Seattle head coach Sigi Schmid didn't mince words Wednesday night after a scoreless draw against Real Salt Lake at CenturyLink Field. All things considered, Schmid felt the Sounders got the raw end of the deal from referee Ricardo Salazar.
The main target for his ire was not defender Zach Scott's ejection, two yellow cards that ended the defender's night after just half an hour, but instead the fact that both sides weren't reduced to 10 men after RSL defender Chris Schuler committed an infraction that Schmid classified as a "last-man foul" but only resulted in a yellow card.
Here's how Schmid's rant began after being asked to comment on how the game was officiated:
"I don't want any more questions about [referee Ricardo] Salazar, but the thing is, our fans know his name,"Schmid told reporters. "I don't think many fans know the name of the referee. I think that's an indication."
He didn't stop there, either, outlining his complains surrounding Schuler's caution and moving onto corner kicks late into extra time before eventually summing his feelings up with 30 well-chosen words.
“I thought we were hard done by officiating all night in certain regards,” Schmid said. “It just seems that whenever there was something 50/50, we didn’t get the break.”
Schmid is certainly not the first coach or player to take aim at the officials. Here are three notable rants from coaches and players over the past two seasons.
3) Beckham shows off his familiarity with the US youth soccer scene
Back in August, the LA Galaxy were summarily dismissed by Seattle, 4-0, at CenturyLink Field.
For many reasons, not least his team's performance, midfielder David Beckham wasn't happy. With LA down 1-0, A.J. DeLaGarza found himself in the box bearing down on goal. That is, until Leo González appeared to hack him down, only for referee Chris Penso to wave play on.
The incident elicited the following postgame reponse from Beckham:
"I probably shouldn’t say too much but I’ll tell you now an AYSO ref is better than that today," Beckham said. "It is quite remarkable. Is it why we lost the game? No. But we definitely would have got back in the game and turned the crowd quiet. Would it have gotten us back into the game? Definitely; but we didn’t play well today and Seattle played a lot better. Big calls like that — it’s a big call in a game like this. It’s disappointing.”
2) Olsen says the players aren't the only ones trying to stand out on TV
There's bizarre, and then there's the sequence in D.C. this summer that resulted in a called-back penalty kick, dual yellow cards, an ejection and flubbed retake of said penalty.
The end result, in the big picture at least, was a 1-1 draw between D.C. United and the Philadelphia Union that had United head coach Ben Olsen fuming. So much so, in fact, that he said referee Mark Geiger had done his best to steal the spotlight from the players on the field.
“It’s the Geiger show. He wants to make the big call to change a game,” Olsen told reporters. “It’s what they do. Coming back from the Olympics, it was his show tonight. His show. Not about the players.”
1) Spencer reckons his aging mother-in-law could do a better job
There's ridiculous and then there is former Portland coach John Spencer's claim about referee Abiodun Okulaja's performance in a Timbers loss to Colorado last June.
Spencer was red-carded at the end of the 1-0 defeat, and although the Scotsman was upset about a variety of topics, his main complaint stemmed from a handball in the box that was not called.
"My 67-year-old mother-in-law can see it from the club deck," Spencer said. "There's an official standing right there, and you're asking me why I'm having a go at the fourth official?"
