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Revolution Fans Defeat Sporting KC Coach Peter Vermes on Twitter

Seriously, that was a Twitter winning performance last night by Revs fans. Peter Vermes made some outrageous comments on MLSSoccer.com and then New England started calling him out on it. Here's the highlights.

By Jake Catanese
I swear, Sunil, I didn't mean it! Don't send Joe-Max after me!
I swear, Sunil, I didn't mean it! Don't send Joe-Max after me!
Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports

Before I get started, I want to give everyone a standing ovation for the overall performance of the Twitter hashtag "#NERevs" last night. Take a bow. Because if that isn't the definition of "#Nguyening" twitter I don't know what is.

It all started with this MLSSoccer.com article about Peter Vermes, who is still upset about the officiating from last Saturday's 2-1 New England Revolution win over his Sporting Kansas City side. Now, I covered the officiating in detail as well, and I can agree that referee Ismail Elfath didn't handle the end of the game well, but Vermes won't let it go. Although I can understand his point on the Revs first goal, at some point you need to quit while you're behind.

And what he says crosses the line. Right in the headline (okay, it was right in the headline but it got changed too, quote is in the article), Vermes says that SKC is "going to have to take matters into our own hands." Vermes goes on to say that Chad Barrett should've been ejected for a foul in stoppage time on Lawrence Olum, that caused Olum to suffer a displacement fracture in his shin, likely knocking him out for the rest of the playoffs. There has to be a better way to get the league's attention than this.

The play in question happened just over 3 minutes into stoppage time, as Barrett stuck his leg out to block a clearence from Olum and its likely there is minor contact between the two players as Barrett catches Olum on his follow through. But no foul was called on the play, and Barrett was sitting on a yellow card for dissent that he received two minute earlier, which is not explained in the article. Vermes is likely thinking that Barrett should have been shown a second yellow for the action, which in my opinion is ridiculous. Also noteworthy, is the first incarnation of the MLS article had Andrew Farrell's name in place of Barrett's, adding to the confusion, but this was later fixed by the website.

But that didn't stop myself and several other TBM readers, Ben, Chris and NE Soccer Today's Sean Donahue from spending forever trying to figure out what Vermes was saying. And we finally did, no thanks to the lousy article written to along with Vermes' asinine statements. I'll add some of the highlights from that conversation too.

Needless to say, this is not the way to go about airing your thoughts on officiating just a day before a playoff game. And if you're going to give the New England fans a softball for bulletin board material, they're going to crush it out of the park. What followed was about as good a thumping on Twitter as you can get.

Author's Note: The following tweets may include graphic language/content. Reader discretion is advised.

THE INITIAL ARTICLE POSTS

VERMES THE JERK

WHAT DID FARRELL DO?

This would be a long conversation trying to figure out exactly what Vermes was talking about. First problem is the article mentions an incident with Farrell which is later changed to Barrett. Takes even longer for Ben to find the exact play Olum gets injured on, which is two minutes after Barrett gets called for a foul and booked for dissent. Again, the way the article was written does no favors to Vermes here.

THE BENT MUSKET RESPONDS

THE MEMES THAT WON TWITTER

To conclude, when a head coach makes a fool of himself and his horrendous comments get published in an equally horrendous, poorly written article, New England wins Twitter.

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