Once again, apologies for getting this out late this week; with the Three Sparks having a 10-day stretch with no game we felt justified in being lazy.
That being said, unlike most games where we dig into the tactical aspects of the game we are going to look at this one a little differently. We are going to focus on three separate events during the course of the game. One of those was critical to the eventual scoreline. The other two are both out of the run of play but are, in this writer’s humble opinion, indicative of the way this team is going to pay for the remainder of the 2025 season and hopefully well beyond.
The first incident is, you may have guessed, the foul by Enzo Martinez on Leo Fernandes that resulted in the award of a penalty. That was unsurprisingly converted by Fernandes himself for the game’s opening score. But was it truly a foul inside the penalty area? Well, this image, albeit very blurry (as it was taken from the video stream) gives the answer:
Pretty clearly, from this angle at least, it was outside the box. By about a foot. Even most of Fernandes’ body other than his left arm is outside. If the league had VAR (and as far as I am aware no league anywhere in the world below the top tier uses it; even the EFL Championship only has it for playoff games) it would have been called a direct free kick from that spot.
There are a couple of problems here. First, Enzo’s leg would have looked like it swung through the top edge of the box (it came very close), making it look like contact was also inside the 18. Then there is the positioning of the officials:
Both the referee and the assistant referee were properly positioned to cover the play here. The AR is not in the picture but he would have been level with the second-last defender, which in this case would have been Dawson McCartney – the nearest player to MVO who is covering Manuel Arteaga (#9, although you can’t quite see that). That’s about 6 yards closer to the goal than the contact. The referee himself is well-situated to see virtually all the ongoing action. Unfortunately, his position also meant that he would not have a completely clear view of the foul and certainly not able to judge precisely where it occurred. And since Enzo’s leg could have gone through the edge of the 18 he had to make a judgment call. On top of that the entire incident was extremely quick. His decision in hindsight was incorrect but utterly justifiable.
However, although Enzo made up for it with his own goal later, the foul was entirely unnecessary. There are admittedly three Rowdies closer to the goal but they are all covered. On top of that, Ramiz Hamouda is sitting directly in Fernandes’ line of attack with no one to cover. He would have been right on Fernandes or at least able to block any shot. So, two split-second decisions here and they were both wrong. Such is life.
The other two items I wanted to highlight both occurred in the second half, one immediately before the Legion’s first goal and the other immediately after the second. Both of them indicate a change in the mental and emotional state of the team that should serve them well going forward. Both of them also involve Preston Tabort Etaka but that is entirely coincidental and tangential to the point. The first of them looks negative at first glance. Here’s the video (audio stripped out):
Ronaldo was clearly unhappy at getting pulled. He had in fact had a very good game up to that point. In just under 69 minutes he had managed 5 shots. 1 was on target, 2 were off target (and one of those was probably his best chance) and another two were blocked. He evidently felt he had more to contribute. Was his frustration because he was no longer on the game or was it because he felt he could have done more? Hard to say, but in either event that is a good thing. It shows that he wants to do more and better.
The second event was this:
Preston’s involvement here was providing the assist for the goal that Danny is celebrating. But Danny doesn’t stay on the field and high-five the guys around or whatever. No, instead he runs straight for the sideline and is pointing at the bench. And the bench is more or cleared by staff and players who all come out. Most significantly, Mark Briggs is out there with them all, hugging everyone and grinning. That’s an emotional commitment that was never obvious with Tommy Soehn. That’s not to say he didn’t have it but to call him reserved is an understatement. Ironically, we now have an English coach who apparently isn’t reserved despite that cultural upbringing to avoid demonstrative behavior at all costs.
There are draws that feel like wins and there are draws that feel like losses. The Louisville City and Detroit City draws earlier this year probably both felt like wins. Given the iffy penalty and the last-gasp equalizer by Pacifique Niyongabire this could very easily be considered a loss (and the Legion did dominate the game after all). However, under the circumstances of having a brand new head coach and how we saw the team respond to adversity and how they showed a new mindset I think it fair to say that this draw could be thoght of as both a loss and a win.
