The center ref Oshane Nation is one of my favorite refs, not sure how but MLS needs to recruit him to the league. I felt he handled the game quite well, as evidenced by Monterrey being mad. He didn’t get influenced by the swarming players, and I do wish him and majority of refs actually carded all players who do that.
I went back and rewatched the game to get a different perspective than what I had when I was nervously watching in the stadium. After rewatching, I was actually impressed by how good we looked. We did not look outmatched at all. Each team had spells with the upper hand, which you would logically expect in a semifinal, but I thought we looked better in our spells than they did in their spells. I also think Monterrey looked surprised by what we were capable of. After the final whistle the broadcast was showing closeups of the Monterrey bench and they looked somewhat shocked by what just happened. It will be interesting to see how that translates to the second leg. I would still consider us to be the underdogs going into it, but I think there is going to be a nervous energy throughout their team while we seem to be playing loose and with nothing to lose. Also, the crowd sounded amazing on the broadcast, especially after JRR's goal through the end of the match. I knew the atmosphere within the stadium was good, but it was nice to see it translate through the broadcast pretty accurately.
This video shows some of the postgame celebrations led by Guardia 96 starting at the 26:41 mark. Pretty awesome.
If anyone has a question as to how dirty this game was, check out Cucho being fouled at around 65 minutes. Wait for the slo-mo replay: It's dirty, it's deliberate, the guy doesn't even bother to try and pretend he's playing the ball, he just kicks Cucho in the back of his leg. This is a red card all day long. And it's going to be worse in a place where the crowd is screaming for Crew blood. As noted, these guys were plenty pissed at losing to an MLS team.
I had a perfect angle on this play from section 140. I was directly behind Cucho and could see how far away the ball was. I couldn’t believe it wasn’t a red. It was a deliberate kick to the back of the leg. The referee had a solid game, but that was a huge missed call.
The Monterrey #11 through a wink at someone right after that play. He knew what he was doing. He knew what to do and when to do it. It was a professional foul and he got away with it. I agree the 2nd leg will be chippy for sure.
I think it's borderline. It's definitely cheap, and it's dirty, but I don't know if the level of force is great enough to enter "endangering the opponent" territory. There's an argument to be made that the intent on a play like that pushed it into red card territory in and of itself. This is one of those plays that makes me think it would absolutely be a red card in regular old league play. International competitions usually have a higher bar, so maybe that's why he got off with yellow. I'll say this: If it had been called red on the field, VAR isn't calling for a review.
The Derrick Jones red card was a much more dangerous play. Stomping on the ankle with the studs can break a leg. The worst that Cucho was going to suffer there was a bruise.