Why caution for DR in waning moments if you aren’t going to add on the time the delay and caution took?
World's most useless YC just issued! What was the point of that with all the stuff that was let go in this WC? Sheesh! Edit: Actually the one to Maguire was just as useless too! PH
I realize this was tongue in cheek, but I do feel for these guys. It would suck to get a World Cup assignment, rules laid out on how you’re to operate, multi-screen hi-tech display and then be essentially told by FIFA, “After the second round of group games, we don’t actually want you to do anything.”
My point was more about not adding time. The caution should not be the price of wasting times—the referee should both caution and add time to make tactic ineffective.
Anyone decides to referee their matches based on what we saw in this World Cup will be heading for a world of hurt! Stick to proper application of the LOTG. PH
Easy game for Faghani to whistle and he whistled fine. Some of the comments here are bizarre but I suppose that is how it is with some people.
Under most circumstances, yes. But in this case 2-0 up, third place game, last 15 secs, totally worthless. PH
While this was legitimately an easy match to whistle, and a hard one to mess up, even easy matches can be messed up and made to look harder than they should be by some referees unnecessary intervening and making bone-headed decisions. In fact, whenever a match ends up looking easy to whistle without much to talk about, it usually means the referee did his job fine.
Several of these in this match. Trivial events. Not needed for control in this match. Not sure what the purpose was. PH
I don’t really disagree—except that if it worth cautioning for, it is worth giving them the 15 seconds. But I also agree that when these are the kinds of things we talk about, he did fine. I do think it was an easy game where the teams both just came out to play. But he still reffed consistent with that, but for a few minor things we can quibble about. And there are always going to be some things we can quibble about, no matter how well a ref does in a game.
That's exactly why the Fair Play tie breaker was so useless and unfair. Let's ignore a bunch of cautions during the game and then throw in some meaningless cautions at the end that actually modify player behavior. It's so arbitrary.
This is why I don't understand what his thinking was here. Most referees like to have a well-played match (which this was) that has no cautions. It shows good management skills. Throwing that away with pointless YCs is quite ridiculous. PH
I’m with you. Either add the time for the time wasting since he carded or just say screw it and let it go. I would have been fine with either, but carding and then blowing for full time was a little odd. Overall, Faghani did fine. Easy game to manage with all of the Premier League players and England having really tired legs. Good fitness by Faghani, he had some great sprints on Belgian counters.
He kept his distance when England had the ball in thier attacking third so he could keep up with the counter. Of course this led to missing a couple otherwise obvious fouls that ended in Belgian counter attacks.
There are times when a referee or a player or a team's performance can legitimately bring questions. And when spin and attempts to undermine those performances can have an affect on ultimate impressions. There are also times when a referee or player or team does well enough that some random comments trying to undermine it will make no difference. Faghani whistled 4 games without a glitch and doing very well, with each game leaving very little of any significance for discussion. In terms of his speed, that is also a matter of fact and record. Trying to make comments to suggest otherwise is ridiculous. The speed Faghani recorded, for instance, coming back on one of Mexico's counters (shown below) against Germany was better than either Lozano or Kimmich!
I was critical of Geiger for his game management in the match against Colombia, not because of his nationality. Did I make any negative comments about Geiger in the other games he had whistled? No. But you had to be blinded by bias not to realize that Geiger didn't exhibit the kind of management over the Colombia game you would expect from a referee. I admit that was a tough game to whistle, but I felt even if that wasn't expected beforehand, it became clear from the early minutes with the constant and senseless protests, actions, and behavior from Colombia's players. Gegier needed to stamp his authority on that match very early and if he had done so, the game wouldn't have looked like the mess it looked for the most part.
Incidentally, the fact that Geiger wasn't sent home but also wasn't given any more assignments as a CR was appropriate in my view as well. Including, serving as VAR in this match. Geiger overall is good in deciding how to call incidents he sees on the pitch. His failing was mostly game management issues. Something that matters a lot for the CR and isn't significant for those in other referee positions. I hope that Geiger truly takes the right lessons from the Colombia match. Those lessons aren't about handing out red cards in abandon and ruining games that way. It is instead about stamping your authority on a match quickly and decisively at the first instance where you think a side is there to make things difficult to whistle. For me, at least, Geiger's mistakes started early in this regard when ridiculously unmeritorious dissent from Colombia didn't even draw a stern look or warning, and when fights between players early in the game were left totally unpunished, and then when Geiger didn't ask for VAR on the head-but against Henderson even though he obviously hadn't seen the incident and was relying on someone else for his call. If he had done the things I mentioned from the get go, I don't think the rest of the incidents that happened would have happened the same way.