Final stages: Review

A small review of matches in the quarterfinal, semifinal and third place playoff of the twenty-third FIFA World Cup.

A match-by-match review of games ninety-seven to one hundred and three.

Match 97: France vs. Morocco (Tello)

The penalty which Facundo Tello awarded France was correct; Mbappe has not dived. Mazraoui makes a sliding tackle as the attacker is moving towards goal and has not played the ball - Mbappe cannot carry on running normally, his right leg is impeded and he falls to the ground. As I said in the R32 text, there are two kinds of fouls in football: this falls into the latter category, and was a clear offence which the (well-positioned) referee penalised correctly. Overall, I think this was definitely Facundo Tello's best performance of World Cup 2026; he handled the normal difficulty match well. The fourth official, Dario Herrera, performed his duties in an extremely attentive manner, particularly when it appeared that Tello's physical condition was lessening as the second half went on. Good performance by Tello.

Grade: 7

Match 98: Spain vs. Belgium (Oliver)

Michael Oliver delivered a good performance in this all-Euro quarterfinal, handling the game in an assured manner. I think he chose the best opening yellow card of the match according to FIFA's wishes, even if in usual circumstances, the tactical foul at 8:50 should be a pretty routine booking. The opening caution itself was interesting - Oliver correctly read that the defender, being floored, resorted to illegal measures to stop a promising attack, but got the nature of the offence (technically) wrong! It seems that the English referee slightly fatigued in the latter part of the second half, and awarded a small handful of bogus freekicks. The penalty not given in 61:10 was rightly passed over - ball from a teammate, and the arm in a comprehensible position for the action of the defender. The cautions given in the final phase of the match were all correct. Oliver was a good choice for this match, he handled it well.

Grade: 7


Match 99: Norway vs. England (Turpin)

There were three big calls, or perhaps more accurately three big 'moments', in this match. The first pertained to a potential interference on the ball by the 'spider camera' before England scored the equalising goal; after days of scrutinising different angles, the evidence appears to me neither clear, nor obvious.

Jerome Brisard, the VAR, intervened twice later on in the match and I think decided correctly on both occasions: Haland is slightly unfortunate to be penalised in the disallowed goal incident, because Anderson is not attempting to reach the ball himself, his only interest to try and stop the striking player from doing so. In pre-VAR times, this incident would have been viewed as 'stuff that happens from corner kicks'; the revision to the VAR protocol allowing for this kind of intervention was targeted at pre-planned routines, not plays like this. However, especially if we guess that the VAR of N.Zealand-Belgium had been censured for not disallowing a goal in that match for a comparable (but clearer) incident earlier in the tournament, Brisard was correct to act on the push by Haland, a clear penalisable action. 

The revoked penalty was a fairly routine decision for this World Cup, Spence putting his leg across and falling of his own volition; had the same episode happened at Euro 2020, it would have been much trickier for Brisard. Turpin had followed play well to make a ruling on that penalty area incident, and will surely have been disappointed that he awarded the spot kick live - especially as overall, the manner in which he handled the match was good. Given how the final was allocated, perhaps 'OFR accumulation' for Turpin was ultimately more costly for him than we realised at the time. 

Grade: 6


Match 100: Argentina vs. Switzerland (Pinheiro)

I don't think that I can add much more to the discussion on the second yellow card, other than to say that it was very clear that Embolo did not only dive to win a freekick for his team, but he excessively simulated afterwards to get Paredes booked (the opponent with whom he was frequently in contact with, and indeed who he fouled to accumulate his first caution). For this specific reason, this incident is (unlike USA-Paraguay) a near perfect rendition of the benefits for the FIFA approach to mistaken identity interventions, which are (one must agree with UEFA) surely best avoided in season-long competitions.

This quarterfinal was the most difficult to referee, but I don't think that Joao Pinheiro handled the game badly. The second yellow card encapsulates the deficiencies present quite well - in too many incidents, I felt that Pinheiro decided based on the reactions of players and his own intuition, rather than what he had explicitly seen. The worst period for this was at the end of the first half, but in general the level of calls by the Portuguese official were fairly sound (non-YC at 103:02 excepted). Pinheiro's unimpressed, alert manner throughout the match was very good and helped match control a lot. Taking everything into account, I felt this to be a satisfactory performance.

Grade: 6

Match 101: France vs. Spain (Barton)

Overall, Ivan Barton refereed this semifinal in a decent manner. The penalty he awarded was well-seen, for careless tripping - it was clearly justified to rule the arm use by Yamal in controlling the ball as non-punishable. Barton made the decision instantly and gave credibility to the call.

The manner in which the Salvadorian referee handled the game generally was decent. It seems that the game's opening yellow card, to Rabiot (7:50), constituted something of an overzealous intervention (probably from Kwiatkowski); Barton had read the incident correctly on the field of play, the France player had already played the ball and the nature of the step on foot was careless. I don't understand the need for the (probable) intervention in a situation like this, particularly so early in the match! It seems like the VAR had overplayed his hand, because the tackle at 13:58 by Olise was exactly the kind of situation where an 'unofficial' intervention would be beneficial for the game - yellow was the right call, but the tackle was not far away from SFP. Probably deciding that two 'step ins' in the first fifteen minutes would be excessive, this time, the decision remained only a freekick and no card.

The end to the first half was not optimal from the refereeing perspective. The origin of the bogusly called freekick (43:16), ultimately annulled on the stated grounds that the trail linesman Pupiro informed the referee that it wasn't a foul, was the dropped ball which came before. All referees hate performing dropped balls, because you are immediately wrongly positioned by a measure of about ten yards.

Mistakes happen, but the way in which Barton dealt with the apparently crazed mobbing by Spain (pretending it wasn't happening and setting up the wall, a la Codesal/Dezotti in 1990) was not good. In so doing, combined with the not-especially-convincing way that the attacking freekick was reversed into a dropped ball, the referee lost his grip over the game at the end of the first half. In this period, Kwiatkowski's (probable) intervention to get Rabiot booked very nearly cost the referees; at 44:55, the France no14 makes a deliberate late foul which looked on the borderline to reckless, but the replays revealed it to have been clearly careless. There was then another borderline foul (+48:56), this time by a Spain player, but the first period did finish without greater problems. 

The second half played out in the same manner, with a generally decent level of refereeing, but some suboptimalities in foul recognition (78:34, +92:32), disciplinary policy (no YC at 75:45). Overall, I would say: Ivan Barton had a very good World Cup, and his performance in this semifinal was okay.

Grade: 6


Match 102: England vs. Argentina (Elfath)

For the second time in the World Cup, Ismail Elfath had charge of one of its most challenging fixtures - but, I felt that the American referee had actually learned well from what had gone wrong in Uruguay-Spain, and handled this match in a very prepared and adequate manner. 

Elfath had two problems which he had to overcome, namely:

1) The challenge to impose his authority over this match; the American official was, much his credit, very aware of this specific problem and on multiple occasions gave players very firm warnings, insisting that they showed respect and did not undermine the referee

2) The issue of technical accuracy; due probably to very central positioning on the field of play, one had a feeling (it seemed shared by players) that the referee's calls were not always predictable and reliable in every single incident, even if they were mostly okay/decent

The referee started in an alert manner, detecting the late contacts by Mac Allister (0:51), Simeone (1:04) and then finally Paredes (1:12) whose offence was much more blatant and was whistled down as a freekick - Elfath made a gesture to all three players, informing them that he had clocked what they had done. The referee correctly felt that giving a more formal and clear warning to Paredes would have been a misuse of munition, both according to the manner in which matches at this World Cup had been played, and also 'the FIFA philosophy'. In protest at a handball by Kane which the officials did not detect, Fernandez made a very deliberate but actually mostly careless foul on Anderson (2:32). Now: according to 'normal refereeing', the referee would have given a clear(er) warning to Paredes, and then been able to immediately book Fernandez for scarcely a minute later doing exactly the same thing. The delay in Elfath giving the Fernandez freekick was probably the key factor in the small confrontation which ensued - the image of the American referee not looking that 'interested' in it was not optimal, but he was fundamentally justified, nothing really happened in that gaggle of players beyond aggressively talking.

The referee's actions in the first three minutes actually mostly succeeded, the game thereafter had calmed down a little. It would have been better if the referee had penalised one of the two (careless) off-the-ball offences at 11:02 rather than restarting with a dropped ball, but it was good that he didn't let the incident 'defeat' him and that he stopped play to deal with what had happened. The warning to Pickford at 13:06 was also good. Then - according to 'normal refereeing', the very deliberate (and clearly reckless) step on foot by Bellingham at 22:15 presented the referee with a very sound opening caution and the chance to draw a line under the punchy opening to the game, but I think giving the first yellow card to England in a relatively discrete incident would have inflamed the match rather than calming it down. To underline point two raised above, this freekick was only actually blown for after a small delay. The missed foul and reversal of the initial throw-in signal by Elfath at 28:02 underscores it further. 

The referee came more into focus on about thirty minutes, correctly awarding England attacking freekicks (31:20, 34:44) and warning Simeone (33:30); I'm not sure how much the referee was able to succeed in the latter incident, but it was not bad refereeing. The scenes following the game's opening yellow card were quite ugly, but the booking itself was clearly correct and an apt opening sanction - SPA impeding by Anderson, himself a persistent offender (36:04). The nightclub-bouncer approach to managing confrontations is not a pleasant watch, and the extent to which Elfath held the card up did look a little 'baffoonish', even if what he was trying to achieve was quite obvious, but that particular adjective is one whose use on this evening to describe the refereeing could be used seldom.

After this incident, the game was under the referee's control - he later correctly issued Argentina three yellow cards, for tactical fouling x2 and aggressive behaviour, and generally offered a sound level of calls. To say that Elfath's approach had 'succeeded' is perhaps a little strong, but it did quite clearly 'work' and served him quite well. Some comments here, from a relatively blatant (not inexplicable) position of being hostile to the appointment and being hostile towards the behaviour shown by one of the two teams over the tournament, were in my view too unfair. A mark is a mark; for both of the semifinal referees to have handled their respective matches in a passing manner, was in my opinion, a great personal triumph for them both.

Grade: 6

Match 103: France vs. England (Valenzuela)

Not too many words need be spent on the third place playoff: Valenzuela correctly awarded a penalty kick, and his overall performance was solid. Lapses in concentration, like the two missed fouls in twenty seconds (at 29'), were fairly rare and disciplinarily, I would only criticise the lack of a yellow card to Digne (78:12), especially after his heavier foul a few minutes before. It was good to see that despite having received treatment, the Venezuelan official was able to finish the game without any greater issues. Overall, this was a good performance to round off a very strong World Cup for Jesus Valenzuela.

Grade: 7

All marks are compiled according to this system. 

This post is intended as a general overview, and not a deeply exhaustive analysis of every single incident!