@MassachusettsRef - thanks for the clarification. My only point is that Higler is a talented CR and it's good that the Dutch FA have five more than decent CRs when you include van Boekel and Gozubuyuk. For a modest size league this is pretty amazing IMO.
I have to disagree with you about Higler - he is a solid/good decision taker but I don't see his bigger talent to be honest. At least, he's not a future Kuipers / Makkelie IMO. Gözübüyük needs to learn how to interact with players / take decisions that don't inflame his matches; I wonder whether he is too arrogant man to make those improvements. Van Boekal was /is(?) great! He even deserved Elite IMO, a shame that UEFA just demoted him for no real reason. And of course Kuipers and Makkelie are two of the best in the world right now. Are there any talented young non-FIFAs in the Netherlands? After current generation it seems a little bleak, at least speaking about UEFA top. I don't watch much Eredivise but I like the refereeing style a lot and with the transparency about VAR, I think the refereeing operation at KNVB is very well run. That's certainly not true of all associations, too.
I watch matches as a supporter and not a referee. I don't know about the younger group of CRs as I have not focused on them. I'll try to pay a little more attention. The second trio of Dutch CRs that was mentioned are all good and I'm not in any position to say which one is better. Gözübüyük is now getting some Euro qualification matches and perhaps is moving into third place. I regularly watch matches from the EPL, Spain, Germany and some Italian (mostly Juventus) along with all the Ajax games and some of the other Dutch teams. IMO, VAR has been more successful in Dutch matches with maybe Germany next. CRs in the Eredivisie will always come to the monitor to review plays when they get a signal from VAR. Also the outstanding CRs regularly are put on VAR duty as matches are spread out from Fri - Sun. I noted on one of the VAR thread (I think) that Makkelie was alerted by VAR that two YCs that he issued should be reviewed. He immediately went to the monitor and after 30 seconds came back out and issued RCs. You will never see this in the EPL. I've rarely seen a OFR (I'm getting good at acronyms without having to look them up) that lasts more than a minute. Perhaps it is this familiarity that makes Makkelie a top CR and VAR. As an aside, I'm enjoying and learning a lot from the posts in this forum!!
Semifinals Mexico - Netherlands: GUERRERO (ECU) France - Brazil: BARTON (SLV) Huge appointment for Barton.
Through ESPN+, I watch at least some of the Eredivisie matches each week (normally the matches with Ajax and PSV). I realize that Ajax and PSV matches will generally get the top Dutch referees all else equal, but I generally think the Dutch officials are very good. Obviously, Kuipers and Makkelie are at the top, but the other officials are generally good as well. I usually don't see that many incidents that make me scratch my head. As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, the Dutch normally use VAR very well, too.
Deserved and maybe surprising, given he went straight to semis from the group stage. But definitely huge. Confederational neutrality has not been broken, right? I know FIFA has deviated in the "on" years but I think they have stuck to neutrality in the "off" years like this. So... Brazil-Mexico or France-Netherlands would be a UEFA referee. Jovanovic? Brazil-Netherlands or Mexico-France feels like AFC, so Beath? Those seem like the logical two top candidates given pedigree and assignments, but I haven't paid nearly enough attention to the tournament to know if it tracks with performance. Kovacs and Al-Mari have also had good assignments, so maybe they are the other names in the mix.
I don't think we will have consensus here that the penalty awarded, then rescinded, at 0:25 below, was "clearly wrong":
Final Mexico : Brazil - TREIMANIS (LVA) 3/4 Netherlands: France - EKBERG (SWE) Massive assignment for almost anyone, but definitely for a Latvian referee. Fischer is VAR on the playoff, which is a good vote of confidence and noteworthy since he couldn’t be on the final.
If you look at the penalty that was overturned via VAR in the semifinal, a very similar sort of challenge was awarded via VAR in the final today. The lack of consistency in on-field decision-making is one thing and simply used to be an understandable fact of life. But the lack of a consistent standard for what constitutes "clearly wrong" when officials have access to video is just horrendous. Even if you think one is worse than the other, there's no way it can be clearly wrong to call the penalty in the semifinal and then clearly wrong to not call it in the final. The comparison is both striking and damning. Video to come--FIFA hasn't uploaded its highlights for the final yet.
They look different to me. Today there was a trailing leg that made contact with the Brazilian player. vs France there wasn't. It was more of a slide in front of the player.
Nothing is exactly the same--I made that point the other day in a different thread. Every play is different. You could make arguments that one of these tackles is "worse" than the other or "more" of a foul than the other. Those arguments could go both ways. But in both cases we are talking about mistimed slide tackles that completely miss the ball and up-end a player after he has passed the ball. They both fall in the category of challenges that we have occasionally seen given as penalties but are often not given as penalties precisely because they have no affect on the attacking opportunity (whether that is right or wrong is an entirely different matter). To use video replay in order to overturn one given and then, three days later, to award one that was not given... that just boggles the mind. Nothing was "clear" about either of these.
Is this (in bold) something in the rule book or based on subjective interpretation ? I've never seen that before.
You see my parenthetical immediately after the part you bolded, right? That sort of answers your question. You are pushing this the direction of a debate that I really have no interest in having. I don't care one bit about the individual decisions. My point here is about the VAR standard applied to penalties.
Yes I saw it. Just wanted to clarify it. Could have just said that. Simple. I had no intention of creating a debate about it. Thx anyways.
Here's the clip below, at 1:08: I'm comparing that to 0:25 in post #33 above. Sure, there are differences. But there are a lot of similarities, too. For the life of me I cannot understand how you overturn one in the semifinal, when given, and then award one via VAR in the final, after it wasn't given.
At what point is FIFA and IFAB going to come to a mea culpa and accept that VAR just isn't working. We're three years in and results, to put it mildly, have been mixed at best. It's just not working and it's ruining games, and tournaments. Unless FIFA is prepared to have two to three penalties a game and a red card every other game, VAR fundamentally can't work.
the problems are related to local FAs and how much exposure their CRs and VARs are getting. The Dutch league does a very good job with VAR and I've not seen any controversies at all this season. Dennis Higler from The Netherlands was on VAR duty in this tournament and he has had sufficient experience as both a VAR and CR. Don't know about the others. As was said in another post, this genie is not going back in the bottle.
Remember the NFL did. After using replay review for 6 years, 86-91 it was abolished. It reappeared in 1999.
Fair point. But I think three things weigh heavily against realistic hope of a reprise of that decision (even though I think pointy ball is far more designed for video replay to work): (1) It came back. (2) The NFL was an early adopter when most sports didn't use it; now, soccer was a bit of an outlier (and rightly so!) before it adopted. (3) The powers that be continue to say everything is great. While I expect we will see ongoing tweaks, I would be shocked if VAR goes away. The only way I could see a serious effort to make it go away would be a high profile fiasco in a final (though, maybe that isn't too unlikely . . . .).
Add in #4, which is that you have dozens of otherwise independent stakeholders who are now invested in this. The world rule-making body said you can do this and the world governing-body is encouraging it. It's not going away.
This interview with Treimanis has English subtitles. Interesting generally, but particularly so due to the way he describes a difference between FIFA and UEFA approaches to VAR. UEFA's--based on his description and what we've seen in action--being far more in line with what IFAB has written down: If EURO 2020 and World Cup 2022 end up being night and day...