Harvey cries foul after Shea carded
Caps veteran comes to defence of teammate after he was served straight red on Saturday
Jordan Harvey swears Brek Shea didn’t deserve to get ejected for using some four-letter words with an official.
“For me, that’s never a red card,” Harvey, the Vancouver Whitecaps’ veteran defender, said Wednesday after practice at UBC when asked about Shea getting thrown out in the 69th minute of Saturday’s 2-0 loss to Toronto FC for directing some apparently salty language toward referee Ismail Elfath.
“If we were to actually record what is said on the field — both sides — I don’t think we’d be finishing with enough players.
“It (the game against Toronto FC) is a rivalry game, an emotional game. As a referee, you’d like to think he’d take some of that out of it and understand that part of it. But then again, we need to make sure that we aren’t in those positions.
“We need to take total responsibility for our actions on the field, but at the same time put things in perspective.”
One can argue Harvey, 33, was talking out of both sides of his mouth on the issue. That pun is clearly intended.
Shea, 27, did some of the same as well.
He admitted that to “let my teammates down like that, it’s disappointing for me.” He also contended he felt he was having a “very civil conversation” after Elfath had given Shea a yellow card for a tackle on Toronto’s Nick Hagglund.
On a plus side for the Whitecaps, the whole vocabulary discussion does take away focus from their lacklustre 0-2-1 start in Major League Soccer.
“It doesn’t matter whether I deserved it or didn’t. It happened. And I let the team down,” explained Shea, who came to Vancouver in a February trade with Orlando City for forward Giles Barnes.
“I want to do better. I want to help the team, not hurt the team. I have to be smarter in those situations.”
On its website Wednesday, the Pro Referee Organization pointed to the Shea situation, stating “dissent is once again one of the main points of emphasis for 2017. During our pre-season preparations, officials were instructed not to allow dissent.”
They also reported that a referee met with each MLS team to explain “points of emphasis” for this season.
In going over what happened with Shea, the PRO reports his words to Elfath “clearly shock him. When he repeats those words, the referee immediately shows Shea a red card.”
For his part, Whitecaps coach Carl Robinson contends he has “nothing to complain about” if swearing at officials is going to result in a red card.
“But that needs to be made clear every week with every player,” said Robinson.
“If the tone is set and you swear at a referee and you’re going to get sent off, no problem. We’ll respect that decision. He’ll accept the red card. It won’t happen again. And I’ll make sure my players don’t swear. But you have to do that for every player every week.”
Players being sent off is far from a new phenomenon for the Whitecaps. They’ve been assessed 10 red cards in their past 36 MLS matches.
“Last year was not acceptable by us and I let the guys know,” said Robinson. “There were some that were very unfortunate. There were others that weren’t.”
With the infraction, Shea will miss Vancouver’s next game, an April 1 date at home against the Los Angeles Galaxy. Goalkeeper David Ousted will be eligible to return after sitting out the Toronto game due to a red card picked up in a 3-2 loss on March 11 in San Jose for tripping Chris Wondolowski in the 23rd minute.