GIVE BREK A BREAK: TEAMMATE

Cap’s foul mouth didn’t warrant red

Jordan Harvey swears that 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 forward/midfielder newcomer Shea getting thrown out in the 69th minute of Saturday’s 2-0 loss to Toronto FC for directing 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 that 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 that he felt he and Elfath were 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 that sent forward Giles Barnes south.

“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.”

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.”