I agree that Ian probably had no intention of getting anyone hurt but he
had to have known the keeper was on his way out and there was going to
be some kind of collision.

Just a stupid move made by a player who probably wants desperately to be
back in the starting line up again but is in complete denial about his
real skill level. He is just not good enough anymore.

-----Original Message-----
From: sanjose-mls@yahoogroups.com [mailto:sanjose-mls@yahoogroups.com]
On Behalf Of Ned
Sent: Tuesday, August 09, 2005 12:32 PM
To: sanjose-mls@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [sanjose-mls] Quakes, Alaves in bench-clearing brawl

Hi Scott,
No, he did not just "nudge" him - it was a two-handed push into the
defender's back. The ball was coming in the air (or else had taken a
big bounce) and Ian and the defender ran for it, while the keeper came
out for it. The defender cut Russell off and shielded the ball by
slowing down a little. Russell saw he was beat/blocked, and pushed the
defender off-balance and forward. In a usual situation, which happens
all the time, when the attacker feels he was interfered with, or
fouled, or just frustrated by being beat, he sometimes sends a message
with the shove; the defender would have been pushed forward a few steps
and not even a foul called. In this case, though, the keeper was
leaping high to catch the ball, so the push sent the defender into the
keepers knee or foot. The keeper, in the air, was undercut, maybe
flipped in the air, I'm not sure, and fell to the ground - the kind of
situation where you can fall on your neck. I don't think it was
intentional, in fact, though the keeper immediately got up and got in
Ian's face, I wasn't even sure he would get a yellow. (If no one had
gotten hurt, or the keeper didn't get flipped, he might not have). It
was bad judgment, a minor foul if any, but the location of the players
when he did it turned it into a very dangerous situation of possibly
injuring a keeper seriously and obviously breaking the nose of a player
who wants to be a starter for Alaves! Then once the Spanish players
charged Russell and fighting started, Russell got the yellow. I think
it was as much to pacify the Spanish because one of their players was
shown the red before Conway was.
After that 8th minute the ref called clamped down and called every
possible little foul to keep things from going bad, and it is probably
good he did, but a lot of air was left out of the game. I'm surprised
Russell ended the game without serious injury. Several fouls during the
game showed players were ready to go at it if the game got out of
control.
-Ned

On Aug 9, 2005, at 12:09 PM, Scott wrote:

> Sounds like I missed an intense game. Did Russell really just "nudge"

> the
> guy as the website says? Were the red cards deserved? How did the
> referee
> do?
>
>
>
>
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