A Punch In The Balls

Housekeeping first; as the last Xtranormal movie warned, I'm not going to blog that way for some time. It limits my expression, it keeps this guy from being able to easily grab quotes¹ from me so that I get published in a higher-traffic blog (which is, as we all know, my sole raisin), it's getting repetitive (although everyone loves the Ilse dance), and most importantly, the scripts that Xtranormal loads as a result of the embeds significantly slow down my site's load time (UPDATE: Gee, the site seems to load much faster this morning, just not having an embed as the top post.). For that reason, I'll leave the embeds as they are for a bit, then convert them to links in a week or two. Or less, if I have time and get really sick of the slow loads.

Let's move on to the topic of the night, which this guy correctly, understatedly, and uncharacteristically (for him--he's obsessed with keeping his blog clean, although I hope he never kisses me with that mouth, even though he's a total sex god) referred to as "a punch in the balls."

As you will find from other sources, DCU lost at New England tonight, only its second loss of the season, and only 2-1, after a more-or-less acceptable first half and a not very good second half. As D pointed out in his first impressions, they shouldn't have been in a position to lose.

That said, center official Hilario Grajeda called a travesty of a game. The centerpiece of it was a fuckawful penalty in the 89th minute against Brian Namoff. Grajeda blew the whistle a full six seconds after Taylor Diving Fucking Twellman flopped backwards and pretended Namoff had pulled him down.³ D offers that he'll forgive Grajeda if it develops that the assistant referee thought it was a penalty.

I won't. The assistant referee had a better angle (for once--offsides calls coming from that A.R. were consistently off, too, in both directions), but a more distant view. It should've been obvious to him that Namoff didn't pull the diving fucker down. I also won't forgive Grajeda because, in the last minute of stoppage, he didn't call a penalty when Rodney Wallace was blatantly and obviously pulled down, by the jersey, in the box, as he was trying to play a pretty well-placed cross. The foul committed against Wallace was far more egregious--and booking-worthy--than the foul Namoff was alleged to have committed.

That was the worst of it, but Grajeda lost control of the game early and kept paying for it. Sainey Nyassi should've been booked three or four times, by my count; the inept fucking moron actually booked Josh Wicks for making a fucking save--again, because Taylor Diving Fucking Twellman fell down and rubbed his pussy; and he consistently overlooked bumping and shirt-tugging. Some of it cut both ways, but when it counted, Grajeda very clearly and decisively favored the home team (or maybe he was getting Taylor Diving Fucking Twellman's jersey after the match).

This is getting old. Sometimes MLS officials' ineptitude is just plain distracting, as it was in the USOC game at RFK against the Red Scum. That was a dreadfully officiated game, and fortunately the game was so decisive that the referee couldn't fuck it up. Mostly. Other times, entire games revolve around asinine decisions by people who shouldn't be in the middle of a pitch.

It's also a credible view that the team shouldn't have been in a position to go down on a 90th-minute penalty. But that doesn't matter. If you live on the edge, that's where you live, and if you keep getting yourself out of the deep cacky, you have a right not to be put back in it by utter fucking incompetence.

I've been hard on Tom Soehn. I've softened that view the last couple or three games, although I still think that his mentality--and thus the team's--is entirely too defensive. I think Soehn has some heat to take for tonight's effort. The Rev have some speedy motherfuckers on the wing, and playing a slow 3-5-2 against that is just bone fucking dumb (I'm not the first person to say this: has Tom Soehn ever played Football Manager?). On the other hand, the lineup was well-chosen (the subs weren't--McTavish was a dumbass sub from a coach who swears he wants to bring Jacobson into the offense more, and I'd have brought in Moreno before Mister Sulu, although it was appropriate not to start Jaime), and the team's effort in the first half didn't seem to reflect a bunker mentality. Wicks shouldn't, in my view, have to take much of a rap; he made a great and appropriate effort on the Shalrie Joseph goal, and Joseph just plain beat him, though Jacovic (I think it was him--whoever was defending the cross on the right side just got stomped on that play⁵) probably should.

After all of my rant, D still said it better and best: what a fucking punch in the balls.

¹ While I'm on the topic, I am putting a jihad on him for not doing a full debrief on the RSL game, thus leaving to the book of unwritten history this best six-word game summary evar: "They're the real hot item, Powdermilk."<sup>2

2</sup> Yes. I'm done now.

³ Some are contending that Grajeda called a handball on Jacovic that was simultaneous with the Twellman dive. Twellman didn't think so. On the other hand, he tells us in the same interview that he also thinks he has a God-given right for the goalkeeper to get the fuck out of his way and let him score, and that failure to do so constitutes a penalty, so I'm not sure I want to bank anything on what Taylor Diving Fucking Twellman⁴ thinks.

⁴ Way more discommodated (as a Terp) than Tino Quaranta ever was or ever will be as a human.

⁵ UPDATE: I now think it was Pontius who got punked there, adding another slice of flat to what was really not a very good game for the lad. Who this guy doesn't like any more anyway.