The way I see it is that white lunges for the ball, and does so safely. He is always in front and commits before the red defender, which is often enough for a foul - but given that he had lost his feet anyway, I don't think any careless action by red (if there is any) would have impacted play, so no foul (and we can't tell in the video which player actually kicks the ball).
Any thoughts on my reasoning here?
For some dumb reason I'm on a soccer forum in my state and somebody was whinging about the decision - it's funny seeing the facebook page where people are talking about it like this absolutely absurd decision pulled from nowhere. While I disagree with it, I can completely see where it has come from and I think it just falls more on the side of 'harsh' than 'utterly ridiculous and made up'.
Of course, the FB page I linked to is from the red team ;-)
Disappointing, of course, to see 7 players run up and mob the referee in response to this decision. I remember being taught when I started to not back away from arguing players as it shows weakness and invites more argument. Funny how this is now the norm.
Although I was also taught a completely different approach to signalling penalties.
I certainly don't like the referee turning his back on the involved players like he did - had the attacker started something with the defender he would have had no idea (although the AR should be on top of it - and come on the field if so).
