Scotland - Russia, Anastásios Sidirópoulos

Overall a good performance by Tasos Sidiropoulos at Hampden Park in Glasgow. Foul detection was pretty good throughout the entire game, however we can discuss about four potential bookings missed in the first half (23’, 27’, 30’ and 42’) for reckless challenges/stamps. What I missed there was that in NONE of these situations, Sidiropoulos did not even verbally warn players (which was IMO necessary though at least).

This was much improved in the second half: correct YC to SCO5 in 46’ for illegal use of arms, good choice to open the cards so early in the second half. All the other bookings were spot-on (55’: reckless challenge / 70’ + 70’: both SPA / 90’: delaying the restart of play). Minor issue concerning the card in 90’: Sidiropoulos should have whistled in order to restart the game, instead play continued and Sidiropoulos’ hasn’t even really put the card back in his pocket. ARs were not really challenged, both executed their duties on expected level: AR1 with a good offside flag in 54’ after a deflection.

Personality-wise: as already mentioned, lack of verbal warnings in the first half. However, I noted that he didn’t have this - what I would call - “unmotivated” mimics that I noted often in some of his matches. In fact, he was caught smiling at the coin toss with players (sth which I haven’t seen before with him, I liked this). Sometimes, also a bit of prevention inside the penalty area on set pieces, so definitely a bit of improvement there.

Overall I think it was a good night for the Greek refereeing team, something they needed concerning:
a) a potential participation at EURO 2020;
b) Sidiropoulos' status as an Elite Group referee.

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