So, are Aussie sides getting harshly penalised, their players buried beneath mountains of red and yellow cards while other Asian sides skip past unmolested?
Well… it’s kinda inconclusive.
The ACL stats page has a list of every player with cards to his name, unhelpfully arranged in alphabetical order, and in a fit of nerd-dom I’ve had a go at re-arranging them by team. From this I can say that while Sydney has a pretty high card-count, we’ve definately got competition. Najaf FC* go to their next game with nine players facing suspension if they recieve another yellow as do the UAE’s Al-Wahda. Close behind them are Group G leaders Shandong Luneng and Indonesian side Arema Malang on eight apiece.
Looking at the Aussie teams in a bit more detail, Sydney has had three players suspended with two cards, Adelaide two. The Skyblues also slightly edge out the Red Army on players with a card to their name, 5-4. As far as groups go, Shanghai Shenua have seven players on one card, Perik four and Urawa three, while Adelaide as mentioned above have been out-carded by near certain qualifiers Shandong. The competition average seems to be about 6 players on one card.
So, have the Skyblues been hard done by? Probably equally by the refs as well as ourselves – Zadkovich fully earnt his two yellows at Solo stadium and Carney’s petulant goalkick after the whistle was completely unnecessary. On the other hand, several our yellows were decidely 50/50 and a case could be made that their awardment(awardal? Awardness?) was made more likely by constant attempts by other sides to earn free-kicks and more off bulky SFC players** – I’m sure Adelaide fans would have similar things to say.
Ultimately it would be remiss to focus to heavily on cardings an suspensions – the central stuffups in Sydney FC’s campaign: Bolton’s fumble and the nightmare in Solo, had little to do with refereeing decisions and we triumphed over Persik Kediri despite having key players suspended. Is it a headache going into the business-end of the tournament with five players one card away from suspension? Undoubtably. Should the ACL adopt a saner yellow card policy? Of course, but I suspect Adelaide would happily trade a few more players on yellows for a Nathan Burns or Bruce Djite hattrick a few weeks ago, when scoring really counted. There are much more things to worry about than the referee’s whistle.
* Yes, that Najaf. Their in this comp with another Iraqi side, Al-Zawraa. Both play out of Jordan.
**Not that we haven’t stooped to similar tactics: Alex Brosque’s spectacular flop in front of goal on what appeared to be minimal goalie contact was deeply dubious, and absolutely stupid if he wasn’t in fact, tripped – why try and earn a penalty kick if you’ve got an open goalmouth?
