I don't know how objective this can be, though. Seems by it's existence to be subjective. It's like when I manage projects at work, and people report being about 70% done. How do you know? Is the other "30%" going to take 40% longer than the first 70%? As Mark Twain said, "there's lies, damn lies, and statistics". That said, I have no issue with the spirit of the 96% rating. Thought Howard Webb and crew did a great job, and the Dutch should be ashamed of themselves. I can't stand commentators but credit Ruud Gullit with delivering a nice post-match dressdown to the Oranje. Wonder if Nishikawa (sp?) will go down as the most active 4th official ever, greatest story never told. I wish they'd just say "Howard and team did a helluva job" and leave it at that. My two cents.
As my all time favorite big soccer quote said of Collina when he first was hitting the international circuit: "I've seen him referee some serie A games, and he did a good job of controlling the match while remaining not particularly noticable, which is tough to do when you look just like Nosferatu"
Good point. Apart from extremely glaring ones, blown non-calls would be next to impossible to accurately track. And all this says nothing of the bookings, I would assume. I mean how on earth could you definitively say "yes, a yellow card was the correct decision there" on any of the countless bookings that are based on judgment calls. I doubt you could even get a group of refs to all agree that a given challenge did or did not deserve a booking.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/201...P-SOC-WCup-Final-Referee.html?_r=1&ref=soccer Any word on whether FIFA is going to revise its 96% figure?
