UEFA EURO Analysis: Round of Sixteen no.I (ITAAUT, WALDEN)

The initiation of the knockout stage on Saturday saw not only an increase in the scrutiny on the referees increase, but the difficulty of their respective matches too. Daniel Siebert and Anthony Taylor were up to the task though - a look back at their matches in this post. 

All roads lead to London - let's start with the Wembley tie. 

Anthony Taylor's team in Italy vs. Austria

Big Decisions

The significance of this moment seemed, at least to me, lost on most non-refereeing people: if not for the offside offence, Austria would have been awarded a penalty with about fifteen minutes remaining!

To be fair, I liked the common-sensical way that the (video match) officials solved this situation - there was no need to arouse more attention with an OFR for this particular penalty offence, and going direct to the offside from Nyon was the smarter choice. 

Between Taylor and assistant Adam Nunn, they ought to have reached the correct decision on the pitch mind (failed communication about the touch, missed offside position by the assistant, or not assessed active offside on the fouled player?). 

This was not Nunn's strongest evening - his onside decision for what would have been an Austria goal at 65' was overturned by VAR too in a two-minute long review (clip). 

Managing the Game

Anthony Taylor had to face a quite tough, dynamic game in his home country - his performance was one on an expected level. 

The most challenging aspect of this game was foul recognition. Taylor did not do badly given the extremely high number of often-tricky situations he had to compute over the one-hundred and twenty minutes (eg. 6', 7', 16', 29', 30', 34', 35', 45', 47', 49', 62', 64', 68', 73', 83', 101'). 

However, Taylor didn't fully convince in this regard either. The English referee didn't always seem totally convinced in his perception, with some small delays in foul calls; his accuracy overall was good, but not more than that. 

His approach to disciplinary control was good. Mandatory caution at 1' issued, and then sensible to not card at 6' (Immobile did do everything to pull out), and then otherwise relatively yellow card ignored at 20' was sensible for balancing. The rest was good, and in accordance with this EURO's expectations. 

On a presence level, I found Taylor a little disappointing this time - he was always quite distant from the players, even in scenes when it would have been advantageous not to have been (eg. 24', 35', 49', 89'). However, the English referee could jump in when needed, and steer this game to a positive conclusion. 

Gary Beswick could confirm the positive impression from this trio's previous game (56', 78', +91'), however Adam Nunn did not - a poor delayed flag procedure at 41' was followed by pretty crucial mistakes later on (65', 74'). To repeat myself - this was not Nunn's strongest evening. 


Summary: A challenging, tiring game for the English referee. For that reason, he opted to 'cut corners' a little bit where possible - in terms of foul selection, managing the players. Overall though, a good impression from Anthony Taylor, expected level performance. 

Daniel Siebert's team in Wales - Denmark

Big Decisions

Above:

48’ - Potential foul, boundary call before 0-2* goal, supported by VAR

90’- Red card to Wales no.8 (Violent Conduct)

+94’ - Offside call by Jan Siedel corrected by VAR, 0-4* goal

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It is actually worth starting with an incident not in the video montage - we are indebted to the anonymous user who provided this angle on the 11’ incident. Of course, no penalty is the correct decision (clip).

Siebert’s call to play on at 48’ was, in my view, excellent. Moore has deliberately put himself in front of the defender, no longer really interested in the ball, and actually impedes the defender in his reasonable running for the ball. The German referee saw perfectly through it!

Regarding VAR intevention: 

- the APP had clearly reset before this foul, so it was never possible

- despite the failed clearance by Williams later, the boundary call should most certainly be subject to APP scrunity, and the VMOs correctly determined that the ball wasn’t clearly out

I would like to use another, very similar, situation from years past to the red card given to Wilson at 90. Look up Deco’s tackle in the Battle of Nuremburg match between Portugal and the Netherlands at World Cup 2006. 

Two very similar challenges - in the 2006 incident, referee Valentin Ivanov only issued a yellow card. I don’t want to drag up everything about that game again, but the pantomime nature of the end to that game was partly because Ivanov didn’t instantly eject Deco for this foul. 

There is an art to assessing violence in tackles and challenges as a referee - in recent years, it is perhaps a skill which has been partly lost. Those who study slo-motion replays in this scene in order to determine whether it is dangerous or not have rather the wrong idea. 

Those who say Siebert's decision was "brash" or something like that are totally wrong - everything about this decision, this challenge, is because the score is 0-3 and the time 90'. As far as I see it, this was a categorically brilliant decision by Siebert. 

Jan Siedel’s mistake right at the end was one of the tigher crucial offside mistakes in this tournament, and perhaps the longest check of the EURO too in that regard (?). 

Managing the Game

Without any doubt, the performance of the tournament onto then by Daniel Siebert! I would even argue that in the last ten-twelve years, there are only a few performances which rival the quality which the German referee offered on this afternoon in a major tournament. 

Besides some small points very early on (missed foul at 3’, passive advantage also at 3’), this was a quite genuinely a total masterclass from the German referee in every aspect of refereeing (foul recognition, disciplinary control, self-presentation, communication). 

I would highlight a few things in particular:

- instant DtR warning to Wales goalkeeper at 8’ discreetly at a goalkick

- brilliant preparation for the play of Wales striker foul, the engineered fouls (eg. 30’, 48’), the apparently accidental elbow trick which he pulled earlier in the tournament (40’)

- fantastic feeling for presence, warnings (32’, 33’), very satisfying player interactions (eg. 56’)

- perfect use of cards, many might have chosen to ignore the tactical holding foul at 26’ as an opening yellow card, as well as the flagrant Bale dissent at the end

Summary: Refereeing is an art, and it is just wonderful to see someone have so visibly mastered it in a match. I can’t praise this performance enough! Thank you Mr. Siebert - it was an absolute pleasure. 

Balance

Two good performances of different measure and consequence - Daniel Siebert was quite excellent in a game which will probably have to be his last (he certainly deserves a fourth!), while Anthony Taylor did well overall in an exciting game; his Three Lions-dependent shout for the final, is alive. 


Refereeing highlights:

Wales - Denmark
Italy - Austria