A favorite saying of former Orlando City and now Minnesota coach Adrian Heath is that “goals change games.” Well, by the same token, calls that provide teams with goals can also change games.
We saw a perfect example of that last night when Silviu Petrescu inexplicably awarded the Columbus Crew a penalty very late in last night’s match on seemingly routine — and light — contact between RJ Allen and Patrick Mullins. The Crew forward went to ground and rather than being admonished to get up, he was rewarded with a game-changing call.
Petrescu went to his earpiece and then awarded the penalty anyway without taking a second look at the play himself on the monitor.