If El Salvador's Under-23 men's national team is to qualify for this summer's Olympics, they will have to do so without one of their top defenders.
Alexander Larin was suspended three games by the FIFA Disciplinary Committee on Friday for his actions against the United States in last Monday's Group A finale in Olympic qualifying at LP Field in Nashville, Tenn.
Larin gave forward Terrence Boyd a bloody nose after punching him in the face during an off-the-ball incident in the second half of the 3-3 draw that eliminated the Americans. Larin, who also allegedly bit Mix Diskerud and Freddy Adu in the game, did not receive any punishment from the referees for punching Boyd inside the penalty area.
The suspension means Larin will not be available to play in El Salvador's pivotal match versus Honduras at Livetrong Sporting Park in Kansas City on Saturday evening. Should El Salvador win that match and book their place in the Summer Games, he'd also miss the Olympic qualifying tournament final and the first game of the Olympics.
If El Salvador loses to Hondruas, Larin will be forced to miss two games in the next Under-23 tournament.
What do you think of Larin being suspended three games by FIFA for his actions? Is it a just suspension or should it have been longer?
Share your thoughts below.
Freaking excuses people…ES was better and they still didn’t go to London (although they showed a lot of HEART AND BALLS which we lacked throughout the tournament)…this goes back to what even Cabrera said once he was let go off the U-17 team that we have the physical abilities yet we don’t know how to use it cause we are chicken sh#@#…
My penis is bigger than yours! No, no mine is. No mine is. No mine is!!!! Nothing is going to change unless FIFA agrees that officials from outside of your federation should call all major tournaments and qualifiers. Otherwise this argument never ends!!
Not true. A PK to the US and ES down to 10 could have easily given the US the easy win.
Tell me about it. A US ref eliminated El Salvador today and you don’t see Ives and co mentioning it.
There is no comparison between this game and the AZ situation.
That involved the threat of violence from the crowd, a clear assault on his player by a spectator (not an opposing player)and the threat to the safety of his entire team.
No way Porter and the US get any sympathy from CONCACAF if he tries a walk off for what amounts to about a bad call by the ref.
What Larrin did, while unsporting, is hardly unprecedented. The most likely outcome would have been a US forfeit.
Why didn’t Boyd know enough to stay down?
It has been that way for many, many years and many qualifying campaigns.
Ask Donovan.
Where have you been?
Can you guarantee that the US makes the penalty kick?
And if they had can you guarantee that the leaky US defense and their suspect goal tenders would have stopped the Salvadorians from scoring and tieing up the game again?
You can’t.
In the end the US went out because Sean Johnson could not keep a ball out of the net when he should have been able to.
That is what it came down to. If you want to blame one guy blame Johnson or one of the lame defenders who could not even bring down Alas on his way to shoot. Bring him down outside the box, break his leg, get red carded and waste more time. They could not even do that. All they can do is make up BS excuses like the ref is incompetent. Well everyone knew that going in so take it out of his hands and be up by two goals instead of one late in the game.
The US lost because they did not want it as badly as El Salvador.
Honduras goes through with the help of an American ref, so I guess we are even.
The duties of the referee are to enforce the Laws of the Game.
The suspension by FIFA acknowledges there was a failure by the crew in this game to uphold these duties.
While I initially felt that the US in no way deserved to win this game, no one can know what would have happened had the referee penalized Larin’s conduct. Mention has been made that maybe Okugo deserved to be sent off as well, but this probably could have been countered by calls against other players in blue, for which the whistle never blew. There are always shoulda and couldas in any game, but the fact that FIFA acknowledges these shortcomings is notable.
Smell Cheatador has also been eliminated, Honduras is through
Honduras just scored 3-2
A little too late, but good … F*ing scumbag
it’s funny how there is always some idiot that blames Mexico for the US shortcomings. Lets face it: the US were just not good enough. Who loses to Canada?
From CCL to the Gold Cup to the Olympics Mexico has shown that they are in a completely different level. You should just be thankful they even answer the phone when the USSF calls.
Please shut up. People like you make all US fans sound like a bunch of ignorant idiots.
I find it amazing that people whine over the Boyd incident but fail to mention the fact that Okugo should’ve been shown his second yellow card early in the first half for hitting an opponent with his forearm.
I’m starting to see a trend around here…
sad, not said
What is said as well is that this is unlikely to change. I remeber reading about an Argentina fan happy but perplexed that some Englishman didn’t just scythe down Maradona on his famous run. Unfortunately, it seems like histrionics and attempts to con refs are deeply ingrained in Latin American football culture.
Maintaining that we didn’t deserve to win and that the non-call had nothing to do with the outcome of the game are two entirely different things.
It is obvious any Mexican referees who ref games involving the US have no ethics and will cheat as much as possible and ignore rules to assist the US’ opponents. This non call literally cost the US the game,despite what the dimwit “Al” claimed in his total nonsensical statement . The US needs a real man as Director of the USSF to put a stop to the constant terribly biased refereeing in CONCACRAP sanctioned games and also the terrible refereeing the US faces at the World Cup. What percentage of goals that were questionably disallowed occurred were US goals? It is laughable that a Professor of Economics whose soccer experience consists of HS soccer and works part time for the USSF runs the USSF. Gulati would never complain because he is only head of the USSF because he the puppet of FIFA crime bosses such as Jack Warner and Sepp Blatter . IF the US complains about the incredible bias such as occurred in the ES game ,Gulati would miss out on the free trips to FIFA events etc.
I’m curious about the reaction to this in El Salvador.
HAHA poor baby
My first response when seeing the ref had no intentions to penalize larin was to pull the players off the field. If fifa is not going to do anything about situations like this (replay) make them decided whether or not to give us a forfeit. I had a lot of respect for Verbeek when he pulled the team. No reason to risk injury if the referees are unwilling or unable to stop violence.
They did see it. The linesman main job is to watch the most forward players, and he does. The video tape shows him watching Boyd and Larin unobstructed. It also shows the ref looking at it. I believe the ref may have waved off the linesman.
I still don’t understand why he can’t be brought up on charges. I mean an errant tackle, even one that results in injury, is still part of the game in terms of conventional moves. But no where and at no time has punching or biting ever been part of soccer technique. If that had happened in the stands this bendejo would be in jail or at the every least have a civil suit brought against him.
I can’t imagine that this kind of activity can be covered under any kind of game play waiver that FIFA or CONCACAF have in place. BTW I would be saying this (and have said it) when American players take a run at opponents as well, so this is not about sour grapes over the loss. This simply should not be tolerated in any way at this level of the game and if CONCACAF won’t do anyting about it then Boyd Diskerud Adu and the unnamed Canadian player should get a lawyer and take care of it themselves.
“… nothing to do with the outcome of the game…’
Nonsense, one less player, down two goals, two less minutes. The no-call had a huge impact.
3 games is a joke of a suspension for a serious of violent incidents, even ignoring the failures of the referee.
There’s something very disturbing in CONCACAF.
Klinsmann better be prepared for more than soccer.
It’s sad that the Mexican ref waved play-on, for a punch in the face. USA side should have told Boyd to stay down and then demanded the ref confer with the linesman who was zeroed in on the event. Reports from USA sports writers that the event was not seen, are disgusting.
There would’nt have been the extra added minute if Boyd didnt need to have his bloody nose tended to, so the match would have ended before ES’s hail mary goal.
+1,000,000!
+1,000,000
Not enough of a suspension. He and the referee should sit out a year. A message needs to be sent that these kinds of actions are unacceptable. USSF should make a bigger stink about this every time it happens. Glad to see that Canada pushed it after the game.
+1
They probably should add to his suspension for that. Obviously, I knew nothing about the bites, and I didn’t even know it was Larin who hit Boyd, Still, his tackling was so nasty that I wrote after the game that Larin might not want to go to MLS because there are a few MLSers who’d like another shot at him. 3 games seems light for this little piece of merde.
To Al….. despite the terrible non-call, I don’t disagree with your point at all. The US did not deserve to move on thanks to the 4-3-3 which is a deathtrap for US teams at all age groups, terrible coaching and game management, and the inability of US players to clear the ball and show the tenacity to see the game out in stoppage time. I like Juergen Klinsmann but he must be smart enough to re-think this 4-3-3 “playing template”. It doesn’t work for us!
So an incident that should’ve left ES down a man and with a US penalty kick had “absolutely nothing to do with the outcome of the game”? Huh?
He should not have been playing against the US to begin with. He bit Canada’s Carl Haworth in the first game. The Canadian got a yellow for pushing Larin back after he was bit and showed the referee who did nothing. Canada filed a complaint and sent a report with video proof and a doctors report. CONCACAF did nothing. Apparently it is not important until the guys does it multiple times.
I think there is an article about the Canada incident just google it.
I was going to say that was not a bad piece of business for Larin but the truth is that hit had absolutely nothing to do with the outcome of the game.
El Salvador moved on because they were better. Plain and simple
shocking that no official saw any of these transgressions.
USSOCCER should be calling for the head of the Mexican referee who was looking straight at the incident and chose to totally ignore it.
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!I’m sick of some of these CONCACAF officials who constantly demonsrate their “anti-Gringo” bias with their calls and non calls. It is pathetic!
Larin is a piece of s&^%
Boyd should file an assault charge against him.
What a disgrace of a man and a footballer.
CONCACRAP is DISGUSTING!!
+1000 Boyd is laughing straight to the National while his chicken teammates go nowhere except for maybe Diskerud, Adu and Corona.
Im just discouraged that this is probably one of the crews that is going to ref during the World Cup qualifiers. It’s sad that we cant expect more than moderate to piss poor officiating in today’s game.
+1000
I was kind of angry no one on the team stuck up for terrance boyd. Someone should have knocked this b!tch out whether thats during or after the game
+1
Honestly, I don’t care if Larin is punished. The referee needs a suspension and fine.
Little good this does now.
ES would probably have lost to Honduras anyway, and I doubt Larin would have played in ES’s next 2 games anyway.
It should have been a straight red card, on the spot, period. Further, if I am not mistaken the assault took place inside the area, therefore a penalty kick should have been awarded.
It is a small consolation to US fans that now Larin will be suspended for three games. How about vacating the result, and awarding the game by default to the US!?
I think the blow to the face as shown in the picture shouldn’t be tolerated. This happened a long time ago and some facts were not clear to begin with. Both teams fought to the end, no doubt. One reason Salvadorian players would go angry is bc of Corona’s goal which he celebrated in front of Salvadorian fan side of the Stadium. He is tri-national, being born in USA from a Mexican father and a Salvadorian mother. The problem arises with Corona having said he would think about which team he would choose to represent internationally. He debated E.S., Mexico, and USA. He said most likely it would be USA or Mexico most likely bc they have better football level. Salvadorians didn’t take much offense to that but celebrating his goal in front of Salvadorian fans was taunting and played a number on the young Salvadorian players psychology. About the game, it was hard. It was 50/50 and we should welcome a defeat like this to an under dog team. Honduras advanced and demonstrated they were the better team in the Olympics by making it far into the competition. E.S. vs USA was a lesson. About the biting of the ear, that’s none sense. There was no picture or video to prove that. It was just the other side of the story fifa needed to sanction the lad. Let’s not be sore loosers!