The North Carolina men’s soccer team racked up plenty of fouls last week against Wake Forest with a combined 28 fouls and two yellow cards being levied, but Friday night’s 1-0 win against Virginia proved even more physical.
The referees distributed 41 fouls and five yellow cards between the two teams.
Despite 18 fouls in the first half, neither team was cautioned with a yellow card until the 52nd minute when Virginia’s Matt Brown sent UNC freshman Danny Garcia to the ground on a hard tackle.
In the next 12 minutes three more yellow cards were issued, two to Virginia and one to UNC’s Mikey Lopez.
UNC coach Carlos Somoano said he thought that if the referee had been quicker with his whistle earlier in the game, there would have been less need for yellow cards in the second half.
“We were getting fouled a lot in the first half,” Somoano said. “He should have been calling it, and then I think in the second half, for some reason, he tried to let it go.
“Maybe he felt bad that he called too many fouls, and once he started letting it go, that’s when it got out of hand.”
The referees might have used the yellow cards as a way to combat missed calls, Somoano said.
“There were a lot of missed calls,” he said. “Those are the funny ones because you know as soon as you miss two or three in a row, you know a harder one’s coming, and (the referee) tries to solve it with a yellow card.”
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