Was Feilhaber using the driest of humor to make his point?

By Steven Agen

Sporting KC fell 1-0 to the Seattle Sounders in the Knockout Round of the 2016 MLS Cup Playoffs on Thursday night at CenturyLink Field, seeing their season come to an end thanks to Nelson Valdez’ winner on 89 minutes. A

fter the game SKC boss Peter Vermes opened his press conference with a tirade against referee Ishmael Elfath, saying in part, “I will tell you that in my opinion, and for our organization, I think that PRO and Major League Soccer owe us an absolute apology because this game was taken away from us today.”

Matt Besler’s 53rd minute goal was disallowed, ruled marginally offside. Additionally, replay evidence seems to suggest that Valdez may have been farther offside than Besler on his goal, which was allowed to stand.

Perhaps the most hotly contested decision of the night came in the 68th minute. Sporting KC midfielder Benny Feilhaber sprinted down the left flank as the visitors started a quick counter. Sounders ball-winner Osvaldo Alonso, already on a booking, dove in strongly to win the ball and took Feilhaber down in the process. Alonso’s closing speed and the velocity at which he entered the tackle did him no favors but Elfath awarded a Seattle throw-in instead of sending him off. Vermes did not leave room for interpretation on the subject:

“You wanna call a tactical foul? He’s on a break…It’s easily deserving of a second yellow in an open field like that, for sure.”

Later, Vermes would add this about what Sounders interim manager Brian Schmetzer said to him following the match: “[Schmetzer] said, ‘Look, I know it doesn’t mean that much, and nothing to do about it now, but it was for sure a red card.'”

Feilhaber himself, however, took the opposite view of both managers in an interesting turn of events. You can hear his thoughts on the match, and Alonso’s tackle, right here:

“No I was wrong, it was obviously a correct call. You know, they got the throw-in so obviously [Osvaldo] Alonso kicked it right off me. [It was] a clean tackle, obviously, and I was definitely wrong in asking for a yellow card on that play. 

“I was happy with our team’s performance, but I think we can blame nobody but ourselves tonight for not getting the win. The linesmen were superb. They kept their flag up when [Matt] Besler was offside and kept their flag down when [Nelson] Valdez was clearly onside. So I think we have nobody to blame but ourselves.”

In case anyone was in any doubt that he was using heavy satire to avoid any fine (unlike Vermes), he closed his interview by saying:

“We needed to play better, so it’s disappointing from that aspect, but the better team won tonight.”

His team had seven on target efforts to Seattle’s one. and held a 12-10 advantage in shots as well as a marginal advantage in possession. They led the corner count 5-4 and the duel count 57-48. Stefan Frei made seven saves and Tim Melia not one.

So when Feilhaber says the ‘better team won’, the obvious explanation is that there is a very dry humor at large.