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Marsch livid about Revs scoring after Kemar Lawrence injury

Jesse Marsch New York Red Bulls 67
Photo by Jennifer Buchanan/USA Today Sports

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — New York Red Bulls head coach Jesse Marsch had strong words for the New England Revolution and referee Mark Geiger after the Revs scored their winning goal Friday night as Red Bulls defender Kemar Lawrence laid on the ground injured.

“It’s shameful,” Marsch said. “The game’s supposed to have honor. And they can claim they didn’t see him, they can claim they weren’t sure he was hurt. It was clear as day that he was down on the ground and not just one player saw him, but the whole team saw him. So, that part, for me, is shameful.”

“The other part is that the referee has such a huge impact on this game by having a bad performance,” Marsch added. “He can blow the whistle when a guy’s down like that.”

Diego Fagundez scored the scored the 55th-minute winner after Scott Caldwell played a long ball over the top to Juan Agudelo, who found the left winger at the far post. Agudelo was held onside by Lawrence, who was on the ground outside the box.

“I was thinking he was going to get up because they kept on playing,” Agudelo said.

“I thought that they had the ball and they had a chance to kick it out, from what I remember. And then we stole the ball and we were able to just finish through the play. Obviously, I feel bad about it. They seemed really upset and maybe they had a reason, but maybe their defense stays back and are aware of him going down,” he added.

Revs coach Jay Heaps thought Agudelo had every right to continue the play.

“I try to have our guys play until the whistle,” Heaps said. “There are injures that the referee has to stop or you have to kick out of bounds. When the game’s on and Juan Agudelo gets the ball at the top and he’s onside at the 18, he’s got to play that on.”

“I’d be just as mad in the same scenario, but I’d understand,” Heaps added. “I would probably want my defender to finish the play or get to a position where he’s not in an offside or make enough commotion where you get the referee to stop.”

Marsch said Lawrence’s injury status is still uncertain.

“Kemar felt his knee pop a little bit,” Marsch said. “We’re hopeful that he’s okay, but we’re not sure.”

So, were the Revolution right to continue on with a scoring play that ended up giving them their first win of the season, or does Marsch have a legitimate beef?

Comments

  1. Only excusable reason I could see is if RBNY had the ball when he was down and didn’t kick it out. Someone on that back line would’ve been yelling at them to put it out. If they kept playing after they knew he was down, Revs have every right to go right back at them. But if he went down when Revs had the ball, and not near the goal, that is just low. Anyone who has ever played soccer knows you put the ball out in a situation like that. There has to be some decency left in people.

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  2. I have to laugh when I see the Red Bulls complain about “honor” and all. Where was the honor when it came to throwing all the elbows the Bulls were throwing?

    Why would a team stop an attack if some clown is on the ground, maybe hurt, maybe faking? Screw that. Get up an play

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    • Well, seeing that Lawrence was stretchered off the field, it would have been hard for him to “get up and play.” I understand the “play the whistle” sentiment, but teams often play the ball out when they see an opponent down. As I recall, Lawrence was well behind the play when he went down; it’s not like he sought to stop an attack by faking an injury when the Revs already had the ball in his defensive third of the field. Bottom line, from my perspective: the Revs didn’t *have* to play the ball out, because there was no whistle, but the entire team had plenty of time to see that Lawrence was down, and chose to play on, with Agudelo kept onside by Lawrence. Two wrongs don’t make a right, but if the Revs don’t think they did anything wrong in the first place, they should not be surprised if RBNY chooses not to give them the benefit of the doubt in the future.

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  3. You know what is truly awful? It is not that
    a) the ref didn’t stop play due to injury
    b) sends off Felipe on a straight red card

    no, this pure excuse of a ref (anybody remember the fiasco he caused in Latin America?), isn’t even the worse ref in the league. Holy Toledo!

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    • Geiger misses plays because his ego is so big it blocks his view. The red card had “Complain about my not blowing the whistle? I’ll show you who’s in charge” written all over it.

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      • I don’t recall Geiger being so bad pre world cup assignment. Since that misplaced honor… it seems his ego has run completely amok and in turn, he is determined to be seen, to inject himself into every match he officiates. Unfortunately, he inevitably succeeds in the worst way. You’d think the shameful debacle at the Gold Cup would have brought him back to ground but…. apparently not. As if the game he calls isn’t bad enough- something about his demeanor while doing it makes one want to throttle him. Jermaine Jones gets plenty of shite for his outburst but……. I thought he showed tremendous restraint. Note to Geiger: The most profficient /confident referee is the one you hardly notice.

  4. I am not one of these guys who blames the ref every time my team doesn’t win but between not blowing the whistle here and the absurd Felipe sending off, the ref had a pretty big impact on this one. And BWP still had two excellent chances to score even after RBNY went down to ten men so he takes those chances, no one would care about this.

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  5. Why is Mark Geiger permitted to referee matches? Last year he made mistakes in Revolution playoff, he brought Gold Cup into total disrupte, LA Galaxy mess..The MLS has to think that about the perception of the league, this guy should not be refereeing.

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  6. “The game is supposed have honor.” — Marsh

    Pretty funny coming from a guy caught cheTing on his exams at Princeton,…which resulted in his team forfeiting an NCAA tournament appearance.

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  7. For those of us that watched the highlights on MLS.com, it didn’t show what happened before the sequence that led to the goal and then what happened to the player.
    So, what happened before the goal sequence? When did Kemar Lawrence go down? Where was the ball? Did the Red Bulls see Kemar go down and continue to play on or was he behind everyone?
    What happened after the goal? It doesn’t look like Kemar was subbed off. Did he get treatment and then continue to pay on?

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    • Lawrence was well behind the play and went down in the box. I don’t know who had the ball when he went down as I was watching on TV and the camera was up field. Lawrence kept Aguedelo onside when the Revs attacked and was subbed off before play resume. He was down for some time…

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  8. NE is classless. 100/100 times u stop playing. heaps is a weasel looking to win any way he can but that’s low. even for him.

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