No, thats not Player Of The Year.
For those that don’t know, Kyle Martino was once (many years ago) a much hyped playmaking central midfielder that some thought would be the future of USA soccer. Many years later, he sits as a mediocre midfielder on a piss poor team with a SuperStar. I’ve never had much of an opinion on him as a person, since of course, I don’t actually know him, but also because he hasn’t ever done anything particularly noteworthy on the field.
But now he has. See the photo below.
(Photo by Jose L. Argueta on ISIPhotos.com)
Oh, but that isn’t all. See, I’ve played defense before. And I’ve been on both ends of some fairly viscious tackles. I know exactly when I’ve crushed somebody maybe just a little harder than I should have. And I own up to it if I get a card, or if the guy gets hurt I apologize.
But no, not Martino. After receiving his red card for a studs up challenge that Fred is *lucky* didn’t break his ankle and potentially ruin his career (ask Ben Olsen how he feels about that), he decides to blame everybody else. Here’s some quotes…
From UnitedMania.com’s article “Hypocrisy – thy name is Kyle Martino”
“You’re talking about a wet surface,” Martino said according to Ian Plenderleith of Ussoccerplayers.com , “you’re talking about a very quick guy who, if you watch the video tape, the initial trajectory of my slide tackle was right at the ball, [but] he gets his toe in there right before I’m able to make contact with the ball. It could be argued that it’s from behind, but we’ve seen tons of tackles in this league, tons of tackles around the world that didn’t warrant a red card in that scenario.”
But Martino wasn’t done just yet. “That referee [Jair Marrufo] has had a track record of making some pretty ridiculous calls, especially against us — just a month ago he threw Chris Klein out of a game that no one could even find where the foul was. He’s been the type of referee to take things personally, show his emotions on the field, and that makes everybody feel like he’s a little bit unstable out there, because he doesn’t stop to think, doesn’t stop to rationalize, always goes on emotion, and you can see he has something personally invested in decisions that he’s making. I mean, you never really know what’s going to come from that referee.”
Oh and it gets better. Since he was suspended and couldn’t play, he got to sit in the booth with the announcers during the Galaxy’s next game. Of course, they showed the replay of “the tackle” and he got to offer more comments…
As the replay of the red card tackle was being shown during a stoppage in play, Martino commented that the foul was a yellow card at best and that “Fred is a Brazilian and they will fall over if hit with a wet noodle”.
Come on Martino, man up and take the blame. All you have to say is “I thought I could get to the ball, but I didn’t. I hope Fred’s OK, I had no bad intentions.” Instead… The ref is out to get me, and Brazilians like to dive. Even while WATCHING THE REPLAY with others in the booth.
So why does Chris Webb call him a hypocrite? Read his article to find out ;)
(Oh the irony…)