New York Red Bulls head coach Jesse Marsch made no bones about his feelings on the controversial game-winner scored by the New England Revolution on Friday night, an instance which saw the Revs play on as injured RBNY defender Kemar Lawrence lay stricken on the field, keeping assist man Juan Agudelo onside to set up an easy finish for New England's Diego Fagundez.
Marsch would call the play “shameful” in his postgame comments (see video above), but his counterpart offered up a differing viewpoint in his own session with reporters the same night.
“I try to tell the guys, ‘Play it to the whistle.’ I’m never going to stop them from playing to the whistle," Heaps told reporters. "I think there are injuries that the referee has to stop or you have to kick out of bounds. When the game’s on and Juan Agudelo gets a ball over the top and he’s onside in the 18, he’s got to play that on and I expect the other team to play it on.”
Heaps also admitted that he had not yet seen exactly when Lawrence went down, which was unclear on the broadcast.
When contacted by MLSsoccer.com, an official from the Professional Referees' Organization (PRO) explained that the law on injuries states that the referee “stops the match if, in his opinion, a player is seriously injured and ensures that he is removed from the field of play” and that the referee “allows play to continue until the ball is out of play if a player is, in his opinion, only slightly injured.”
In other words, a stoppage of play to allow treatment for an injured player is down to the referee’s opinion and the opposing team has no obligation to kick the ball out.
Agudelo, for his part, said he felt “pretty bad” about the situation, according to NE Soccer Today, but explained, “I was thinking [Lawrence] was just about to get up because they kept on playing. Then it was just instinct, once I got the ball, I just kept looking at the ball, looked down, saw my players come in, crossed it to Diego and he was able to get the ball in.”
