Hypocrisy - Thy Name Is Kyle Martino
Kyle Martino goes into the broadcast booth and further shoves his foot into his mouth. read more...
Hypocrisy - Thy Name Is Kyle Martino
Chris Webb
August 14, 2007
Los Angeles Galaxy midfielder Kyle Martino (18) slides to foul DC United midfielder Fred (7) earning
Photo: Jose Luis Argueta/ISI
Before I get to the bashing, I feel it's only fair to say up front that after Kyle Martino's 10 minute stint in the broadcast booth during the Los Angeles Galaxy's 1-0 loss in New England on Sunday evening he clearly will have a job as a color commentator once his dissapointing professional career comes to an end.
Washington, D.C.
He was well spoken, glib and very sharp witted during his conversation with PBP man Jim Watson and color man Mark Rogandino. I long for the day when Marcelo Balboa will hang his tongue up for good and let someone who can speak coherently and intelligently in the booth.
We may be waiting for a while.
But I digress. On to the topic at hand. It all started shortly after Thursday nights match in DC in which Martino was rightfully red-carded for a dreadful tackle on United midfielder Fred. “You’re talking about a wet surface,” Martino said according to Ian Plenderleith of Ussoccerplayers.com , “you’re talking about a very quick guy who, if you watch the video tape, the initial trajectory of my slide tackle was right at the ball, [but] he gets his toe in there right before I’m able to make contact with the ball. It could be argued that it’s from behind, but we’ve seen tons of tackles in this league, tons of tackles around the world that didn’t warrant a red card in that scenario.”
But Martino wasn't done just yet. “That referee [Jair Marrufo] has had a track record of making some pretty ridiculous calls, especially against us -- just a month ago he threw Chris Klein out of a game that no one could even find where the foul was. He’s been the type of referee to take things personally, show his emotions on the field, and that makes everybody feel like he’s a little bit unstable out there, because he doesn’t stop to think, doesn’t stop to rationalize, always goes on emotion, and you can see he has something personally invested in decisions that he’s making. I mean, you never really know what’s going to come from that referee.”
Well that's rich. Let's move forward a few days to the match in New England and one would suspect with a few days to think about it, cooler heads would prevail. No such luck. Martino was yet again on the prowl and this time United midfielder Fred was his target. As the replay of the red card tackle was being shown during a stoppage in play, Martino commented that the foul was a yellow card at best and that "Fred is a Brazilian and they will fall over if hit with a wet noodle". Martino continued to add a few snipes and jabs at Fred such as Fred "winking" at him in a "gotcha" type scenario. While I don't necessarily disagree with the notion that players south of the border seem to be aggressive in the flopping category, it was as clear as day to a national tv audience on ESPN2 exactly what Martino did.
So, what exactly is hypocritical about all these comments from Martino? Well, it's pretty simple. Let's go back to the Galaxy's July 4th matchup at the Home Depot Center against the Chicago Fire and what came out of that match was more disgraceful than his harsh words for Jair Maruffo after their loss to United or his ugly tackle on Fred.
It was the pair of shameful dives that resulted in penalty kicks and the final scoreline of 2-0 for the Galaxy. Martino made Greg Louganis blush with embarrassment with his theatrical spills. After his second flop Chicago Fire PBP man Kenn Tomasch simply blurted out "You've got to be kidding me". And this from probably one of the most even handed PBP men in MLS circles.
The moral of this story kiddies is that one should not pop off at the mouth when you have done something so pathetic and denegrating to the game. Kyle Martino didn't deserve the right to sound off in this manner after what he pulled off on July 4th.
Those in glass houses Kyle, those in glass houses.
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