We have a long history of reviewing this particular referee's performances. Some of us, particularly me have a real dislike for seeing him appointed to match after match. We first encountered Irmatov in the 2003 U17 World championships. Here is what I wrote about his performance. The entire response is below for those interested. http://forums.bigsoccer.com/threads/usa-vs-sierra-leone-u17-albertos-analysis.67444/#post-1490722 Sounds familiar right? My mentor in architecture and particularly construction management mentioned that many don't possess the necessary qualities for a difficult job. Many never will have an epiphany and will continue to make the same mistakes over and over again. Irmatov has improved, but many of the problems present 11 years ago are still there. For being an instructor for a footballing school he certainly appears to be tactically naive and in capable of recognizing negative systems of play like tactical fouling and persistent infringements as methods of stopping creative and attacking play, and is not our job to allow attacking soccer to flow through the match? I understand that FIFA needs a strong referee from the Asian Confederation, but is Irmatov really the man? He in my view has made significantly more mistakes than Nishimura, yet, Nishmura is now a pariah to FIFA. Tactically, Irmatov is naive. He fails to sanction tactical fouls and fails to recognize persistent infringement. For all of his prowess keeping up with play he surely loses the plot with respect to the spirit of the law. It's clear that either his English is still poor or he is poor at verbal communication. His non-verbal communication is also poor. No one would ever accuse him of having the personality of Collina, Frisk, Webb or Rizzoli. He does not come across as possessing any confidence. Also, yesterday his vision failed him calling a handball for a ball that struck a Costa Rican player in the back. Given that Irmatov has a limited skill set as a referee why is he refereeing these highest level matches. The thought of his possibly refereeing the World Cup final scares the crap out of me.
Correct me if i am wrong, but he was considered among the best referees last time around at WC ? Unlucky not to get a final etc.. And a referee protege in his 20's. Maybe that plays in the comittees minds ? Plus guess the Asian Quota of sorts help him. This time more so with Nishimura out.
The Irmatov nonsense in this forum is getting ridiculous. A whole new thread attempting to read his thoughts and feelings? He's a top 30 international referee. They are all error-prone His confidence is expressed through unflappability, but is clearly there.
I'm sorry you feel that way, but it isn't about reading his thoughts and feelings. All you have to do is watch him work and he lacks a strong personality and is prone to making many mistakes. The very types of mistakes that many times result in the dismissal of referees. Finally, Irmatov is in my view the poster child for the ridiculous notion put forth by the USSF and possibly FIFA that if you are always in position you can sell your decision. I take strong exception to that fallacy. Just because Ravshan can motor like an elite middle distance runner does not change the fact that his decisions and his reading of the game lack quality. Sometimes, that might be something you cannot teach. Having people accepting your decisions and having confidence in protecting the players and the game is probably a trait or set of traits that are not easily taught.
I feel that this particular thread lacks purpose. Unless one of us can ask the FIFA referee committee why Irmatov continues getting assignments, this thread will go something like this: "Why does Irmatov keep getting games?" "I have no idea, but here is some wild speculation and conjecture!" "I love conjecture! I also love conspiracy theories! Here's mine..."
Yours is a rhetorical question, as we know FIFA would never respond to this type of question, but it's worth a discussion on the two off days between the quarter finals and the semis and in particular based on how he handled the last 45 minutes of the NED vs. CRC match.
My sepeculation and conjecture would be that they are (apporpriately) considering not just immediate performance, but performance over time. (Whether you agree with the view that he performed well ove time is, of course, a separate issue.) And that based on what they have seen over time, they believe they know with greater confidence what they will get than with someone (say, Geiger) who has not done as many WC level games over time. And I suspect that the unfortunate start with the attention on Ninshimura forced them to do things differently than they might have planned -- not necessarily because they lacked confidence in Nishimura from a single game, but becasue they were concerned about the visibility and the consequences if a referee who was publically percieved as having failed were to have a bad game.