Hey @LAGalaxy, last year this acct justified a RC on Ridgewell w/a pic of a bruise. Any pithy commentary on De Jong? Are you even surprised?
— Portland Timbers (@TimbersFC) April 11, 2016
Nigel de Jong—who you might remember from the time he karate kicked Xabi Alonso in the chest during the World Cup Finals, or the time he broke Stuart Holden’s leg in a friendly, or the time he fractured Hatem Ben Arfa’s tibia and fibula, or all the other times he made violent tackles— now plies his trade in America, for the Los Angeles Galaxy. But besides the new mailing address, he’s the same old Nigel de Jong you know and loathe. During the second half of yesterday’s 1-1 draw against the Portland Timbers, de Jong cut down Darlington Nagbe with this stomp on his ankle. Or, as Alexi Lalas put it, “That’s horrible. That’s a horrible tackle. It’s a red card. It’s extra games.”
Anyone who watches high-level men’s soccer understands the intensely physical nature of the game. Perhaps the most exposed and vulnerable part of a player’s anatomy are his legs and ankles. Over the course of a 90-minute game, most field players will end up rolling around on the ground clasping their ankles in a visible fit of graphic agony. In the vast majority of cases, players who mere moments prior looked as if a sniper has taken them out from the press box will be running at full speed looking no worse for wear.
Every now and again, a vicious tackle will take a player out, sometimes with disastrous (and occasionally career-ending) results. Nigel de Jong’s mugging of Darlington Nagbe should have earned him a red card, which would have forced the Galaxy to play the rest of the game with 10 men. That his poorly executed mugging/tackle earned only a yellow card is a graphic example of just how poor and inconsistent MLS officiating can be and very often is.
The sad part of this controversy is that it takes away from what was actually a pretty good match. The result was certainly disappointing for Timbers fans; Portland held a 1-0 lead until late in the match until giving up an own goal. After the final whistle, it seemed no one was talking about the game; it was all about Nigel de Jong’s vicious, malevolent tackle.
Sometimes, you just have to call out a player like deJong for what he is, a classless thug who seemingly has no problem with ending careers in order to further his own. One the reactions I found most interesting was that of Stuart Holden, who has his own painful history with de Jong.
The more I watch the replay of de Jong’s mugging of Nagbe, the angrier I become. Sometimes, it’s about respecting the game and your fellow competitors…and de Jong falls far short on both counts. In his defense, de Jong claimed “it was a 50-50 ball.” In my mind, that’s not the issue. It was a contested ball, a “50-50 ball” in soccer parlance, but de Jong jumped into Nagbe’s ankle, enough to put him out of the game. His explanation- “It was a pity, you know what I mean? It was never my intention to hurt him.”- was as weak as the referee’s inept and wholly inadequate reaction. De Jong’s vicious tackle was eminently worthy of a red card. That he was let off with a mere yellow is an insult to those who lay the game the right way.
(Full disclosure: I’m a Timbers season ticket holder and therefore not exactly what one might call a dispassionate observer. That said, de Jong deserves to be suspended by MLS for at least as many games as Nagbe will miss.)
Look, we can debate (and boy have we!) the merits of MLS bringing in aging, over-the-hill former superstars like Steven Gerrard, Didier Drogba, and Andrea Pirlo. But those guys—in theory, at least—sell tickets and raise the profile of the league, and bring a level of technical ability that MLS mostly lacks.
Not Nigel de Jong. He is a destroyer, in both the best and worst sense of the word, snuffing out attacks before they even begin and repeatedly chopping down opponents with potential career-ending tackles. Nobody is paying their hard-earned money to see de Jong play, and he doesn’t offer anything MLS currently lacks, he’s just more efficient in his destroying.
The irony here is that while de Jong embodies the very worst of MLS—a bizarre fascination with European players who were good five years ago, brute force taking precedence over breathtaking skill—Nagbe embodies the very best.
A big problem with MLS is that it’s not protecting its best players. No one’s paying to see Nigel de Jong break legs and ankles with vicious, malevolently, poorly executed tackles. I have no problem with physical play, but what de Jong did was far beyond mere physicality. It was a thoughtless, vicious assault on a fellow player. De Jong wasn’t playing the ball in a “50-50” situation; he jumped into Nagbe’s ankle. If it was de Jong’s first time down this road, I might be willing to pass it off as a horrible miscalculation…but it’s not. Just ask Stuart Holden.
Darlington Nagbe cannot put weight on his left ankle. Needs wheelchair off the pitch. #MLS pic.twitter.com/yKLxun06VU
— Julie Stewart-Binks (@JSB_FOX) April 11, 2016
Nagbe was carted off the field and left the pitch at StubHub Center in a wheelchair. Meanwhile, de Jong walked off the pitch without so much as a hint of remorse, which is about all that could been expected from one of the dirtiest, most classless players in the game. If you’re willing to break legs and ankles, you shouldn’t be on a soccer pitch; you should be doing 5-10 in a state penitentiary for battery.
The truly sad aspect of this story is MLS’ complicity in its tolerance of inept and inconsistent officiating. If the referee had issued de Jong a red card, the conversation would likely be about the game. Instead we’re talking about what in hockey would be known as a “goon” or an “enforcer.” That sort of thing has no place in soccer. Until and unless MLS admits that it has an officiating problem, it cannot hope to be regarded as anywhere the same level as other leagues around the world.
Soccer deserves better…and so does Darlington Nagbe.
