re: Twitter exchange between Piers Morgan and Michael Owen regarding Coloccini's red

I wish LFC had crazy African supporters to boost my self-confidence a little

I do think Owen brings up an interesting point: if Colo wanted to make contact he easily could have. Suarez didn't move. That said, it sure looked like he was trying to frick him up or send a message. Tough to determine intent a lot of the time during a match.

Spikes above the knee thrusted downward at a player's leg endangers the safety of the opponent, whether he missed intentionally or not.

It's like saying someone went to fake punch someone, but intentionally grazing his face in order to intimidate the other player. How is the ref supposed to know that?

The line judge was literally 5 yards away, saw the intent and told the referee to give him red. THey even showed the linesman's lips in slow motion saying "red" into the mic.

Tough one but red was deserved. Suarez should be suspended for faking injury.

Well whether it was harsh or not, I'm not sure. Yellow doesn't discipline him enough, but red is an inherently harsh punishment (one I've established my distaste with multiple times on here). Falls perfectly within the rules of giving a red and looks very malicious. He didn't complain much after receiving the card which says a lot in its own right. The Newcastle fans on Reddit said that it was very out of character from him. He was cautioned multiple times within the match so that also must have held some merit in the ref's mind.

I do have a serious question, though. Everyone is saying contact is not required, hell I even RT'd someone saying that, but looking at the rule everyone has pointed to, it says "tackle." Can you tackle someone without making any contact?

In this situation, he definitely grazed Suarez so it falls under that rule either way.

That was brought up in one of the reddit red card arguments a few weeks ago. Obviously there is no definition for it in the rule book, but one dude on Reddit who claimed to be a high school referee said the unwritten definition is "engaging the opponent to win the ball" or something along those lines.

Makes sense.

I know some Arsenal fans, and even Wenger I think, argued the Eduardo dive incident versus Celtic was a PK because Boruc had no chance at the ball and still "attempted to trip" Eduardo which would be a foul and PK in the box but I always thought that was a bit much. I have a hard time with the attempt/intent stuff on the soccer field because its so fast paced. Its always tricky.

To be clear, I'm not saying he pulled out. I'm saying he could have. Seems slightly more reasonable than him whiffing. But it looked really bad and intentional. That's why I think the red (and all of its punishments) was harsh (but clearly under the rules, justified). Tough to know what was going on in his mind. It's not in the rules, but to me there's a pretty big difference between intent and intent + follow through.