When I announced at the end of January that I was stepping away from Massive Report, I figured it wouldn’t be the last time I wrote something about the Columbus Crew here. But I anticipated it would take a big event/incident/story for me to make a guest return. It turns out it took less than two months for me to feel a brief return was needed.

My decision stems from the Crew’s 2-0 loss at Charlotte FC on Saturday night. If you watched the match, you are aware of the controversy surrounding it. If you didn’t tune in, you probably had a better evening than those who did.

While admitting that I have allowed myself to dive back into my Black & Gold fandom more this season than I did when covering the team, I believe I can look at this match and the incidents that led to it going off the rails without my black and gold glasses. Putting it bluntly, this was an embarrassment for Major League Soccer. For a league that claims to be among the best in the world, what happened at Bank of America Stadium is a black eye and should be one of many signs that MLS needs to look itself in the mirror and figure out where it’s actually going and how it wants to get there because that wasn’t it.

Before we get into the officiating — and rest assured, we will get there — we must talk about Bank of America Stadium. Potential ownership groups looking for an MLS expansion team were once required to have at least a plan in place for a soccer-specific stadium. That, clearly, has gone out the window, with teams like the Seattle Sounders, Atlanta United and Charlotte all playing in NFL stadiums.

Soccer does not belong on field turf. I played on it throughout high school and have been injured on it. I still play rec soccer on it because that’s the only way to get games in Central Ohio during winter. More teams across Europe would use it due to the climate in many of those regions and the ease at which you can maintain turf if it was meant for this game.

For the second in the last two trips to Bank of America Stadium, the Crew suffered what could be significant injuries. After left back Will Sands was lost for the season last April with a torn ACL suffered on the turf, center back Rudy Camacho dropped to the ground without contact in the opening 20 minutes of Saturday’s match and had to be replaced, and forward Christian Ramirez limped off five minutes later.

If, as expected, both players miss time, this is a blow for the Black & Gold. Before Camacho’s arrival from CF Montreal last summer, Columbus conceded 33 goals in 23 games in MLS play with five shutouts. Once Camacho made his debut, quickly stepping into the starting lineup, the Crew only allowed 13 goals in 11 games to end the regular season, including four clean sheets. Despite playing three of the league’s top nine highest scorers in the Black & Gold’s run to winning MLS Cup, Columbus allowed nine goals in Camacho’s six postseason starts.

Camacho brings a veteran leadership to the Crew’s backline that cannot be replaced. His familiarity with head coach Wilfried Nancy, dating back to their time together in Montreal, helped change the course of the Black & Gold’s season in 2023. While a potential long-term injury to Camacho wouldn’t spell the end of Columbus’ season, it certainly changes the planning, especially with no like-for-like replacement in the heart of the Crew’s defense.

Ramirez missing time would also alter Nancy’s plans, but there is more depth across the attacking front. The forward showed his value to the club last year, scoring 10 goals and adding four assists. He is the Black & Gold’s only traditional No. 9 but provides additional value with more diverse positional play than a typical player of his stature. Columbus could make due if he is out, with Cucho Hernandez continuing his MVP play and asking more from Diego Rossi, Jacen Russell-Rowe, Marino Hinestroza and Alexandru Matan, when he returns from his own injury, but it is not ideal.

While injuries are part of the game and can take place on any field, Crew fans have seen what this turf at Charlotte can do to players two years running. I say this mostly joking, but Nancy should consider not playing games at that stadium in the future. In my opinion, a forfeit loss is better than more injuries, and it would send a message to MLS that the league needs to step in and have its teams playing on grass in soccer stadiums.

Now, on to the officiating…

It is well-documented by now that the Professional Referees Organization (PRO) locked out MLS’s referees in February over compensation disputes, leaving the league with replacement officials to begin the season. There have been issues through the opening weeks of the year, but nothing on the level of what happened in Charlotte.

It was clear from the opening whistle, when the kickoff had to be taken multiple times, that we were in for a long night. The center referee was Christopher Calderon, whose LinkedIn bio says he’s refereed “hundreds of matches across the United States annually,” including USSF, MLS, USL Pro, PDL, NCAA, SCSOA, Cal South, but a Google search, for what it’s worth, showed five MLS matches on his résumé, three of which were as the fourth official.

Setting aside the kickoff issue, Calderon was out of his depth early. The first major decision came when he sent off Crew midfielder Derrick Jones Jr.

The incident occurred as Jones went to turn with the ball while being pressured and inadvertently stepped on Djibril Diani’s ankle. Calderon, who was just a few feet away from the play with a clear view of the coming together, did not blow for a foul and play only stopped several seconds later when Hernandez allowed the ball to roll out of play so Diani could receive treatment.

The issue here is not so much with Calderon as it is with VAR. Soccer’s review system has taken on a life of its own since it debuted in 2016. Instead of being a tool to briefly stop matches and fix clear errors by the referees, it has become a crutch for the officials to lean on instead of making the correct calls.

In this instance, however, it is the technology that fails Columbus. A play such as this is rarely even second-guessed without VAR. One player (Jones) had the ball coming out of a turn and looked to cut it back to his right, accidentally coming down on the other player (Diani), who stepped underneath his plant foot while going for the tackle. In real time, it’s likely a foul, and no doubt painful for Diani, but no more. But when the referee goes to VAR and the video is slowed down and paused, the step looks worse than it is.

I don’t think Derrick Jones deserved a red card. IMO, the tackle looks worse on video review. #Crew96 #MLS360 pic.twitter.com/AHAPgdTKiw

— Seth (@SethMan31) March 24, 2024

Jones did not go into a tackle in this instance. He didn’t raise his foot higher than it should have been or expose his studs. Where else is Jones’ foot supposed to go as he shifts to his right to avoid Diani’s attempt at taking the ball? Calderon went to the monitor as advised by VAR Frank Anderson, who retired from refereeing last year to become PRO’s Manager of Senior Assistant Referees, and judged that this was a dangerous play.

Other referees have been duped before by slow motion replays or still photos of plays. A more experienced referee would hopefully understand the game enough to recognize that Jones did nothing dangerous and was simply making a play on the ball, however unfortunate it is for Diani, who recovered enough to play the rest of the match and record an assist.

What makes matters worse is that there was a similar, arguably worse, incident later when Charlotte’s Scott Arfield came down on Darlington Nagbe’s inner knee while the Crew midfielder stretched to receive a pass. Like the Jones challenge, Nagbe’s leg went under Arfield, who came down hard on his opponent.

In this case, Calderon, who was once again well-positioned to see the challenge, called a foul but did not issue a card and was not advised to check the play. How these two plays less than 20 minutes apart are not handled the same speaks to the inconsistency of officiating across the league, but particularly in this game.

In between these two plays, an argument could be made that Charlotte’s Ashley Westwood should have been given a second yellow card. While more debatable, it’s just another issue in a rough first half for the officials that didn’t end there.

Hernandez thought he’d opened the scoring for the visitors in first half stoppage time, but VAR intervened once again and the Black & Gold were incorrectly punished once more. In this case, wing back Max Arfsten was ruled offside upon further review.

The issue here isn’t whether Arfsten was offside or not, he might have been after a ball played from the back from Columbus goalkeeper Evan Bush. The problem is there was no angle to show that to Anderson or Calderon, who shouldn’t even go to the monitor for VAR. The only view Calderon was shown is from a camera near the top of Bank of America Stadium and at an angle that doesn’t prove an obvious error.

The fact that there is no better angle than the one above is another indictment against a team playing at Bank of America Stadium and against MLS for allowing this to even be an issue. But Anderson, a former MLS Assistant Referee of the Year, should have been able to look at the one angle available and determine that this cannot be overturned. The fact that he told Calderon, an inexperienced official at this level who had already proven unable to call things currently under this pressure, to go to the monitor without proper video evidence is a shame.

Again, VAR is there to correct clear errors, not to change the course of games by fine margins. The linesman on Arfsten’s side of the field, who was in line with the Crew wing back, never raised his flag for offside. Suppose MLS wants to go down to inches or centimeters on offside. In that case, the league needs cameras in place to have a clear view and take a page out of the English Premier League’s book, get the technology to tell with near certainty where the player is in relation to the second-to-last defender when the ball is played. That was not what happened here.

Seconds after the Black & Gold’s goal was ruled out, Calderon again made a perplexing call, awarding Charlotte a penalty kick out of nothing. A long ball from the back led to a collision between Yaw Yeboah and Kerwin Vargas that Calderon deemed enough to award a spot kick. The two did make contact and Vargas went to ground, but that type of coming together hadn’t been called a foul, much less a penalty kick, during the game. Even the announce crew on the broadcast stated, “There’s nothing in that at all. It’s not a penalty kick.”

What makes matters worse is that this is the type of play VAR was created to fix. The referee saw something on the field that wasn’t correct — he’s human, mistakes happen — and the replay showed that a mistake was made. Calderon never went to the monitor despite Crew players showing him the replay on the jumbotron in the stadium. He then doubled down on his call by giving Yeboah a yellow card.

All’s well that ends well, as Iuri Tavares put the penalty kick attempt high and wide, but that doesn’t excuse the officials for the call or the lack of a review.

I’m not one to believe in conspiracy theories in sports, but it was pointed out to me that this controversial officiating came three and a half hours after MLS darlings Inter Miami lost 4-0 at the New York Red Bulls, giving Columbus the chance to climb to the top of the Supporter’s Shield standings with a game in hand. I don’t believe Calderon and his crew were told to call this game against the defending champions, but I can imagine the league isn’t disappointed with the result and nothing will come from it.

While a disappointing first loss of the 2024 season for the Crew, it was unlikely the Black & Gold would go undefeated this season. If Columbus was going to lose a game, it might as well have been one where the odds were stacked against them by a refereeing crew that shouldn’t be officiating at this level.