It's not because she made her body bigger - it's because she amde the Swedish defender's body bigger. Have we found a proper grammatical space for usage of "embiggens"?
I really don’t understand this. Once she uses her arm to put the ball. Ack into her path, it is going to be called. It doesn’t really matter, in this case, where it came from before handling it.
Fun fact: Steinhaus, Monzul, Frappart, and Umpierrez are all age-eligible for 2023. We could potentially have three referees who have already done the Final, and a fourth who has been involved in two Finals.
If Steinhaus is back, she gets it (unless conflicted out). No other female referees are even close to her. Off the top of my head, I’d put her near the top 30 referees in the World regardless of gender. Definitely top 50.
i.e 49th or 50th? But for female referees, top 3 or just top? When people make TOP-"X" rankings of anything, the item being discussed is usually found towards the bottom end of the ranking. Otherwise the value of X would be smaller. If something is third in the rankings, they will say in the top 3, not top 10 or top 20. Brian Clough once said that he was in the top 1 of managers! PH
2019 WWC refereeing stats (x-posting from WWC forum): Referee who did the most matches as a center: 3 referees tied with 4 matches apiece: Frappart, Alves Batista, and Beaudoin Number of YC's awarded: 128 (average of 2.46 per game) Number of RC's awarded: 3 (1 directly, 2 more were from a 2nd caution) Highest number of fouls called in a game: 39 in Australia-Italy group stage match (SF of Netherlands-Sweden was a close runner-up with 38) Lowest number of fouls called in a game: 10 in the USA-Thailand group stage match Avg. number of fouls called in a game: 20.5
She's done the Final before. She's not even top 15 in Germany! She's trusted with some mid-table Bundesliga and German cup games. The idea that she's in the top 30 or 50 in the world when that's the biggest challenge she's faced doesn't even come close to passing a laugh test.
Indeed, she has done a total of 15 Bundesliga matches in the two seasons since she was promoted, none of which would qualify as a "big" match. By contrast, Brych and Gräfe have over 200 Bundesliga matches under their belt, while Zwayer, Aytekin, Dingert, Fritz, Schmidt, and Winkmann have all passed the 100-match mark.
Maybe she’s not top 50. But do you have complaints with her ability? If so, what are they. Frankly, I don’t remember ever seeing a game get away from her. She can’t help which games she is assigned. Can you name a match she handled poorly? Certainly, you don’t believe assignments are given based upon only merit.
So we had four major international tournaments that everyone in the Western soccer world paid attention these past 12 months. Women's World Cup, Copa America, Gold Cup and Men's World Cup. Three out of those four had VAR. In those tournaments we had a grand total of 1 red card for SFP and what two red cards for violent conduct on a meaningless 3/4 placed match? The one card for SFP wasn't even for an on the ball ground challenge. It was for an elbow that was probably only given due to blood showing to the fouled player. It was in the Uruguay vs. Ecuador match. We couldn't even get one OFR in the Women's World Cup for SFP or violent conduct. No red cards for violent conduct or SFP in the Gold Cup. That's just staggering and statistically impossible in an age of VAR. We are talking about a sample size of over 200 matches across different genders, skill levels and referee ability and we can't get one red card for a studs up tackle?
You've just moved the goal posts into the next solar system. I haven't seen her enough on men's matches to have too much of an opinion. My point is that she's on the border of a top 15 in her own country, based on assignments. If she's not in the top 15 in Germany, she's not cracking the top 10 (and probably lower) in at least a half dozen leagues in Europe. And then you have high-quality referees throughout Europe and around the world who regularly emerge on the scene. There are more Hategans out there that we never see because we don't want the Romanian league (like Kovacs). More Skominas (like Vincic). More Tobars and Bartons and Ghorbals. We have male referees who arrive on the scene at the UCL or international tournaments with regularity. Referees who we've never heard of and then realize are very, very good. My issue is not with your assessment of Steinhaus' abilities. My issue is with a claim about a worldwide ranking for her that cannot be founded in reality. You ask if I've seen her botch a match. I could list 250 referees and ask the same question of you and you wouldn't be able to answer because you haven't seen them enough. My point here is the scope of worldwide refereeing. There are male referees in both leagues you watch and have never watched that could fight for a World Cup spot if the chips fell their way. You can't say that about her. In a top domestic league she is considered a passable official, but likely toward the bottom. If that's unfair, maybe she's mid-table. That still doesn't put her close to being top 50 in the world. And that's all I'm trying to say. The word "only" there is loaded. Of course not. Certain referees can't officiate certain teams. So if you use the word "only," you're guaranteeing I have to agree with you. But do I think her general assignments in the Bundesliga are mostly on merit? Yes, I do. Do I think the fact that she hasn't been invited to do men's UCL matches or Europa League matches is on merit? Yes, I do. If she was as good as you claim, she'd be doing Europa League matches regularly and, at least, the occasional UCL group stage match. She's not.
Add in the U20s and your numbers change a little. But they also give us a few examples of OFRs for VC leading to yellow cards. Overall, I agree with your sentiment. VC and SFP are becoming clauses in the Laws that are almost meaningless in international tournaments.
Hope Solo weighs in on VAR in her final column for The Guardian. I'm unsure as to why she calls it an experiment since it was used in the men's WC and has been used in a number of European leagues. All the VAR officials were among the best around and while maybe the women CRs were not used to VAR, I don't think one can find fault with those doing the reviewing. We saw in yesterday's final how VAR had a major impact on the match as it overturned a wrongly decided corner kick into a correct PK.
More utter nonsense. The NWSL could have instituted VAR in 2016 or any year since. So could any of the top women's leagues in Europe. They haven't because it would bankrupt the leagues. Come on. FIFA didn't mandate that domestic leagues use VAR; they chose to do it on their own (and some, like the EPL, dragged its feet). The one complaint you could have about FIFA is that it didn't experiment with VAR at the U20s in 2018. Given how they treated the men in 2017, that would be a valid point. But valid criticisms don't allow for sensationalist garbage, I guess.
And she doesn't mention that FIFA, for many of the reasons she flags, did not plan to use VAR in the WWC--the players and coaches demanded it as necessary for equal treatment.
I wonder what the cost per game is to implement VAR. The Dutch league used it for all matches this past season and it took some good CRs off the pitch and into the VAR booth. I don't have statistics but would assume that a VAR could do more than one match per weekend where a CR cannot. You are correct about the women's leagues which run on a shoestring budget for the most part. I was surprised at the number of leagues that use VAR according to Wikipedia. Did not know the full extent.
You are talking about the Dutch men's league, right? Those asterisks matter a lot. A country can be listed there if it's done 1 or 2 games. This visual is more useful, though it isn't updated with Copa America and the AFCON QFs. https://www.theifab.com/projects/vars/participants-matches
Yes, the men's league. The women's league only has 10 teams I think. The asterisks are indeed worth noting as it's the only reason England is on the list. From the link you posted the following Euro leagues used VAR for ALL matches: Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, and Belgium. The link says Spain used it only for Cup matches but that's incorrect.
As strange as it may sound, Alves Batista is the first and only South American female referee to have done one of the final three matches at a World Cup (SF, Final). One of these matches was done by a South American at the inaugural WWC in 1991, but back then they still used male referees as well.
It doesn't seem that strange to me, actually. Other than Brazil, South America has been far behind Europe, North America and the major Asian countries in terms of development of the women's game, right? I don't think any South American country other than Brazil has made the QFs. So if the play itself and sport has been behind on development, it stands to reason that the refereeing also has been. Almost all the knockout stage referees from 1999-2015 have come from either countries where women's soccer is relatively strong OR European countries where they've developed within UEFA despite the lack of strength at home (Ukraine, Hungary, Czech Republic, Romania, etc.). It looks like Reyes of Peru doing a quarterfinal match in 2011 was the first exception to that and then Umpierrez and Di Iorio followed in 2015 (when the number of matches doubled, it's worth adding).
It's not so strange if you look in those terms, I agree. But still surprising given that two of the last four men's WC Finals have been handled by South Americans, and that this honor goes to Alves Batista in particular (how many of us have heard of her before this year's tournament?)