Red Card Review: Blomberg Sent off Against Sporting KC

For the third consecutive MLS game, Sporting Kansas City were involved in a game that didn’t include 22 players finishing the match. In the opener against Los Angeles Football Club, Roger Espinoza was sent off for a second yellow.

Last week at Children’s Mercy Park, the Philadelphia Union’s Marco Fabian, who was on a yellow, received a straight red after video review for a blatant stomp into Johnny Russell.

And on Sunday night in Commerce City, the Colorado Rapids were reduced to 10 men due a second yellow for Johan Blomberg. It was confusing on multiple fronts. First, Blomberg had only been in the match for eight minutes when he picked up his second yellow. He replaced Kellyn Acosta in the 79th minute. He picked up his first yellow for a rough challenge in the 80th minute.

Then, on the heels of Axel Sjoberg fouling Gianluca Busio just outside the box, Blomberg was given a second yellow. On the ESPN+ broadcast, they had the commentators for the Colorado Rapids. They thought Blomberg must have said something to referee Allen Chapman because he was in no way involved in the play. But after the game, it turns out it was for time wasting. Here is the time wasting incident.

After the whistle is blown for the foul Blomberg clears the ball down the field. It’s no doubt soft, but it wasn’t the first time Colorado had committed an act of time wasting in the game, despite being the home team. On multiple occasions they had poked the ball away, kicked it, or thrown it away. This time it caught up with them.

Ultimately, Russell would score on the ensuing free kick, which had nothing to do with the card. Then Sporting KC couldn’t take advantage of being up a man due to the sheer exhaustion they were experiencing. So ultimately, nothing came of the call.

Here are the full highlights, though you can see a 20 minute version of these highlights in the MLS App if you are a glutton for punishment.