The U.S. men’s national team won’t be calling on Weston McKennie or Sergino Dest during the upcoming Concacaf Gold Cup, but the key pair will miss an extended period in the near future.
McKennie and Dest were handed multi-match suspensions by Concacaf for their red card ejections in last week’s Nations League victory over Mexico. McKennie was given a three-match ban for future Concacaf matches while Dest was given a two-match ban.
These suspensions are in addition to the automatic one-match suspensions that both players will serve due to their red card offenses.
Mexico’s Cesar Montes was given a three-match suspension while Gerardo Arteaga was given a two-match suspension for their actions in the match. Montes’ red card tackle on Folarin Balogun in the second half of the match led to a confrontation between both sets of players.
“Furthermore, the Committee has imposed an undisclosed fine on both Federations and warned them that more severe sanctions could be taken should incidents occur during their upcoming matches in Concacaf national team competitions,” Concacaf announced in a statement.
McKennie was also sent off during the skirmish before Arteaga and Dest were ejected later in the match following pushing and shoving near the sidelines. The USMNT proceeded to win the match 3-0 in Las Vegas, advancing to the tournament final before defeating Canada 2-0 in Sunday’s Championship match.
The USMNT’s next Concacaf involvement will come during the expanded Nations League tournament later in 2023. The group stage will take place in September before the USMNT, Mexico, Canada and Costa Rica enter the quarterfinal round in November.
If CONCACAF feels like it needs to make a point and suspend McKennie and Dest during the GC then whatever. But to give them the same suspensions as the Mexican players who actually instigated and escalated the whole thing is trash. I’m frankly proud of our guys for keeping their heads – overall – in the face of El Tri’s violent play.
If the ref had had any balls whatsoever several Mexico players would have been sent off during the match.
If the GC matches count they essentially did punish the El Tri players more than Dest and Wes. It gave them cover to punish the Mexican players without actually having to have our guys miss anything. Montes and Arteaga miss the group stage.
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Honestly if the ref would have just given Balogun a yellow for stepping on Montes calf a couple minutes before I don’t think Montes kicks him down and everyone keeps their cool. I do think usually refs calm the situation before showing cards this guy made a big show of displaying the red instead of trying to breakup the melee.
Dest was right for defending himself after dude bumped him and slapped the mess out of Areaga.
I heard that the GC counts so the US guys won’t really miss anything. Not sure if that’s accurate.
I have not heard from an authoritative source whether the bans will be served during the GC or if the suspensions are served only if the players are named to the competitive roster for CONCACAF events.
Both Cesar Montes and Gerardo Arteaga are on Mexico’s roster for the Gold Cup, so they will serve their suspensions over the next few weeks.
According to CNN: The suspensions must be served during Concacaf national team competitions. I take that to mean that Dest and/or McKennie must be named to the Nations League or Gold Cup rosters in the future to serve the suspensions.
OTOH, ESPN says: “The suspended American players — Weston McKennie (three games) and defender Sergino Dest (two games) — will also serve their punishments during the Gold Cup, according to a U.S. Soccer spokesperson, but neither were set to take part in the competition.”
the world cup rule is a last game suspension follows you to your team’s next official game afterwards. i think it runs on “landon donovan” principles where you could be called any time including gold cup in sequence. hence the amnesties at some world cups to clean the slate. plus if concacaf was going to ban you from anything it would be concacaf games even if it works out kind of fake this time.
i think more of a fuss has been made about “the other way,” jermaine jones gets a 9 game B.1 suspension decides to come here and play january camp and the germany cames still count down.
i think the sort of suspension that follows you around is usually something like drug test failures or criminal behavior.