Abu Farchi Is Sent Off Eight Minutes After Coming On as the Rapids Blow Another Lead

Eight minutes is all Saied Abu Farchi got. The Colorado Rapids forward came off the bench in the 60th minute on Wednesday night with his team level at 1-1 against Minnesota United, and in the 68th minute he was walking off again, sent off for a hand to Michael Boxall’s face after a video review, Field Level Media reports. Colorado played the last 22 minutes with 10 men, scored anyway, and still left Dick’s Sporting Goods Park with a 2-2 draw they had led twice.

What exactly did Abu Farchi do to earn a straight red?

He struck an opponent in the face away from the ball, in the officials’ reading of it. Abu Farchi and Boxall chased a loose ball toward the sideline between the benches, tangled, and fell out of bounds together. As they went down and got up, Abu Farchi’s right hand struck Boxall across the face, Field Level Media reports. Burgundy Wave, the Rapids outlet in the stadium, describes the contact as a glance that appeared to poke Boxall in the eye. The video assistant sent referee Victor Rivas to the monitor, and Rivas returned with a straight red card for violent conduct. Asked about it afterwards, the officials told the pool reporter it was a deliberate striking action, not part of a challenge for the ball, with the hand making contact with the face, Burgundy Wave reports. That wording is the whole case: under current MLS enforcement, a hand to the head or face is treated as violent conduct at almost any force, the same standard that has driven this month’s run of violent-conduct red cards for contact replay caught late.

How can a glance across the face count as violent conduct?

Because the test the officials applied is about the act and the contact point, not the damage done. Burgundy Wave notes the contact looked minimal, close to the least it has seen punished as a slap, and still accepts the logic of the decision: MLS has tried to be consistent that touching another player’s face or head brings a red card. The pool answer backs that reading, since it rests on a deliberate striking action and contact with the face rather than on injury to Boxall, who played on. It sits at the opposite end of the review spectrum from the Soucek penalty row in England, where a wrong call stood because no review could fix it: here the review existed, the referee looked, and the lightest of contacts still met the written threshold.

Why does this red card follow him from September?

Because it is his second in 20 days, for a completely unrelated act. On September 24, Abu Farchi scored his first goal for Israel, an equaliser against Austria in the Nations League, then pulled the corner flag out and made a firing gesture with it as a celebration. He had been booked four minutes earlier, the celebration brought a second yellow card, and Israel lost 3-1 to two goals after the 90th minute, USA Today reports. A scoring celebration in Linz and a hand to a face in Commerce City share nothing except the colour of the card and the player holding the short end of both. Between those two dismissals sits a slow start in MLS: four appearances, two starts and no goal contributions for Colorado before Wednesday, Burgundy Wave reports, for a forward signed from Maccabi Tel Aviv in a deal worth a reported $6 million, USA Today reports.

How did Colorado still nearly win with 10 men?

They scored six minutes after the red card, then gave the lead away on a mistake. Yapi had put Colorado ahead in first-half stoppage time, one-timing a Rosenberry cross for his first MLS goal since April, and Yeboah levelled in the 52nd minute by intercepting a soft Whittaker back pass and beating Nico Hansen one on one, Field Level Media reports. Down a man, Colorado went ahead again in the 74th: Kosi Thompson carried the ball to the end line, his cross deflected off two defenders, and Minoungou pounced at point-blank range for his first goal in an MLS competition with Colorado. The winner never arrived because the equaliser did, in the 83rd minute, when Hansen came well off his line, lost the duel near the end line, and Pereyra’s tight-angle effort deflected in off Loic Williams, Field Level Media reports. Wells called that last goal a freak show, Burgundy Wave reports. It was Colorado’s fourth straight match scoring first and winning none, in a playoff race where young players keep deciding senior matches in this league’s orbit.

What did Abu Farchi do after the final whistle?

He apologised to the whole room before his coach could speak. Wells told Burgundy Wave that Abu Farchi stopped him as he entered the dressing room, addressed him and the group, and apologised for the action, and that Wells liked the responsibility it showed. Rosenberry, the captain he had replaced an hour earlier, said the team would not let him sit with it, because they need him. An apology does not change the suspension, and it does not change a pattern the player now owns, two red cards in his first weeks as a Rapids player and as an Israel scorer. It does change the starting point for Saturday, when Colorado travel to Portland without him and with a lead-protection problem that has now cost them points in four straight matches. His next appearance, when it comes, starts with the simplest instruction in football: keep your hands down.