Brendan Burke Frustrated by "Shameful" Refereeing After Hartford Athletic's 1-0 Loss to Tampa Bay Rowdies
"This is like the sixth or seventh time I've had to stand here this year and we've had a game completely flipped on its head by a referee.”
Hartford Athletic’s 1-0 loss to the Tampa Bay Rowdies at Trinity Health Stadium on Friday did not come without its fair share of drama, as a late red card in the first half forced Hartford to play the entire second half down a man against one of the league’s strongest attacks.
The dismissal, which Hartford Head coach Brendan Burke expressed frustration with post match, completely changed a game which he said the Green and Blue were dominant in the attack, and put the hosts on the back foot for the second 45. Eventually, despite a strong defensive performance and a six-save performance from Renan Ribeiro between the sticks, the Green and Blue could not go the distance as they gave away a late penalty that secured all three points for Tampa.
The unfortunate series of events for Hartford began in the ninth minute, when Beverly Makangila was shown yellow for what was later described as a “reckless offense” by the USL Championship.
“His first yellow should have never happened,” Burke said, “It wasn't a foul. He hit the ball and, you know, he got frustrated because the state of the refereeing is honestly just shameful right now. So that was never a foul.”
Author’s note: I tried to go back on the broadcast and look for the incident to review it further, as I did not get a good view in person, but the broadcast experienced issues that caused the stream to cut out from minutes five through nine. As far as I was able to find, there is not any footage of the first yellow card, so we only have what was reported by the league’s statistics.
Later in the half, Makangila collided with Tampa Bay’s Pacifique Niyongabire after going to ground with a forceful sliding challenge, causing the referee to show him a second yellow card and sending Hartford down to 10 men for the remainder of the match. Here’s a look at the challenge:
Author’s opinion: Although Makangila appears to get some piece of the ball here, it’s clear the his left leg comes in late, sweeping the Niyongabire’s ankles in a reckless manner that ultimately makes this challenge worthy of a yellow card. For me, the yellow card here is the correct call, but the question marks surround the initial yellow earlier in the half that upgraded this to a sending-off.
“We have to be smarter on the second one, but he won the ball on the second one as well, so it's like, yeah, he went in with some force, but that was a really bad red card,” Burke said. “You know, in a game where we had a foothold, we had a lot of good chances in the first half, this is like the sixth or seventh time I've had to stand here this year and we've had a game completely flipped on its head by a referee.”
Despite a tactical shift in the second half that saw Hartford face 19 shots and possess only 30 percent of the ball, the Green and Blue kept the visitors out of the back of the net for the majority of the half and even created a handful of dangerous opportunities on the counter.
“I thought we were fine tactically,” Burke said. “The way we set up for the second half, we were set up to counter. We were picking them up much lower on the field, but we had plugged all the right holes. I didn't feel like they had any great chances.”
In the 64th minute, a wide-open chance at the far post went missing for Marcus Epps when he couldn’t put away Younes Boudadi’s cross, and Hartford were ultimately made to pay as Tampa converted a penalty kick in the 87th minute to steal a 1-0 win.
“I felt like the guys did everything we asked them to do,” Burke said. “I felt like we couldn't have set them up much better in the second half, but we have to score that chance that Younes [Boudadi] leaves out there for us.”
The loss was Hartford’s first at home in over a month, and the Green and Blue now face a two-match road trip before returning to Hartford on July 12. Next up, a late 11 p.m. ET kickoff awaits them at Sacramento Republic FC on Saturday as they’ll look to get back on track on the road.