Quick Word Better Than Red Cards

• ESPN Insider Blog, Wednesday, June 11, 2008 2 PM

There were seven red cards in three Major League Soccer games last Saturday, but were they all necessary? Andrew Hush picks up on the "innocuous" spat between D.C. United's Marcelo Gallardo and Chicago's Brandon Prideaux as an example of at  least two cards that could have been avoided with a little common sense.
 
"Television evidence suggests the referee, Baldomero Toledo, did not see the incident and took advice from his assistant before going to his pocket," he writes in his Midweek Notebook. "What a shame the linesmen didn't say that what actually happened was that 'two players got tangled up. Have a word and tell them to get on with the game'."
 
But what's a ref to do when a hot red card is burning a hole in his pocket?

Read the whole story at ESPN Insider Blog »