Time to see some world class time wasting now. over/under on how many leg cramps the Croatians get now... I have it at 5.
He put on 2 in the first extra time half, right? With that precedent, he's looking at 5 minimum and it's about to get worse...
Not sure that making Pickford retake the FK after he got foul made a ton of sense. He moved it up even further, which seems to go against the "line" looking signal that was given as the reason for a retake.
I liked that he has been very explicit at looking at his watch to show he's paying attention. But 4 seems soft to me.
well the "right" team won, tbh. Croatia way outplayed England in the 2nd half. they were more aggressive, quicker to the ball, and better with possession England was playing not to concede from the moment they scored the first goal
So, give a couple sentences about Cakir & crew, then head back to the assignments thread: Cakir & crew - Overall, decent job - game result was fairly determined by the teams, not by the ref crew. Some nits to pick, but no one got away with murder. Assuming no big mess-ups over next few years, he'll be back with a good shot at the Final depending on team progressions.
I’m curious what is the read on letting Delle Ali? And the Croatian player start pulling each others’ shirt toward the end in the scrum. No cards because minute 122?
Busacca hired police officers to search all referees before walking out to ensure no one is carrying any red cards.
Not only has there been a single VAR intervention in the knockout stage, but, to my knowledge, there hasn't even been a single OFR of any decision. Not only has something not been changed, they haven't even bothered to send something down. To be fair, other than the incessant holding, there haven't been that many challenges in the penalty area that I thought warranted a review by VAR. The defenders have been more careful in the penalty area on challenges on the ground. The only ones that come to mind is the Kompany challenge on Gabriel Jesus in the Belgium vs. Brazil game where the ball was going out of play. Other than that there is not that even comes close to "that's a penalty." Aerial challenges not included. One credit that should be given is to the ARs in this tournament. We haven't actually had that many reviews for offside or onside decisions. A lot of it is luck, where the attackers don't score on plays where they were either off or on and the flag didn't go up or stay down depending on what the correct decision should be. But completely agree with your post. I thought it was going to be more conservative than what we have seen in MLS or Serie A, but I didn't think that they basically didn't even bother using it. The sad part is that they will hail it as a success. I have to think Murphy's Law is due to rear it's head on the Final. Something has to occur where it will put the VAR in a bind.
Wait. There was one OFR in the KO stages and that was on the location of the foul that led to the only red card given all KO stages by Skomina. Changed the location of the foul from inside to outside on the push by a Swiss defender on a breakaway.
Of course I forget the one match I was in the stadium for. I was actually going to come back and give some comments on how I felt Skomina did, from that perspective. Totally forgot and I barely remember now.