how about tapping that abundance of quality refs in lower Euro leagues and bringing in DP refs? Bring in a head guy that knows what the hell he's doing and go from there? I know it's US Soccer that supplies refs but still a good thought....

Dom

[Carts]

It would be nice if we legitimately blame the officials for our purely pathetic record - but it's all on us...

The league does need to improve though. I think Dom is right, bring over a few senior 'DP' officials to mentor and lead by example. Have these refs be the 4th official while the senior guys are reffing, have the senior guys as 4th officials to be in the ear of these inexperienced officials... Hell, bring over older, retired officials to be the 4th official!

Something, anything, to help improve the quality of officials...

[ag futbol]

The major problem this year is that MLS is “breaking-in” a whole bunch of new officials. That’s lead to tons of inconsistency and some terrible missed calls. It’s worse than years past.

Now that being said, MLS has tools to make the officiating better that it hasn’t used to it’s full extent. Their stance for a long time was that it was all on the USSF to produce referees, which was entirely laughable. Here’s an interesting stat: up until the start of last season this league had 2 full time officials. They had basically no resources for referees to meet / conference to line up their standards. Now, they’ve improved this, but barely. There are something like 5-6 full time officials and they have a conference one or two times a year to help standardize what they are doing… but it’s still laughable. It’s not surprising the officiating is this bad when they hardly put any resources into it.

That being said, Nelsen’s complaining about officiating is completely hallow. He needs to stop with the excuses in his post-game pressers, he is starting to sound like he has a loose grip on reality. I don’t want to hear anymore about how we are in every game, how unlucky we are, the officiating, injuries, call-ups, waiting on signings, etc… Just tell us the team was not good and has to be better.

[Yohan]

The major problem this year is that MLS is “breaking-in” a whole bunch of new officials. That’s lead to tons of inconsistency and some terrible missed calls. It’s worse than years past.

Now that being said, MLS has tools to make the officiating better that it hasn’t used to it’s full extent. Their stance for a long time was that it was all on the USSF to produce referees, which was entirely laughable. Here’s an interesting stat: up until the start of last season this league had 2 full time officials. They had basically no resources for referees to meet / conference to line up their standards. Now, they’ve improved this, but barely. There are something like 5-6 full time officials and they have a conference one or two times a year to help standardize what they are doing… but it’s still laughable. It’s not surprising the officiating is this bad when they hardly put any resources into it.

That being said, Nelsen’s complaining about officiating is completely hallow. He needs to stop with the excuses in his post-game pressers, he is starting to sound like he has a loose grip on reality. I don’t want to hear anymore about how we are in every game, how unlucky we are, the officiating, injuries, call-ups, waiting on signings, etc… Just tell us the team was not good and has to be better.

http://www.proreferees.com/

[tfcmanu]

Former TFC midfielder Amado Guevara is apparently a pro baller now

http://blogs.canoe.ca/reds/sports/fo...4Iqdf8.twitter

[Alonso]

I know it's been mentioned a few times but how about tapping that abundance of quality refs in lower Euro leagues and bringing in DP refs? Bring in a head guy that knows what the hell he's doing and go from there? I know it's US Soccer that supplies refs but still a good thought....

Dom

The league has done exactly this.

They brought in a guy from England if I remember correctly. He has reworked the whole system, added 5 fulltime refs (I think it was 5) and instituted game reviews with the refs after each game in a professional development approach. He is also gathering all the refs multiple times each year for professional development courses/seminars etc...

[Eastend]

The league has done exactly this.

They brought in a guy from England if I remember correctly. He has reworked the whole system, added 5 fulltime refs (I think it was 5) and instituted game reviews with the refs after each game in a professional development approach. He is also gathering all the refs multiple times each year for professional development courses/seminars etc...

Thanks for this. I guess like everything else it will take time. Unfortunately it is painful growing pains but hopefully it leads us to where we need to be.

Dom

[DOMIN8R]

Tim Leiweke fishing for designated players for Toronto FC “It may be this window, it may be the next window. We have to find the right person. We are committed to spending the money, the owners have committed to that."

[HuTor]

Tim Leiweke fishing for designated players for Toronto FC “It may be this window, it may be the next window. We have to find the right person. We are committed to spending the money, the owners have committed to that."

What some of the amateur fishermen do after a full day in which haven't caught any fish?
In the way home stops by the store and buys some fish... for wife to cook...
Just to have fish for dinner... I really hope TFC won't do this, at least this time not.

So we better wait til another transfer window, than buying some "half garbage fish" for just to have it already.