Seeing the ugly side of the beautiful game

Once again, they flocked into Qwest Field, 29,000 strong, on a Sunday afternoon to watch Sounders FC play Los Angeles.

They came to watch the beautiful game. But a rugby match broke out instead.

This was the ugly side of the beautiful game. All black eyes and yellow cards and one red card for Sounders defender James Riley.

It was a 1-1 draw that should have been played inside the octagon. A match only Chuck Liddell could love. It was a match that rumbled out of control early. A match that starred the referee and not the players.

From the kickoff it was filled with cheap shots and flowed as slowly as the Mississippi River in August. It was so rough-and-tumble, a player could have feared for his safety.

"That's why you have to count on the ref," said Sounders midfielder Freddie Ljungberg. "There were some dirty tackles flying around, but that's part of the game and that's why you have to rely on the refs. All I can do in a game like this is leave it in the refs' hands."

And when the refs, like Sunday's wayward referee Tim Weyland, aren't there to make the calls?

"Then you have to find someone better," Ljungberg said. "A lot of players get scared when there are a lot of tackles flying around. I just move. When I feel it's not fair, when the refs should take care of it, but they don't, that's when I really want to win more and more and more."

The league needs someone better than Tim Weyland calling its games. A major-league sport needs big-league arbiters. Weyland looked overwhelmed on this stage.

He allowed the game to turn dirty and chippy. He was slow with his whistle. He missed calls that were as obvious as daylight and dealt cards as if he were working behind a blackjack table.

Soccer still needs to be sold in this country. The flow of the game and the technical skill of the game need to be marketed. But when an official as incompetent as Weyland is working, the game is damaged.

"I think maybe they [refs] should try to let us play a more technical game that is enjoyable for the audience," Ljungberg said. "That's what we want to play. In the beginning today we wanted to be technical, but if somebody is trying to destroy that, yes, then that's when it's a bit annoying.

"We want to sell it to the American crowd. When the game flows, if you have a foul, it's just a foul and you just continue to play and play and play. That's a beautiful game to watch. That's what we're trying to sell. And today when something like this happens, it's frustrating."

Sounders FC has been playing a technical, attacking aesthetic style. Even when it fell a man down, after Riley's red card in the 57th minute, Seattle, not the Galaxy, forced the attack.

But from the beginning, Weyland ignored several late, from-behind tackles by the Galaxy. He turned the game into a tit-for-tat tackle-a-thon. When he finally tried to claim control, it was too late.

"You want to play good soccer," Sounders defender Tyrone Marshall said. "You want to entertain the fans. I think the fans deserve that. I thought we were doing well with the ball in the first half. We were opening up the game. But after the red card, the game got out of hand."

Weyland issued eight yellow cards and one red.

"What I've been told here is that I can't say too much in the interview about the refs. I could be suspended," Ljungberg said. "But you can imagine what I think."

Sounders FC coach Sigi Schmid said Weyland once retired from the game. Weyland should reconsider his decision to return.

His most egregious error came late in the first half, when he swallowed his whistle after Galaxy midfielder Dema Kovalenko pulled down Nate Jaqua inside the penalty area. It should have been a penalty kick that could have given Seattle a 2-1 lead.

Weyland should have given himself a red card for the non-call.

"They didn't do a good job of keeping the rhythm of the game today," Marshall said. "They wanted to put their stamp on the game, instead of letting the game flow.

"I think the best games are when you don't see the man in the middle, and it wasn't that way today. Fans paid to see L.A. and the Sounders, not the man in the middle. But today the game was about the man in the middle."

Marshall was told that Weyland once retired from soccer.

"I don't think he should have come back." Marshall said. "I think he should give it up."

Twenty-nine thousand fans who came to Qwest Field and disappointedly saw soccer morph into rugby, probably would agree.

Steve Kelley: 206-464-2176 or skelley@seattletimes.com