MLS Week 7 Reports

New York City FC 1-1 Philadelphia               Referee: Baldomero Toledo (United States)
Not much to say about Toledo's performance, which was pretty strong. Still, I found something interesting from this game.
57th Minute: NYCFC's Mehdi Ballouchy celebrates scoring by removing his shirt. Toledo follows procedure and correctly yellow cards him. Nice job adhering to the rulebook by the veteran referee.

New York Red Bulls 2-1 San José                Referee: Jair Marrufo (United States)
No controversy for Marrufo in this match. Good work by the American ref.

DC United 1-1 Houston                                 Referee: Jorge Gonzalez (United States)
Gonzalez also didn't see controversy in his match. Good control shown in a critical match for both sides.

Columbus 3-0 Orlando City                           Referee: Ricardo Salazar (United States)
Salazar had a good match and excellently handled Rafael Ramos' moment of madness.
34th Minute: Orlando's Rafael Ramos intentionally hacks Waylon Francis in the ankle. Before Salazar can reach Ramos, he is swarmed by Crew players and issues a yellow to Hernán Grana for being particularly zealous in his protests. After moving past the Crew players, he correctly sends Ramos off. From this play, I see two decisions the Discipline Committee should retrospectively make:
1) Columbus should get a fine after already being warned about mass confrontations.
2) Ramos deserves a 2-3 game ban for that tackle. No place for that on a football field.

FC Dallas 3-2 Toronto                                   Referee: Ismail Elfath (United States)
Elfath had a good match, and him and his crew a good job delaying play in time to clear the ground before a thunderstorm hit. Very good caution shown by Elfath, who is rising towards a potential FIFA badge in the future.

Colorado 1-3 Seattle                                      Referee: Drew Fischer (Canada)
Another game with nothing worth noting. Good work by Fischer.

Salt Lake 0-1 Vancouver                               Referee: Ted Unkel (United States)
Unkel sent two RSL players in a key match at the top of the Western Conference table and I agree with both calls.
76th Minute: Sebastian Saucedo slides in with his studs up on Vancouver's Mauro Rosales. Any time the studs make hard contact with the leg it is absolutely a red in my book so I think this was a great call by Unkel.
89th Minute: Jamison Olave, already booked in the match, appears to have possibly tripped Darren Mattocks in the middle of a promising attack. Unkel whistles for a foul and shows Olave a second yellow. I'm not entirely convinced of contact, but I will side with Unkel because he had a better view and because yellow was the correct call if there was contact.

LA Galaxy 2-1 Kansas City                           Referee: Alan Kelly (Ireland)
Kelly had a pretty easy game, but one AR decision caught my attention in a good way.
22nd Minute: The Galaxy are convinced that Krisztian Németh was offsides on his equalizer for SKC but the replay shows that AR Felisha Mariscal nailed the onside decision. Great job by Mariscal!

Philadelphia 1-2 New England                       Referee: Mark Geiger (United States)
Geiger had a very good performance with no controversy. Good job from the World Cup referee.

New York City FC 0-1 Portland                     Referee: Armando Villarreal (United States)
Villarreal had a calm match where he faced little controversy and only had to show one yellow card. Nice job by the young referee.

Thanks for reading!