Real Madrid @ Barcelona 3/10/2007 - One of the Best Matches I've Ever Seen and Great Ref Performance

[bluedevils]

Did anybody see this game? I saw it re-broadcast last night on Gol TV. I'm glad I did not know the outcome in advance. Cannot believe folks have not talked about it here in the ref forum.

This was easily one of the top 5 soccer games I've ever watched. The quality of play, the pace of play, the excitement, tackles flying in, etc etc etc. It was awesome.

Not only was it a great game, but I felt that the referee had a great performance as well. It is very rare for me to watch a top-level match and walk away feeling so good about the ref's performance. His decisions were outstanding -- from foul recognition and foul selection to misconduct recognition and misconduct selection. I know these should be second nature for FIFA referees, but often they are not. This referee seemed very fit, which is not too uncommon at the FIFA level. But he also was pretty athletic which, in my opinion, is all too uncommon. I cannot remember watching a match on TV and thinking to myself on so many different occasions, 'Look at that. The ref was right on top of the play when he made that call.' It was very impressive. One other plus was the ref did not hesitate to send off Oleguer for what was a 2nd caution near the end of the first half. Too often, refs allow players to get away with too much when they are already sitting on a caution. This ref showed courage.

There were several cautions, and I felt each of them was correct. There were also some other challenges that were borderline for which he did not show the yellow card, and I agreed with all of those as well -- for example, already-cautioned Deco made a heavy challenge around 70' that, on first TV glance, seemed like a 2nd caution. On the replay, it looked more like a solid foul but not a caution.

I also was glad he did not award a late 'make-up' PK for Barcelona when Ronaldinho was muscled off the ball by a Real Madrid defender. There was contact, but I thought it was fair and not a PK.

I haven't looked up the name of this referee yet, but will do so soon.

My main qualms with his performance:

1. He called a PK around 11' of 1st half for Real Madrid. I believe it was Guti who was 'fouled' by Oleguer. Oleguer was about a yard away and Guti could have gone past him with the ball, but instead chose to very skillfully extend his left leg in what appeared to be an unnatural fashion, straight-legged to his side, so his leg was in a place where Oleguer would make contact with it. Contact WAS made, although fairly minor, and Guti went down even though I felt the contact was not enough to cause his fall. The ref was in a GREAT position and he called for the PK. Oleguer was booked, but it seemed maybe for dissent immediately afterward, not for the tackle.

2. He got hit by the ball twice during the run of play. One of them caused an abrupt counterattack in the 2nd half, almost as extreme as the Navarro incident in that USA match a few weeks back.

[Alberto]

Alberto Undiano Mallenco was fantastic. His crew was also terrific.

That was a great match. Both teams shows some incredible skill and play. Mallenco was in great position, and his decisions were very fair and just. My only quibble was the non penalty. It looked to me that there was sufficient contact to warrant a kick from the penalty mark.

[intechpc]

Yes I did see the match and I agree with both you and Alberto, it was an absolute pleasure to watch. The teams played hard and really put it all on the line and the Referee crew I thought did an outstanding job both in foul identification and game management.

[Englishref]

Keep an eye out for Undiano Mallenco - one of the few sane Spanish referees. He's also part of UEFAs development group for 'young' referees who joined the list a couple of seasons ago, which our Howard Webb is also in.

I fully expect him to be a future World Cup final referee. :cool:

[macheath]

[QUOTE=bluedevils;10951235]Did anybody see this game? (snip)..
I did; agreed on the excitement.

Not only was it a great game, but I felt that the referee had a great performance as well...This ref showed courage.

Also agreed

There were several cautions, and I felt each of them was correct. There were also some other challenges that were borderline for which he did not show the yellow card, and I agreed with all of those as well...

Yes, again, except perhaps for an early one to Oleguer, which may have influenced the PK call (see below).

I haven't looked up the name of this referee yet, but will do so soon.

Undiano Mallenco

My main qualms with his performance:

1. He called a PK around 11' of 1st half for Real Madrid. I believe it was Guti who was 'fouled' by Oleguer. Oleguer was about a yard away and Guti could have gone past him with the ball, but instead chose to very skillfully extend his left leg in what appeared to be an unnatural fashion, straight-legged to his side, so his leg was in a place where Oleguer would make contact with it. Contact WAS made, although fairly minor, and Guti went down even though I felt the contact was not enough to cause his fall. The ref was in a GREAT position and he called for the PK. Oleguer was booked, but it seemed maybe for dissent immediately afterward, not for the tackle.

I slo-moed and watched this about seven times. At the end of the day, I did feel that Guti extended his leg for the trip. But there was contact, ref was right on top of the play, and wasn't sitting in the basement with me to go over the tape seven times...:) . Perfectly justifiable decision, especially in heat of the match. Watching it on slo-mo reminded me again how skilled some of these players are, including their ability to draw fouls without being blatant about it.

I also think that Oleguer was already on the ref's mind. Prior to the play on Guti, he had cynically taken van Nistelrooy down from behind as VN was dribbling into shooting range. I thought that could have warranted a caution, but it was early in the match, and it was ok not to give one, although it indicated that Oleguer was going to have a difficult match. But I think Oleguer was then flagged as a potential problem by the ref, and when the play with Guti ensued shortly thereafter, Oleguer had no credit to draw on, and the PK was called, as also shown by the later deserved second yellow and dismissal.

[JohnR]

This was easily one of the top 5 soccer games I've ever watched. The quality of play, the pace of play, the excitement, tackles flying in, etc etc etc.

Agreed.

I was so fired up that I posted on both the Madrid and Barca boards -- a first time for either, heck I've never posted about Spanish football before. Not just the drama, but the quality of play. It was as if two Brazils faced each other.

The referee had a very, very difficult task, and he acquitted himself very well. Justice was served in the match.

[bluedevils]

Alberto Undiano Mallenco was fantastic. His crew was also terrific.
Thanks for providing the ref's name. First time I had seen him. I was very impressed. One other thing I really liked was the body language from this referee. Very even-keeled, showed enough emotion when he needed to do so, and generally was able to calm the players down when he wanted to do so.

Nothing against the English style of refereeing, but I liked how the ref did not waste 30-60 seconds on 5 or 6 occasions to give a verbal admonishment to a player instead of booking him. I do like how the EPL refs talk to the players, but at times they go overboard with the frequency and duration of such 'chats.' If the ref had taken that approach in the RMA:BAR match, it would have really killed the flow several times. Instead, he showed yellow when/where it was warranted adn got the game restarted quickly. When a foul happened that some people felt might be a caution, he simply indicated through word or body language that it was not worthy of a caution and got the game going again.

It DID seem like the ARs may have flagged a couple offside that weren't, but the decisions were very close and I was glad to see the flag stay down a couple times, including one of the goals, when normally I would have expected to see the flag pop up.

My only quibble was the non penalty. It looked to me that there was sufficient contact to warrant a kick from the penalty mark.
I saw quite a bit of contact, which I felt was mostly FAIR contact. But this definitely was a debatable decision and the case for a PK is reasonable.

[Regarding the PK] I slo-moed and watched this about seven times. At the end of the day, I did feel that Guti extended his leg for the trip. But there was contact, ref was right on top of the play...Watching it on slo-mo reminded me again how skilled some of these players are, including their ability to draw fouls without being blatant about it.
I was pleased with myself to notice on the real-time action that I felt Guti extended his leg looking for the contact. What disappointed me about the decision to award the PK was this: I assume the ref saw it as I did: that Guti extended his leg looking for the contact. If that assumption is true then my personal preference would be no PK given. It is not as if the ref didn't pick up on that trick by Guti and saw just a 'regular' tripping foul in the box; I think he is far too smart to miss the subtlety of what Guti did. The ref was in a great position and he wears a FIFA badge and showed in this match he has excellent foul recognition. So he probably could tell what Guti had done by extending his leg like that. I guess the ref felt that the PK was still justified. I.e., even though Guti had made a somewhat unnatural playing motion to put his leg out there, the defender created the contact and it was a foul and therefore a PK.

My own personal opinion is that this is a b.s. thing for a player to do, bordering on simulation, and no free kick should be given for situations like this.

The referee had a very, very difficult task, and he acquitted himself very well. Justice was served in the match.
Good point. Not only was this a strong performance by the ref, but it occurred on a match of high difficulty.

[geego]

He had a great game overall, but I must disagree in one specific move: Sergio Ramos' yellow card (as opposed to red) in the 20th minute.

Ronaldinho shields the ball from Ramos, and at no playing distance, Ramos kicks Ronaldinho's ankle. In my opinion, that is akin to Beckam's sent off vs Betis (http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=484251) which was already discussed with the consensus that it should be a straight red.

One nice thing about the Liga is that official match reports (http://www.rfef.es/artavan-bin/Rfef/html/calendario/103/100/10010326_jornada26.htm?QEC_Frames=NO) are on line. That move is reported as (http://www.rfef.es/artavan-bin/Rfef/html/calendario/103/100/10010326_acta02_000003038.htm) "knocking down an opponent when playing the ball" ("derribar a un contrario en la disputa del balón"), when it should have been "kicking an opponent from behind with no chance at the ball" ("dar una patada por detras a un adversario sin opcion de jugar el balón"). But if he reported the latter, he is forced to send him off, so he showed a yellow and then made that small lie about Ramos being at a playing distance of the ball.

For those of you that agree with me in the red card, does game management justify not sending off a player in the minute 20? If so, there should be some way to justify it without the need to lie on the match report?

-------

Aside, isn't the penalty Oleguer-Guti the same one as the penalty Materazzi-Malouda in the WC final? A small kick at the ankle of the opponent. Right calls both.

[bluedevils]

He had a great game overall, but I must disagree in one specific move: Sergio Ramos' yellow card (as opposed to red) in the 20th minute.

Ronaldinho shields the ball from Ramos, and at no playing distance, Ramos kicks Ronaldinho's ankle. In my opinion, that is akin to Beckam's sent off vs Betis (http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=484251) which was already discussed with the consensus that it should be a straight red.

One nice thing about the Liga is that official match reports (http://www.rfef.es/artavan-bin/Rfef/html/calendario/103/100/10010326_jornada26.htm?QEC_Frames=NO) are on line. That move is reported as (http://www.rfef.es/artavan-bin/Rfef/html/calendario/103/100/10010326_acta02_000003038.htm) "knocking down an opponent when playing the ball" ("derribar a un contrario en la disputa del balón"), when it should have been "kicking an opponent from behind with no chance at the ball" ("dar una patada por detras a un adversario sin opcion de jugar el balón"). But if he reported the latter, he is forced to send him off, so he showed a yellow and then made that small lie about Ramos being at a playing distance of the ball.

For those of you that agree with me in the red card, does game management justify not sending off a player in the minute 20? If so, there should be some way to justify it without the need to lie on the match report?

I had forgotten about that one. Yes, it easily could have been a red card and as I watched the replay I could not make up my mind as to whether it should have been red. There was a legitimate case for red. Clearly, he kicked him with no attempt to play the ball. Is that enough for a red card in a professional match? In many cases, as proven in this particular match which saw only a caution, no it is not. It seems the bar is somewhat higher, although I cannot really describe what the extra criteria are.

The time in the match should not make any difference in determining whether an offense is a red card, but sometimes it does seem to affect the ref's decision. This isn't right.

In this particular case...I don't think the ref would have shown red for this foul at any point in this match. It seems to me that the ref had set the bar for a sendoff offense was higher than that foul, and I don't have a problem with where the ref set the sendoff bar in this match.

[colins1993]

Did anybody see this game? I saw it re-broadcast last night on Gol TV. I'm glad I did not know the outcome in advance. Cannot believe folks have not talked about it here in the ref forum.

This was easily one of the top 5 soccer games I've ever watched. The quality of play, the pace of play, the excitement, tackles flying in, etc etc etc. It was awesome.

Not only was it a great game, but I felt that the referee had a great performance as well. It is very rare for me to watch a top-level match and walk away feeling so good about the ref's performance. His decisions were outstanding -- from foul recognition and foul selection to misconduct recognition and misconduct selection. I know these should be second nature for FIFA referees, but often they are not. This referee seemed very fit, which is not too uncommon at the FIFA level. But he also was pretty athletic which, in my opinion, is all too uncommon. I cannot remember watching a match on TV and thinking to myself on so many different occasions, 'Look at that. The ref was right on top of the play when he made that call.' It was very impressive. One other plus was the ref did not hesitate to send off Oleguer for what was a 2nd caution near the end of the first half. Too often, refs allow players to get away with too much when they are already sitting on a caution. This ref showed courage.

There were several cautions, and I felt each of them was correct. There were also some other challenges that were borderline for which he did not show the yellow card, and I agreed with all of those as well -- for example, already-cautioned Deco made a heavy challenge around 70' that, on first TV glance, seemed like a 2nd caution. On the replay, it looked more like a solid foul but not a caution.

I also was glad he did not award a late 'make-up' PK for Barcelona when Ronaldinho was muscled off the ball by a Real Madrid defender. There was contact, but I thought it was fair and not a PK.

I haven't looked up the name of this referee yet, but will do so soon.

My main qualms with his performance:

1. He called a PK around 11' of 1st half for Real Madrid. I believe it was Guti who was 'fouled' by Oleguer. Oleguer was about a yard away and Guti could have gone past him with the ball, but instead chose to very skillfully extend his left leg in what appeared to be an unnatural fashion, straight-legged to his side, so his leg was in a place where Oleguer would make contact with it. Contact WAS made, although fairly minor, and Guti went down even though I felt the contact was not enough to cause his fall. The ref was in a GREAT position and he called for the PK. Oleguer was booked, but it seemed maybe for dissent immediately afterward, not for the tackle.

2. He got hit by the ball twice during the run of play. One of them caused an abrupt counterattack in the 2nd half, almost as extreme as the Navarro incident in that USA match a few weeks back.


This indeed was an enjoyable match to watch.

The only fly in the oinment was Phil Shoen's inept commentary - especially some of his critiques of a few OS calls. Unless the TV camera is DIRECTLY BEHIND the AR/2LD you CANNOT tell for sure if the AR made the correct or incorrect call. We all know this I know but I'm still amazed @ some of these ignorance spewing from some commentator's mouths.

PS Ray Hudson was/is superb. He's pure passion with a deep feel for the game. I'd love to have a beer with him sometime.

[gosellit]

This indeed was an enjoyable match to watch.

The only fly in the oinment was Phil Shoen's inept commentary - especially some of his critiques of a few OS calls. Unless the TV camera is DIRECTLY BEHIND the AR/2LD you CANNOT tell for sure if the AR made the correct or incorrect call. We all know this I know but I'm still amazed @ some of these ignorance spewing from some commentator's mouths.

PS Ray Hudson was/is superb. He's pure passion with a deep feel for the game. I'd love to have a beer with him sometime.

DITTO!!!

Otherwise, great match.

[Alberto]

This indeed was an enjoyable match to watch.

The only fly in the oinment was Phil Shoen's inept commentary - especially some of his critiques of a few OS calls. Unless the TV camera is DIRECTLY BEHIND the AR/2LD you CANNOT tell for sure if the AR made the correct or incorrect call. We all know this I know but I'm still amazed @ some of these ignorance spewing from some commentator's mouths.

PS Ray Hudson was/is superb. He's pure passion with a deep feel for the game. I'd love to have a beer with him sometime.


Agreed on Hudson, I love him. His passion and love for the game is genuine.

[bluedevils]

Phil's offside questioning doesn't bother me as much as others who do it. He doesn't usually go so far as to say that the call was blatantly wrong. I thought he usually raises the possibility or likelihood that the decision was wrong.

Ray Hudson IS easy on the ears, and it is nice to listen to someone so passionate about the game. But I've noticed lately that he uses the same handful of superlatives over and over: majestic, heavenly, etc. It gets old after a while.

[macheath]

Phil's offside questioning doesn't bother me as much as others who do it. He doesn't usually go so far as to say that the call was blatantly wrong. I thought he usually raises the possibility or likelihood that the decision was wrong.

Ray Hudson IS easy on the ears, and it is nice to listen to someone so passionate about the game. But I've noticed lately that he uses the same handful of superlatives over and over: majestic, heavenly, etc. It gets old after a while.

Actually, Hudson starts to grate on me after about twenty minutes. A great sound bite guy (loved him here in DC for that), but it starts to be like an enthusiastic drunk sitting behind you at a match, raving about every play. And triple dittos about Phil Schoen. Yuck. I kept turning the sound off after a while. He has the American sports announcer's terrible habit of talking all of the time, even when he doesn't have anything useful to say.

[colins1993]

Actually, Hudson starts to grate on me after about twenty minutes. A great sound bite guy (loved him here in DC for that), but it starts to be like an enthusiastic drunk sitting behind you at a match, raving about every play. And triple dittos about Phil Schoen. Yuck. I kept turning the sound off after a while. He has the American sports announcer's terrible habit of talking all of the time, even when he doesn't have anything useful to say.

Let the match do the talking........

(and a little enthusiastic drinking periodically soothes the soul)