Tuesday 14 November 2017

Refereeing at UEFA play-offs for 2018 WC Qualification

I want to present a short analysis about the level of refereeing at UEFA play-offs for 2018 WC Qualification. Your opinions are of course welcome. 



Northern Ireland - Switzerland (Ovidiu Hațegan, Felix Brych)
First of all, let me say that in this play off I didn't expect the appointment of the Romanian for the first leg. I didn't expect him because I was sure there were other names ahead, but of course one can say he deserved this chance, thank to some good performances he had shown in recent times.In fact, the tie was at the end decided by a major call made by the Romanian referee, a penalty in favor of Switzerland for an alleged deliberate handball. Replay showed that the decision taken was a wrong one. In the specific case, I think that the Romanian didn't have the exact perception of the incident, he tried to re-analyze in his mind what had happened, but at the end this was a wrong choice. Apart from that, even though I didn't watch the full game, there weren't other major issues. Without AARs and/or VAR,  Hațegan had to decide by himself, so he can't be definitely blamed too much. A mistake can happen. Second leg was officiated by Felix Brych: no problems at all for the German crew, with a solid performance and an expected level work. In the last minutes of the match, NIR had the big chance to score but they were unable to do that, thank to a save by a player from SUI. Maybe Hațegan would have liked to see the contrary, in order to make his mistake less crucial. Switzerland reached the World Cup. I can't criticize the Romanian for the reasons I mentioned, and I will add more about that in the last chapter of this post. 

Croatia - Greece (Gianluca Rocchi, Björn Kuipers)
The tie was entirely decided after first leg, with Croatian side dominating the game and especially the first half in Zagreb. It was not an easy game for Gianluca Rocchi, appointed for first leg, but at the same time neither a very difficult one. The penalty in favor of home-team was the most important crucial decision of the evening and the Italian crew got it right. Then, Greece showed to be in real trouble, being unable to make any opposition to Croatia. This made the game, especially in second half, less challenging for the referee. Second leg was officiated by Dutch Björn Kuipers. In the context of a not so challenging match, Greece looked to ba again unable to put in trouble the opponents, it must be reported that the Dutch decided to have a very lenient approach, trying to save cards and whistling only for blatant fouls. This, at first, looked to be even a dangerous choice, but at the end we can say that the game finished without major issues, so Kuipers gained his ticked for WC. However, personally, I would have liked to see a different refereeing in this game, but I can admit that it was an expected level performance.

Denmark - Republic of Ireland (Milorad Mažić, Szymon Marciniak)
In first leg, we saw a "typical" Mažić, he decided to be quite far away from the spotlights, avoiding to issue any single yellow card. At the end he managed it without significant issues. The only appeal, by Denmark, for an alleged deliberate handball inside the box, was in my opinion correctly refused by referee. Apart from that, nothing else. The game was intense, but not difficult regarding potentially crucial incidents. Second leg was handled by Szymon Marciniak. The Polish assured, in my opinion, a good performance. In first half, he correctly played on, following a penalty appeal by Republic of Ireland. Definitely not enough for a so important whistle. A few later, Denmark scored the equalizer and then won the game without problems, a penalty was whistled in the last minutes of second half and it was another correct decision by Marciniak. Denmark gained the ticket for Russia 2018, very likely the same occurred to the Polish crew.

Sweden - Italy (Cüneyt Çakır, Antonio Mateu Lahoz)
Surely the most discussed play off, in terms of refereeing. In first leg, Turkish Cüneyt Çakır decided to have a quite lenient approach regarding the physical play by Swedish players. Italian side made some complaints for this reason, but I must admit that the Turkish didn't make any blatant mistake, and therefore his choice to be so lenient regarding some aspects of the game could be still okaysh. However, and I want to underline that again, this approach in my opinion it is not supportable when it leads to clear missed YCs, as the one in the early seconds of the game for a reckless elbow by a player from Sweden. As already said for Kuipers in Greece - Croatia, I must repeat that this kind of officiating is always very risky. You can easily fail and then you will have to face the consequences of such an approach. Luckily, it didn't happen with the Turkish in Solna.  Second leg in Milan, officiated by Spanish Mateu Lahoz, is surely the most controversial game of the entire stage. I will try to give my opinion about the performance of the Spanish, however as first thing I want to say that it is not easy to make it short, because there are many and many aspects to be taken into account. Starting from the early minutes, Mateu Lahoz had to face some crucial decisions in penalty area: he decided to play on following three penalty appeals, the first one by Italy, the other ones by Sweden. I think that this choice can be explained by the fact that he wanted to be sure before whistling a penalty in such a crucial game. Coming to a deeper analysis regarding the incidents, it is true that the first  handball case looked  to be very blatant, and most of the referees would have whistled, but at the same time it is not a 100% wrong decision to play on, and this  could still "save" Mateu in front of the observer. However, the second half presented immediately another crucial situation for the Spanish, and in this case I think it is difficult to support the decision. Replays can't help us in detecting a clear handball. But, if this handball existed, then why not to whistle the previous ones? At least one of the previous situations was a clearer deliberate handball. So, a more than clear penalty was missed following this previous foul whistled by referee.  Without making this analysis too long, I think Mateu can be backed regarding all the other incidents occurred in penalty areas in second half. His disciplinary control was absolutely good in first half, less in second half, when a clear second YC to Italian defender Chiellini was missed (reckless use of arms, even possible intentional hit). The Spanish struggled a bit in the last minutes of the game, but basically all the matter about this game is related to the penalty area incidents. Everybody is entitled to have a different opinion, of course, I just wish, but I'm sure, that the Spanish decided on the pitch according to his feelings, and tried to do the best. This was a very challenging game and many referees would have been in trouble. 

Conclusions
We could split this final chapter in two parts, considering them even as related. First part is of course the answer to the question: was the refereeing good at this stage of the qualifiers? If we point out that 6 games out of 8 were refereed without problems, we would be allowed to say "yes", it was a good officiating for most of the games. However the problem is that in such play-offs every crucial decision is extremely important for a national team with WC aims. So, even in case of only one crucial but absolutely influencing mistake, we must admit that something went wrong. Why? The answer to this question will introduce the second part of these conclusions. Again, the most discussed situations have occurred regarding deliberate handballs, definitely the most difficult incident to assess for a referee on the pitch. Can we really blame Mateu Lahoz and Hațegan? Of course not at all. These mistakes have happened and will happen again always in the history of football, unless, and here I come to the point, technology will be used. Yes, that's the big issue and what we should think about, after having watched these games. Was a goood choice to allow the play in these games without any technological help for referees? Not even GLT? Absolutely unacceptable, if you ask me. Mistakes were, are and will be always at the side of referees, the only chance to avoid the very crucial and significant ones is to use a support. The final decision to officiate these matches without VAR, GLT or at least AARs was definitely a wrong and very poor choice by both FIFA and UEFA. If there is a conflict between the parts, I'm not interested in it. They both failed, the only wish by everybody was to be sure that scenes like France - Republic Of Ireland in 2009 didn't happen anymore. On the contrary, this happened again, and I can't blame the referees. You can be the best among the Elite referees, your name can be Ovidiu Hațegan, Antonio Mateu Lahoz, but this wont make a difference. Difficult decisions will always wait for you on the pitch. And nowadays, with a so quick level of football, played very often with passion, nerves, hysteria, adrenalin and so on, it is almost impossible for a referee to keep under control everything. So, I'm really sorry for what happened, especially for Northern Ireland (as Italian, let me say that Italy can be considered a different question, because the team absolutely deserved to be eliminated), but referees can't be too much responsible there, even if so experienced at this level, a mistake will always happen. My final wish: I hope that now the era of VAR will definitely start and last for a long time, because football at high levell needs that. In other words: it is impossible to go on without a real help, given all the interests in our football.  

26 comments:

  1. Fantastic analysis! Perfect words, I couldn't agree more.

    PS Çakir did give a YC in the first seconds for the elbow by Berg, unless I misread that :-)
    Thank you for a balanced analysis, after the hysteria of the last days we needed that.

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    1. @Mikael: The elbow in the first minute was by Toivonen, whereas Berg's YC was for the excessive protest following the incident ;)

      Thanks for the interesting insights Chefren!

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    2. Indeed, as Osborne answered, the YC was given to another player.

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    3. My apologies! Thanks Osborne,
      It was a perfect analysis, in that case :-)

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  2. Fine summary. The game is changing, we need to change with it.

    Overall UEFA will be satisfied and I believe the only referee who will not travel to Russia will be Hategun, even though his performance was not the weakest.

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  3. EXCELLENT analysis, love the conclusion part there!

    I guess we could now predict the candidates for Russia 2018. Assuming that there will be 10 UEFA referees, I'd go for these:

    Felix Brych - Cüneyt Çakir - Jonas Eriksson - Björn Kuipers - Milorad Mazic - Szymon Marciniak - Damir Skomina - Gianluca Rocchi - Antonio Mateu Lahoz - Sergei Karasev (being a rather political choice though, I would personally go for Ovidiu Hategan)

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    1. Probably those are the TEN names for Russia, if FIFA goes for 10 UEFA refs. It is hard to believe that there wont be any referee from England (does anyone know when that happened last time?) and France, also no Portuguese ref, but no one really deserved to be (not even close). I believe Kassai is out, although he got the opener in the last EC and was 4th ref in the final! Many refs from small countries and/or weak national leagues (Sweden, Serbia, Slovenia, Poland).
      Great analysis, Chefren. It can be added, although I wrote it in other news, that there was not a single one YC in both legs of the Denmark-Republic of Ireland duel, which is almost unbelievable in such intense matches. About Mateu Lahoz - well, I believe that the first mistake is always the most important one. Simply, if he whistled penalty for Italy in 8-9th minute, the whole game would be different, nothing the same would happened so we cannot know whether some handballs in Italian PK area would occur.

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    2. Good points about the small and not so powerful nations this time around in UEFA.
      Before there was a kind of unwritten rule that there is only one referee from Eastern Europe.
      2006 Michel, 2010 Kassai, 2014 Mazic.
      Of course this time that cannot be the case, no English, no French, no Portuguese, et al.

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    3. What about Clement Turpin would he not be in contention to go to the World Cup?

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    4. Though Turpin might be in a good shape for now, I think there are many other officials ahead of him.

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    5. He's still only quite young as well, so got a few more opportunities

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    6. My quick opinion. Nine of theses names have been sure for some time. Karasev would always go as host referee and other eight fully deserved.

      As for Eriksson I believe his "spot" is available. He and Kassai have been poor and the two others for consideration would be the improved Hategan and Turpin. Unfortunately the mistake of the Romanian has killed his chance so a strong performance from Turpin will see a decision between him and the Swede.

      Only in my opinion of course.

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  4. "decision to officiate these matches without VAR, GLT or at least AARs was definitely a wrong and very poor choice by both FIFA and UEFA... They both failed"...
    Excellent comment. Support to the referees, after all we are humans and even with best intent mistakes will happen.

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  5. I mostly agree with everything, but there is something I don't: Chiellini's missing YC. I don't think it was due to a poorer disciplinary control in the second half. It was simply a missed incident, as the foul was not given (and there is no way that, had Mateu Lahoz detected it, the foul wouldn't have been given: no advantage options for Sweden at all, in fact it was an attack by the italians).

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    1. Ok, let's say that the missing YC to Chiellini was the only mistake in Mateu Lahoz disciplinary control. Indeed, you are right. However, in first half for certain aspects I think he was better.

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  6. Great analysis, thank you very much; do you publish any notes about Intercontinental play off ? Turpin, Geiger, Orsato, Pitana ?

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    1. Problem is that I didn't watch first leg games, so I can't write an analysis about that, however now I'm watching Pitana (you can read more in the related discussion) and I think he whistled a wrong penalty for deliberate handball (yes, again that...).
      Furthermore, I think I wont watch Turpin in Perù - New Zealand.

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    2. I will watch Peru - New Zealand: will anyone else view the live match? It would be weird to watch a match without the commentary on the blog :-)

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    3. When is the match? The exact time? :)

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    4. Tomorrow 3:15 CET, in India it should be about 7:40 am if I'm not wrong.

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    5. Yeah I watched parts of it... Not that absorbing :)

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  7. This will be a long post (with some off-topic included). It’s not a post for those interested only about refereeing and politically correctness.
    I start with some off-topic regarding the number of places allocated to european teams for the final tournament (because the same discurs is valid for referees). There are only 13 places for european countries (from 31 places available in FIFA qualifiers). This is not enough if we compare the actual level of football in Europe with the level of football in the rest of the world.
    We always say that World Cup is the competition of best teams in the world (and also best referees in the world). Take a look at last 3 editions of World Cup. All of them were won by european countries. In quarterfinals we had 13/24 european teams, in semifinals we had 9/12 european teams. Based on this statistic can we say that 13/31 is a correct ratio for european countries ? I know that “globalization” it’s the actual trend in football but I think World Cup should be the competition of best teams in the world. It’s a pitty that teams like Italy, Holland and others will stay home. We will see in Russia national teams with a much lower level comparing with many european national teams which didn’t qualify. Chefren wrote somewhere that Italy deserved to stay home. I highly disagree with that. Italy is better than many other national teams who qualified for World Cup. Imho Italy was better than Sweden. Look at the statistic: Italy had 64%, respectively 75% ball possession in those 2 games. In 1st game they were (at least) equal but they lost because of owngoal. 2nd leg was (more or less) one-way traffic (14-1 shots off target, 6-1 shots on target, 8-0 corners). Coming to refereeing I could say that also referees (Cakir and Lahoz) disadvantaged Italy: in 1st leg Berg didn’t see the 2nd yellow card (for that foul on De Rossi), in 2nd leg Lahoz didn’t whistle a clear penalty for Italy in the start of the game ( foul on Parolo). The history would have been different with 1-0 for Italy at the beginning of the game.

    Because the number of characters is limited at 4096/post I will continue in the next post.

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  8. And now I will come to refereeing…

    We ask themselves if referees like Mateu Lahoz, Hategan, Eriksson, Kassai, Karasev deserve a place in Russia. Of course they deserve. All of them. Why ? Because they are much better than referees from other confederations. The level of refereeing is proportional with the level of football. With all my respect, it’s a different thing to referee a Champions League game comparing with a game Copa Libertadores game. I remember I watched in march 2017 the game Palmeiras- Wilstermann. Home team had 8 regulars older than 31 years old: Prass(1978), Edu Dracena(1981), Guerra (1985), Jean (1986), Michel Bastos (1983), Felipe Melo (1983) and Ze Roberto (1974). Can you imagine the rhytm of that game ? It looked like a game from romanian domestic league. I watch (for betting reasons) a lot of football including a huge number of games of non-european football. The level of play and the level of refereeing in the rest of the world can’t be compare with Europe. It’s understandable because, for example, the best south-american players areplaying in Europe. Same thing is valid for Africa. European teams won 9 of last 10 editions of FIFA Club World Cup the European. Do you remember that 4-0 between Barcelona and Santos with Neymar playing for Santos ? It was like cat and mouse. That’s the difference… Maybe some of you watched during the years games from African Nations Cup. In terms of refereeing that competition is a disaster. I remember Gassama in Confederations Cup. But we will see referees from Africa in Russiaa nd I’m very sure we will see again next year such disagreeable performances.

    We all say that Hategan should stay at home for one (big) mistake in a play-off game. On the other hand guys like Irmatov or Faghani are sure bets for World Cup. Do you forget that huge penalty not given by Faghani in Confederations Cup’s semifinal between Portugal and Chile (with Irmatov as VAR) ? It’s not the same thing, a big mistake in a very important game ? I think it is. Also, can we compare Al Mirdasi (born in 1985) with big names like Kassai or Eriksson ? Can be Al Mirdasi better than Kassai or Eriksson ? I think the answer is no.
    I read here that Mateu Lahoz will be in Russia despite his 5 big mistakes in Italy- Sweden and Hategan will stay at home because of his mistake in Nothern Ireland- Swizerland (btw, Switzerland was much better team in both legs, with swiss players missing a lot of chances in both games; also, keep in mind that in the home game, refereed by Hategan, Northern Ireland didn’t have a shot on target). I don’t know why you rate Mateu Lahoz such higher than Hategan. First of all Hategan has a better palmares than Mateu Lahoz: higher international experience, higher number of Champions League games, higher number of final tournaments. Hategan had QF in WC u20 in 2015, SF in Olympic tournament in 2016, SF in WC u17 in 2017. Why he received all these games ? Because he was good in those tournaments and, of course, better than the rest of europeans , including Lahoz (or even Cakir in olympic tournament) and also better than other non-european referees. Please remember that Hategan already has an EURO final tournament (in 2016) and Lahoz doesn’t. It’s a little bit unfair for Hategan to waste this nice palmares for one mistake (even if the mistake was really big)

    I think it’s also not fair to send in Russia referees who didn’t whistle in these play-off games. I understand that Skomina was protected. He had problems (with his ARs) in barrage France- Ukraine in 2013. Do you remember ? He lost World Cup 2014 because of that game. A potential new mistake in a play-off game wouldn’t have been the best thing for him. For this reason he was protected and it was a good decision because things didn’t change too much for him in last 4 years (Argentina- Russia 1-0 was decided, again, from a clear offside….). But where were Kassai, Eriksson and even Karasev ? It’s fair to see them in Russia only because of mistakes made by Hategan and Lahoz ?

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  9. My final conclusion: Europe should have in Russia 2018 more than only 10 referees. With all my respect I have to say that european referees are much better than others. I understand that we must have referees from all confederations but World Cup should be a competition of best teams, best referees, best football …

    PS these are my opinions and I'm taking full responability for my words. I watch on TV a huge number of football games and, when I have time, I go to see some live action. This year I saw live Atkinson (Romania- Denmark), Buquet (Poland- Romania), Massa (Partizan- Olympiakos), Rocchi (Real Madrid-Manchester Utd), Thompson (Montenegro- Romania), Mateu Lahoz (Bulgaria- France), Moen (Albania- Italy), Bastien (Crvena zvezda- Arsenal), Eriksson (Roma- Chelsea), Brych (Napoli- Manchester City). I can tell you that I stayed in same hotel with Moen and his team in Shkoder (Hotel Tradita). I was very surprised when I saw him in front of mine (2 metres distance)in the morning after the game. My next game wil be Juventus- Barcelona. Chefren, if you live in northern part of Italy I invite you to eat a pizza … 

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