Somehow, I made a mental connection between two matches on two different continents, held a week apart. The first was a Barclays Premier League match between West Ham United and Chelsea, the second the MLS Cup Final between LA Galaxy and Houston Dynamo.
Both matches featured a similar play: a cross in from a corner/free kick that was heavily contested between attacker and defender. In both cases, the ball ended up in the back of the net. The goal was allowed to stand only in the Premier League match, however.
It is surely unfair to compare clips between two different matches, held in two different competitions in two different confederations. But, I still find this interesting.
As the English are fond of saying, “It’s a funny old game.”
In The Opinion Of The Referee 
4 responses to “Case Study: A Tale Of Two Headers”
Should have been ruled on the opposite of what happened perhaps?
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Nice catch ITOOTR – Agree above – EPL game “he was all over him ref” – think it should have been disallowed. Hard to tell on the second but looks good to me based on the snap shot.
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I was at the Galaxy match with an excellent view of the play. I immediately thought a foul. I replayed it at home and wasn’t sure it was a foul but was very sure I understood why it looked like one and was called. The still photo makes it look pretty harmless though.
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Very nice comparison. The situation that occurred in EPL is definitely a foul and it was just omitted by the match referee. It was surely over the top, for any league. Now the MLS Cup Final situation is a bit more complicated. As you can see in our blog about it ( http://soccerrefereeusa.com/index.php/entry/52-la-galaxy-crowned-mls-cup-champions ) there are lots of different opinions about it. Ours is that the MLS play was within legal parameters and the ensuing goal should stand.
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