My Take on Petke

It was announced this past weekend that Real Salt Lake have parted ways with head coach Mike Petke. I normally am a not so serious guy but this one hit me, I don’t know why. Maybe because I have been a big proponent of Petke and his “passion”, maybe because he was a Long Island guy (like me) and I gravitated towards him, or maybe because of the “pass ‘em out Trey” comments. 

After RSL’s Leagues Cup lost to Tigres, Petke confronted the referees and reportedly used the infamous homophobic Hispanic slur towards them. The game in my opinion was ref’d pretty bad… but to do/say something like that to a ref is unacceptable. I am a fan of coaches confronting refs and speaking their mind, but yelling slurs and especially homophobic slurs at a ref is never acceptable. Petke needs time away from coaching and away from the game. 

Petke is a talented head coach and I think soccer wise deserves to be in MLS or in U.S. soccer. But, if he can’t take some time to learn, calm down his anger, and understand what he did wrong… then he deserves to not be in coaching. I personally don’t think that Petke is a bad person, people deserves second chances, but this is something that hurts Petke and people’s view of him. 

Mike… you gotta be better than that man. You need to be better.