RENTON — To a man, the Seattle Sounders were willing to admit that it was their own fault for not adding a second goal that could have turned Saturday’s 1-1 draw into a win against the Portland Timbers. They had their chances — whether you credit Timbers goalkeeper James Pantemis with solid saves or criticize various players for failing to convert — and simply didn’t do it.
In other words, no one was trying to blame referee Ismir Pekmic for directly costing the Sounders points.
“The referee impacts games but that’s not why we lose games,” Sounders head coach Brian Schmetzer said following Tuesday’s training session. “We have to be strong enough in certain moments to overcome.”
But after watching film of the game, the Sounders were convinced as ever that Pekmic made several questionable calls, not the least of which was the decision to give Obed Vargas a second yellow card for dissent when he showed “clear action toward the referee.”
“It was poor,” Sounders midfielder Albert Rusnák said about Pekmic’s performance. “We don’t have to lie about it.
“We understand the refs are human and makes mistakes like us. But we get fined, I don’t know how the system works for them.”
In a vacuum, the Vargas yellow is certainly within a referee’s discretion. Vargas yells something and makes a demonstrative arm movement that is seemingly directed at Pekmic. Any visible show of dissent is, by the books, cardable and by doing so, Vargas assumed some level of risk. That he was already on a yellow card for delaying a restart just a few minutes earlier made it even riskier.
What makes it harder to accept is there had been several nearly identical shows of dissent both before and after Vargas’ card that weren’t booked or even warranted any sort of warning from Pekmic. The most egregious examples were Juan Mosquera in the 23rd minute, Dario Zuparic in the 62nd minute and Jonathan Rodriguez in 78th, which was even more demonstrative than Vargas’.
The Sounders were also frustrated that there were several situations where it seemed obvious to play advantage but Pekmic blew the play dead and forced free kicks.
“A referee can call it tight, call it loose, it changes the game, but we have to know what kind of game you’re playing,” Sounders captain Stefan Frei said after the match. “When you have no idea what is a foul or what is dissent or what is advantage, you have no idea what to go off of.
“I don’t envy the guy. Referees have it difficult. I love that a referee can call their game, it adds an element, changes the game but it has to be consistent so that we know what we have to do. Today I just felt like no one had a clue what we were supposed to do.”
A common theory was that Pekmic didn’t actually realize that Vargas was already on a yellow, despite having just given it a few minutes earlier. Film of the incident showed Pekmic giving Vargas the yellow without making any effort to reach for the red card until he looked at his notebook.
“Experienced referees would have understood that moment,” Schmetzer said after the match. “He would have felt that. It wasn’t that egregious. He let other things go. Obed is responsible for the first yellow. You can fault the kid for that. But the second one, I just don’t think the referee knew.”
