US-Panama and hands to the face

There seemed to be a general aversion to yellows, period, from what I watched. You had 24 fouls, some of them pretty hard, and no yellows. If Ramos wasn't willing to pull a yellow for PI or a hard tackle or a tactical foul, you're dreaming if a flailing arm that could plausibly be excused as "accidental" would get cautioned. And to be honest, I was much more concerned about the targeting of Pulisic than any hands to face we saw yesterday.

As for Agoos, first that was 20 years ago--things change. Second it was the single referee in the world who was probably most likely to give a red for something like that at the time. And third, Agoos was turning to look toward the Mexican player as he struck him, so it was impossible to argue it wasn't deliberate.

 

I don't think that happened explicitly. But the position some of these referees are in did cross my mind over the weekend. For the first two Hexes, no referees from countries involved in the Hex were allowed to referee. Back then (and earlier) our top referees went to other confederations for qualifiers and outside referees came here. And technically speaking, using referees from Hex countries is a violation of World Cup regulations, but apparently CONCACAF and its members have decided they don't care and/or they got a FIFA waiver.

Ever since they've allowed Hex referees to come from countries that are playing in the tournament (that coincided with the move to pre-selected WC candidate lists in 2006), you end up with situations where a referee from one country could affect who is on the field against their nation in the next matchday. It's particularly pronounced this year and already happened 4 times over the first 2 matchdays. It's just not a good situation to be in. What if Geiger does get Mexico v Honduras next matchday, right before Mexico plays the US? Any controversial red card or suspension for yellow accumulation would be very bad from a public relations standpoint. I don't think referees are told to keep the cards in their pocket, but I think they all know the potential consequences are if they are liberal with them and they are wrong.

Also, strictly to the point of the US v Honduras game, I'd argue that zero US players should have been booked and that one was too many. Sometimes, there just aren't that many cautionable offences--particularly when you're winning 6-0 and there are no major incidents, other than the tackle on Lletget.

 

Me too, though I paid some attention to UEFA in 1993, to the extent is was possible back then!

Note quite. In the 2001 Hex, all the referees were from outside CONCACAF or from CONCACAF nations not in the Hex (until the final matchday, when it became irrelevant).

I'm also not sure if FIFA made the assignments directly or if CONCACAF arranged them so it didn't run afoul of WC regulations. Technically speaking, FIFA does not allow referees to be from the same group that their home nation is playing in during WCQ. CONMEBOL got a bit of an exception when it moved to the single table in 96-97 because otherwise no South American referees could work those games (even then, for nearly the entire second half of the schedule, only Brazilian or CONCACAF referees worked the matches--Esse Baharmast got two big matches this way). CONCACAF apparently didn't get its exception until 2006 qualifying. It looks like the rule still applies in all other confederations, save the for the rare occasion where a referee's own team is already qualified or eliminated at the very end of the process. But CONMEBOL and CONCACAF have decided, I presume with FIFA's okay, that they will just use their own referees.

No matter what, things were definitely different back then. In 93, 97, and 01, it was not uncommon at all for referees to be moving around among confederations. It would be crazy today for a non-UEFA referee to get a UEFA qualifier, but (using just one example) Brizio Carter did a really big England-Norway match at Wembley in 1992. That would never happen now but looking back, it seems like WC candidates, past WC referees (and future ones) were deliberately sent around the world to do big matches, get more experience and to be tested. In 1997, both Esse Baharmast and Arturo Angeles went to Asia late in the process (Baharmast for South Korea v Japan; Angeles for China v Kuwait) as well as big name referees like David Elleray, Horacio Elizondo, Kim Milton Nielsen and Mario Van der Ende. Baharmast did 5 or more big WCQs, all outside CONCACAF, in 1997. The practice became less common in 2001 (Hall did Saudi Arabia v Thailand, but not sure of any others). And it seemed to disappear entirely in 2005. Too bad, in my opinion.