THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD
(apologies to Keith Olbermann)
Bruce Arena
“I think the press and others have failed miserably in reporting the incident and what actually happened,” Arena said. “The player probably wasn’t hurt on the tackle, which no one has reported. Darlington Nagbe is a great kid and a great player, and we certainly don’t want him to be injured on a bad tackle. I think it was a mistimed tackle by Nigel. A bad tackle on that play is going to the ground and going over the ball with excessive force. That was not the case on that play.”…. Arena laid blame for the “hysteria” with social media and “people in MLS and in the offices that do that and feeds the whole thing. And the journalism.”
I can understand a coach’s instinct to protect one of their players. I played and coached the game myself, so I get where Bruce Arena is coming from. That said, when one of your players engaged in one of the dirtiest plays Major League Soccer (MLS) has seen in quite some time, how can you defend him without disrespecting the game, your opponent, the league, and- most importantly- the victim of the on-field mugging? Arena, coach of the L.A. Galaxy and the man responsible for putting Nigel de Jong- as close as MLS comes to have a hockey-style enforcer- on the pitch, has decided to deny what anyone watching the game saw. To claim that “[t]he player probably wasn’t hurt on the tackle” is about as dishonest and ignorant of the truth as it’s possible for a lucid human being to be.
Arena was on the sideline at StubHub Center; he saw Nagbe carted off the pitch because he couldn’t walk. He very likely saw Nagbe leaving at the end of the match in a wheelchair. To claim that Nagbe “probably wasn’t hurt” flies in the face of anything even remotely redolent of credibility.
Darlington Nagbe MRI results: Medial ankle sprain and contusion. No timeline yet on his return to play.
— Grant Wahl (@GrantWahl) April 12, 2016
Nigel de Jong fits right in with MLS, a league not exactly renowned for gentlemanly play, competent officiating, or protecting its players.
Surely even Bruce Arena can understand that a sport which fails to protect its players from vicious, malevolent contact (like having your ankle stomped on by Nigel de Jong) is going to have a hard time convincing people to buy tickets. No one’s going to pay to see a game in which the truly talented players are on the sideline in ankle casts.
MLS needs to decide if this is the conversation it wants to be having with fans and the media. For my part, I think the focus should be on the games, not unrepentant thugs like Nigel de Jong…but what do I know? I’m just a fan of (what should be) the beautiful game.
MLS’s Disciplinary Committee has yet to announce sanctions on the Dutch midfielder, who received a yellow card after a studs-up stomp on the Timbers star’s left leg, but a one-game ban would keep him away from Houston, where LA faces the Dynamo on Friday.
A suspension could be much longer, and that’s what many MLS observers would prefer, as made clear by the frenzy on social media and among the Fox Sports broadcast team at StubHub Center following the 73rd-minute foul.
De Jong’s reputation as a head-hunter, with the chest-high boot to Xabi Alonso during the 2010 World Cup final and leg-breaking challenges in England on Stuart Holden and Hatem Ben Arfa serving as prime evidence, has sparked incendiary commentary on de Jong’s motivations and actions.
It’s true that MLS’ Disciplinary Committee has yet to pass judgment on de Jong’s mugging of Nagbe. The committee is under no obligation to do so, but it does have the authority to issue retroactive red cards and suspensions. To assert that de Jong is worthy of punishment above and beyond the yellow card he received initially hardly seems a stretch.
(UPDATE: MLS Commissioner Don Garber confirmed late yesterday that de Jong will be suspended. Speculation is that punishment will be announced later today, and that it may well be less than some observers believe it should be.)
Arena also complained that he feels de Jong is being condemned based on his reputation. I absolutely agree with that assessment, though not for the reasons Arena might have in mind. MLS brought de Jong into the league fully aware of his reputation for thuggery, so the league can’t credibly feign ignorance. De Jong’s vicious tackle was absolutely in character for him. There’s no reason to expect a veteran player like de Jong to change his style, nor should anyone believe that he’s learned his lesson and will never offend thusly again. Five games into his sojourn in MLS, and he takes down one of the league’s marquee players.
Stay classy, eh?
They heard the analysts condemn de Jong, with Holden, who has that history with de Jong, proclaiming that the challenge “makes me feel sick, because I know what Darlington Nagbe is going through. … There is absolutely no excuse for that type of challenge. We don’t need it in the game. It’s horrific. It’s horrible. And he’s going to get retroactive punishment.”
And, the oddest of it all, they got Magee’s postgame interview with Rob Stone and Holden, in which the Galaxy attacker, seeing the replay for the first time, says that it’s “not a great tackle,” that “any time you see someone get hit studs-up, you’re not happy about it,” that he would “love to defend [de Jong], but the game can do without those kind of tackles,” and, ultimately, it’s “hard for me to even comment on it, really, seeing the video and being as close to Stu [Holden] as I am and knowing what happened to him. I’m kind of at a loss for words.”
Thuggery of the sort committed by de Jong is a significant problem in MLS. While Nagbe was fortunate enough to emerge with “only” a bruised and sprained ankle, it could easily have been far worse- just ask Stuart Holden, whose leg was broken by de Jong in a friendly.
I have a sense that MLS is at a crossroad, and it needs to decide whether it wants to be taken seriously and spoken of in the same breath with the English Premier League or La Liga…or whether it’s content to condone the current air of malevolence and mayhem.
How long before de Jong ends a player’s career with a vicious, dangerous tackle? Will Arena be moved to similarly claim then that “[t]he player probably wasn’t hurt on the tackle” and pass it off as merely “a mistimed tackle by Nigel?”
Darlington Nagbe deserves better. MLS deserves betters. Lords know American soccer fans certainly deserve better than de Jong’s thuggery and Arena’s blithe dismissal and condoning of reckless, dangerous play.
