Fafa Picault addresses Ziegler kick

Philadelphia Union forward Fafa Picault took to Twitter on Sunday to speak out about the Reto Ziegler kick to the abdomen he received after the two players were involved in a collision in front of the FC Dallas goal in the 49th minute.

“I’m still waiting on the video review for the deliberate stud kick to my chest,” Picault wrote. “I’ve gotten carded for love taps...”

The kick came inside the six after Picault and Ziegler collided. Picault went up to win the header off a cross from Kai Wagner but was unable to get the shot on goal. As he came down and started to stumble, Ziegler stuck his boot out from his position on the ground and appeared to make contact with Picault.

Picault appealed to the referee for a foul to be called, lifting up his shirt and showing where he says Ziegler made contact, according to a photo posted on Twitter us 215Pix.

As we saw with the Marco Fabián red card in Sporting Kansas City in the second week of the season when he made contact with his boot with Johnny Russell, the league is not taking kicks of this nature lightly. Fabián was fined an undisclosed amount and had to serve an additional one-game suspension.

Had the referee caught this in real time and awarded a penalty and a red card — Ziegler went into the book with a yellow card in the 85th minute — it could have drastically changed the game. The Union would have had a chance to tie the game and played the final 40 minutes of the game with a man advantage.

As it happened, Cory Burke tied the game at 1-1 with a rebound tap-in off Fabian’s saved penalty in the 85th minute and Alejandro Bedoya won it in stoppage time.