Musings: The Eve of our Awakening

[Mimglow]

At the bottom of the main page [:I]:

http://www.canadian-soccer.com/en/index.asp

[beachesl]

Good little piece, Theo. Always room on the old bandwagon, especially at Commonwealth.

Speaking of awakening, when are you going to awaken to realize that your otherwise excellent player pools (for other than MNT matches) need to be reformed to reduce the ridiculously severe penalty of minus two points for yellow cards? Goooood yellows are plentiful- unless you think that Aresenal should offload Viera right now. I know you have heard me mouth off enough about this subject, Idi, but at least consider the following from someone I know you respect, our guru in Barca:

"Sounds like de Guzman making 6 fouls in half an hour is a sign that the other mids were not doing their part. If you have to foul for defensive control you should really be sharing the hits with teammates. Especially after they knew he had a yellow. But if you look at the line-up, a 4-4-2, the outside mids were Hume and de Rosario, both more attacking types, and I imagine tending to start wide. Which maybe meant de Guzmán had to do too much physically and in midfield control."

-Jeffrey

But, I know that you, being from Ottawa, are intransigent when confronted with common sense. (joke)

[Mimglow]

Rebuttal:

Thanks for the compliment, now let's get to the meat of your argument []

I've never disagreed that in some cases yellow cards are great tactical decisions. Anyone who's ever seen a Zinedine Zidane yellow card will agree.

However, citing Patrick Vieira as an example is placing your head in the lion's mouth. Last season Vieira kept his yellow card total to ten. He kept his cool throughout the season and was only sent off once for the entire season. In doing so, he became the rock on which Arsenal relied on. In past seasons, Arsenal got burned time and again for relying on the Senegalese-Frenchman.

The maturing process for Patrick Vieira has been a long one indeed. Referees often got blamed for carding the volatile midfielder, but the truth is the red mist would come down around him and he's lose his temper, bringing his team down with him as he walked away for an early shower.

In our Premiership and Euro pools, yellow cards come with a two point penalty. Once a player gets a yellow card, whether strategic or through foolishness, a player hurts his team in the long run. On the spot, it may have prevented something from developping. But for the rest of the game, the player has mortgaged his effectiveness, since another rash challenge and he's out. In the Prem, 5 yellow cards gets you a one game suspension. In the Euro, 2 yellows and you miss the next game. Not exactly an advantage for your team (unless your name is Marcel Desailly ...sorry, not a big fan).

My argument is that a yellow card creates more harm than good. Your arguments, through our emails and now here have made me reflect on the policy for our pools. Yet the more I ponder on the subject, the more I believe I've made the correct reasoning. Your arguments are valid (when not using Vieira as an example []), but I have to disagree with you once more.

Yellow card = -2 points.

Keep chipping away at that wall though, you've planted the seed of doubt.

Mimglow

P.S. My apologies for the non-MNT content of this post.