Do not make this man angry

If there’s one thing Peter Nowak hates, it’s whining.

At Sunday’s loss against FC Dallas, which saw three Union players issued red cards, Nowak saw a whole lot of whining from both benches.

And he is not amused.

In a conference call covered by the Philadelphia Inquirer and The Mercury, Nowak said of all of the sideline dissent, “It’s complaining for the sake of complaining . . . It doesn’t really matter who the call is for or against. It’s just waving arms, screaming, yelling for an official. It’s like kindergarten kids playing in the sand box.”

He continued, “It looks bad when a coach is waving his arms on every call . . . From the players to the equipment managers to the everybody standing up and waving their arms — it needs to stop.”

Nowak watched Sunday’s match from the coaches box in the stands rather than from the sideline. And he had a message for his team: “If this happens with our bench, every single member who complains will have a big problem with me, and have consequences.”

Nowak’s elaborated his concern over the lack of respect shown to officials from the bench during Sunday’s game, “Where are we going with this stuff? Are the players playing the game or is the bench playing the game? And is the bench making decisions for the referees?”

He said of match officials, “We have to give them the right (of way) in order to make those kind of decisions, without saying too much or disrespecting referees and putting them in this kind of situation.”

Nowak sees a continued lack of respect toward officials as having consequences on and off the pitch, both for the team and the league. “If this continues, the game will become a freak show and looks bad from a television perspective and fans’ perspective.”

“We just started our franchise, and the culture needs to be established from the beginning.”

Too true.