PRO Confirms Russell PK Call Incorrect

In PRO’s weekly segment about the video reviews from the week prior, they confirmed what every Sporting Kansas City player, fan, writer and of course their coach already knew. The penalty kick call against Johnny Russell for a handball was the incorrect one.

Greg Barkey, the Manager of Video Review, said in his weekly segment all the things we already knew. Russell was too close to the ball as it was kicked and his arm was in a natural position. He concludes the segment with, “unfortunately this was an incorrect review and a penalty kick should not have been given.”

As we know, that led to New England’s fourth goal (still no excuse for the other three) and ultimately the game ended in a 4-4 tie. There is no way to know how the rest of the game would have played out but with the New England Revolution down a man at the time, Sporting KC would have been in pretty good shape. Then ultimately, the Revolution went down two players after all eight goals had been scored.

There is nothing anyone can go do to go back and make this right. Head referee Baldomero Toledo made the wrong call and Sporting walk away with one point instead of three. It’s called getting “Toledo’d” and we’re all familiar with it. All we can do is look back on this at the end of the season and hope these two points aren’t crucial.

There is no word from PRO if Toledo or the VAR receive any sort of punishments or demerits for making incorrect calls like this. It’s worth noting the Gerso Fernandes PK wasn’t mentioned in the video. No actual review was triggered, though of course it was checked. It is a foul, even if Gerso went down easily. Unfortunately, if players don’t go down with they are tugged or fouled, the referee probably wouldn’t call it.