The San Jose Earthquakes have taken their case to the MLS court of appeals.
Quakes interim coach Mark Watson told reporters in a Monday conference call that in the wake of a contentious and card-filled draw at FC Dallas over the weekend, “there were a few things that we’ve sent to the league for further review.”
That includes the straight red cards shown to Victor Bernardez and Justin Morrow -- although Watson said he didn’t think the club would be utilizing either of its official red-card challenges available under MLS rules. Bernardez, Morrow and teammate Rafael Baca -- who drew a yellow card Saturday to cross the first accumulation threshold -- are all looking at suspensions for the Quakes’ next league match, against archrivals LA Galaxy on Saturday.
Watson said the Quakes are hoping to quickly get definitive word regarding their grievances so they can determine how best to use their available talent to finish off a three-games-in-eight-days road trip. San Jose traveled to Guatemala on Monday in advance of their second CONCACAF Champions League round-robin match, against Heredia on Wednesday.
“Everything we put forward to the league, we’ve asked them to expedite that so we can prepare our team for Wednesday, because it has a direct result in terms of how we approach things on Saturday,” Watson said. “So we hope to know something by tonight or early tomorrow ... I think that Victor and Rafa, knowing that they won’t be available at this point to face LA, they have a much better chance to play Wednesday night in Guatemala.”
Watson said he had spoken to Bernardez about his entanglement with Dallas forward Kenny Cooper in the 86th minute, an altercation that led to both men being ejected. According to Watson, the Honduran international -- who earlier this season received a two-game post-match ban from the MLS Disciplinary Committee for delivering a concussion-inducing hit on Cooper -- denied deliberately stepping on Cooper after bundling him over.
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“We’ve looked at the video on that one,” Watson said. “It does look like Victor steps forward and maybe catches him on the leg. I spoke to Victor, and he said there was no intent to step on him. In that case, it’s an unfortunate situation. If it was an intentional thing, that’s obviously nothing we would support as a club. But we’ll see what happens on that one.”
Bernardez is already slated to miss the Quakes’ Sept. 8 home match against the Philadelphia Union, along with countryman Marvin Chavez, as both will join Honduras for a pair of World Cup qualifiers.
