All very well, but it does not account for the beautiful goal scored by France being disallowed by VR because the scorer's big toenail was in front of the defender's rear studs. But I agree, the VC should be dealt with first, then the goals will flow, and then the VC will stop. Right now there is no incentive (or disincentive) for a weaker team not to resort to rough tactics. What has changed since the 2010 WC Final? Would VR demand that DeJong be sent off? Probably not on the basis of what we have seen so far. PH
Good analysis, but the foul on Neymar in 2014 that put him out of the game with a broken vertebra, made no difference. By contrast, a Uruguayan player was sent off in the first minute of one match in the 1986 WC for a SFP foul by a French referee. It didn't do him any harm, he refereed again at the 1990 WC. Something somewhere has changed. I suspect it is simply $$$$, and probably related to the corruption scandals in FIFA in recent years. PH
I think the fact that National teams arenot commercial for profit teams like those in the CL, makes it easier to disregard these things. A next round with millions going along with them isnot the case.
Maybe they need to literally go to the figurative orange card for what would in basketball be called a flagrant 1 foul?
So what happened in the 2010 Final? No millions? It seems to me that that match was the beginning of the trend we see now. PH
Yes and it will have to be in the men's game and then, in frustration, we'll be able to say "We told you so" and accept no dissent. Because one star player, Dzsenifer Marozsan, had her toe broken and since has missed three matches for Germany. And no one seems to care.
I dunno if there was a trend in the first place, let alone it being started by Webb. Might be possible we now with VAR are more focused on noticing those omissions as there's a back up to review the offensive fouls.
To be fair, you can get your toe broken on a yellow card tackle. The injury itself can't dictate the color of the card.
I don't want this to go too far off the rails, but I find it borderline hilarious that we are looking to a game with 14 yellow cards as the point where referees stopped giving cards. Webb missed the De Jong red. Earlier yellow card tackles were borderline red (and I remember calling for reds on a couple of them). But conservative decisions like that have been made in big matches long before Howard Webb arrived. Maybe I'm not in sync with others here, but I'm thinking about the fact that referees stopped giving clear SPA cards at FIFA events and have significantly elevated what the standard is for "reckless" (and, by virtue of that, the standards for SFP, too). Webb didn't do that in 2010--at least not any more than any other referee would have done in a Final (De Jong challenge aside). Ivanov didn't do that in 2006. Now, maybe things changed as a result of referees like Webb and Ivanov ending up in situations where teams didn't adjust, 14+ cards came out, and FIFA just decided to relax standards rather than risk repeats of those types of matches. That's plausible to me. But that's on the teams and FIFA, not on the referees. Webb is guilty of missing the De Jong challenge. And you can accuse him of being conservative on SFP in the early minutes of that match because it was a Final. But he had four cautions inside 25 minutes. It's not like he forgot where his cards were, which is what I thought we were talking about.
Not wanting to go over the 2010 Final once again, but I was referring to the lack of red cards (either direct or 2nd Y), not the number of YCs. And while I don't absolve Webb entirely (he would not have refereed like this in any EPL match he ever did) it was clearly down to the instructions the crew received prior to the match, as shown in a video that was released several months later. Yes, maybe the "trend" started earlier. Puhl was selected for the 1994 Final not because he was the best referee (he was not) but because he had issued the fewest cards of the candidates for the Final. Blatter did not want a repeat of the 1990 Final where two Argentina players were sent off. No player had ever been sent off in any previous WC Final. Also Argentina had 4 players suspended for the Final. But instructions for the referees in 1990 were to apply the Laws to cut down on foul play. Something obviously changed along the way. PH
This--the accumulation suspension issue generally, not specific to 1990--more than anything seems to be biggest impediment to where the sport needs to be at FIFA tournaments. Eliminate accumulation suspensions. Let players get one yellow card every game if they want, but then actually have referees give yellow cards for everything that should be a yellow card. That's my solution. Finals have always been different. Maybe they shouldn't be, but they have been. That's a tougher nut to crack if you actually want to crack it. But the 98% of other games at FIFA events could be made a lot smoother if you just enforce the Laws and eliminate accumulation suspensions. FIFA thinks fans don't like cards or ejections. I still haven't met the fan that feels that way. But I've met plenty of fans who despise suspensions for things done across a series of earlier matches. The solution seems obvious to me.
It happened on the YC foul at 90+5 right on the touchline. The Cameroon player was screaming at the downed England player. She was physically restrained by other players.
And yet, the Laws explicitly state that a kick is ankle/foot only. Not below the knee. With that in mind, having finally seen this call -- I'm all over it. Correct call.
I think you've exactly got it right as to why and how we've gotten to where we're at right now. FIFA was just not comfortable with the fact that sometimes games end up with double digit cards and multiple red cards. That's just the nature of the sport. Any referee that has done any competitive amateur soccer will tell you they will have a game every now and then with 10+ yellows and a couple of reds. I've had them on my amateur matches and I'm sure others have had as well. Take the Ivanov match. Look at all these cards, with the exception of the Boulharoz challenge on Ronaldo and the Deco challenge on Heitinga after the Dutch refused the give the ball back, every color card was pretty much correct and consistent with the way the game was called at that time. In a class room setting, almost every card was warranted and correct. After the game, Sepp Blatter blasted the referee and said that the referee "should give himself a yellow for his performance." FIFA and others just didn't want a game like that to happen again so they started loosening their standards. The teams didn't complain about the referee. Ivanov in an interview stated, that the players went after the game and shook his hand and acted like it was a normal game. The players just understood that games sometimes happen like that. I believe that game was kind of the line of demarcation when it comes to strictness and discipline. Look at some of the challenges in the highlights of the semifinal match between Germany and Italy in the same World Cup. Look at the challenge by Schneider on Matterazzi at the 2:15 mark. That was a 100% yellow card at the tournament and suddenly one of your more disciplinarian referees doesn't give it? Look at some of the fouls in the highlights. Yellows kept in the pocket. Take a look at the subsequent European Championships after the 2006 World Cup. Euro 2008: Two red cards for violent conduct in the group stage. Another red card for DOGSO in the group stages. No second caution send-offs throughout the tournament and no red cards at all in the knock out stages. Euro 2012: Velasco Carballo had two red cards in the opening match (one for a non-existent second caution foul) another for DOGSO by the goal keeper. Cakir had a second caution send-off for dissent in the group stage No red cards for SFP or VC in the entire tournament or any red cards in the knockout stages. Euro 2016: Two second caution send-offs in the group stage. One red card in the knock-out stages for DOGSO by Rizzoli. The standard of refereeing at the Euros is far higher than at the World Cup and the standard of play is genuinely higher and more cleaner as well so you'll get more cleaner games, but well over a 100 games without a red card for serious foul play? No second caution red in the knockout stages? The Webb match was just an inevitable denouement of laxness in discipline throughout the tournament and the Dutch just took advantage. Van Bommel and De Jong were fouling players throughout the tournament and got away with. The combination of a Dutch team that was using cynical fouling throughout the tournament, combined with coming up against one of the greatest passing and possession teams we've ever seen led to the 2010 Final.
So it seems it was all started under the auspices and possible dictates of two people now banned from the game, Blatter and Platini. But their ideas live on. Definitely time for a reset. PH
Huh. I definitely learned something today. So a mis-kick off the shin, no matter how deliberate, cannot technically be a passback if it doesn't touch the foot/ankle at all. I think that could lead to one of the rare situations where it's actually harder not to call the passback than to call it, but it's good to know.
Cue the conspiracy theorists, but that penalty called was right. Contact just on the mid-shin on LaVelle. It's the right call. She might have sold it, but there's contact. Based on the replays I'm seeing on FS1, I don't see enough to overturn the call. I would have said the same thing about not reversing if it was a no-call.
I would have been OK with a no-call because it was so soft, but once called, I don't see how you reverse it - contact was there, Spanish player was very late, it denied Lavelle possession in the box.
What in the soccer world, does "cynical play" mean? Is it violent? A lot of fouls? I have no idea what that means in regards to soccer. Mocking the referee?
Every definition is different, but mine is basically using negative tactics - intentional fouling to stop attacks, wasting time, clipping heels, doing little and annoying things when the referee isn't looking to get under the other team's skin.