Now that the World Cup qualifying is over and we have the complete composition for Russia 2018, I thought it might be interesting to look at how many critical refereeing decisions made the difference between going to Russia and staying home. There is the strange PK call in the N.Ireland/Switz match of course and also the "goal" given in that final hex match when the ball didn't cross the line. The Dutch also claim a good goal that was disallowed for no obvious reason. Are there any more out there? These calls are very costly to the teams concerned, but beneficial to some others. PH
In the Australia match a PK was called after a GK ran through an attacker in the back that had just flicked the ball over the crossbar for a goal kick. Referee talks to AR and changes restart to a goal kick. Looked like an easy foul to call to me.
But this one decision did not change the eventual result and who is going to Russia unlike for example in the N.Ireland match. The Dutch disallowed goal resulted in lost points and therefore prevented them from finishing 2nd in their group where they ended up with the same points as Sweden, but an inferior GD. It is those essentially million dollar decisions that I was wondering about. PH
The Northern Irish didn't score a single goal in their two-legged playoff. The penalty didn't prevent them from going to the World Cup. If it doesn't get called and the result stays the same, there would have been extra time and possibly penalties. Plus, if it doesn't get called, the Swiss are more motivated to score at home. In other words. Switzerland was much better than a 50% to advance even if they don't get the penalty, so saying the penalty changed the result on who is going to Russia is disingenuous. For the Dutch claim, I'd like to see the incident and know what match it is was. If they were wrongly denied a goal that resulted in lost points which in turn resulted in Sweden making a playoff, which in turn Sweden won and qualified... well, sure, if all those things happened maybe Sweden benefited in theory and are lucky to be in the World Cup. Then again, Sweden ended the group stage by playing the Dutch and losing 2-0 in a match they knew they could lose by 6 goals. Had that not been the case and Sweden was motivated to get a point, maybe that match results in a draw or even a Sweden win. The ghost goal in the Hex is the closest thing you can point to in regards to a single officiating decision changing who qualified. If that doesn't go in and the result doesn't change otherwise, Honduras goes to the World Cup, Panama stays home, and the United States plays Australia in the playoff. So you might actually have ended up swapping 2 teams out and 2 teams in if that single decision changes. Of course, the US still could have lost to Australia (making it a 1 for 1 swap) OR Panama, given they were, you know, motivated to make the World Cup, might have scored anyway and still won. I'm sure, over the course of the 18-match CONMEBOL table there were controversial decisions that might have turned a few points here or there, so if you wanted to dig there, you could find something. And CAF and AFC always have some interesting situations, though it might say something that nothing major springs to mind. I guess I just don't see the virtue in looking back and trying to identify a referee mistake and making it worse in retrospect because of the "what if" game.
Obviously over a long qualification period generally the better teams end up qualifying, and for the vast majority of those teams going to Russia, this was the case. Of course there are also many "what ifs" to think about as well, making single decisions perhaps not exactly the deciding factors. But I had thought of those three examples of what did actually turn out to be critical decisions, wrong or right, that affected who ended up in Russia and considered it an interesting topic and wondered if there were any more that people knew about. Not to make a potential mistake look worse. Maybe there aren't any others. WRT to the N.Irish, that PK goal did actually eliminate them. Other than that one, the Swiss didn't score either! So the KFTPM could have gone either way, and then they could not claim to be eliminated by the bogus PK call. PH
I'm surprised you're using this type of rhetoric. You admit that KFTPM could have gone "either way," so it's 50/50 at best that they would have qualified if absolutely nothing else changed after the penalty. When you add in the fact that the Swiss played with a lead for an entire match at home and focused more on defending than scoring (note they scored 13 home goals in qualifying and had scored in every home match until this one--the one where they didn't need to score), it is easy to postulate that there was a much better than 0% chance that the Swiss would have won leg 2 outright if they needed to do so. In other words, the Northern Irish were still underdogs even if the penalty wasn't called. Yes, the Northern Irish can claim to be eliminated on that call because the result conveniently ended 1-0. But it's a tenuous claim not grounded in reality. The penalty narrowed their window of opportunity to qualify, but it was not the difference between who is going to Russia and who is staying home, as you said in your initial post. I personally feel like validating claims like that helps feed a grievance industry that always wants to blame the referee.
Not sure what type of rhetoric you are referring to. That PK was high on the list of really poor PKs I have ever seen, and there is nobody I know among the referee community who thinks it was a good call. So I feel justified in calling it bogus. In the end the PK was the actual difference. My intention is not to validate the Irish claim, just that it is a fact. It would have been interesting to see what the Swiss would have done if the first match was 0-0. But their tactics to defend were made possible by the PK goal. In any event a lot of teams would have tried to increase their lead as well for security reasons. PH
The rhetoric where you assert one team went to the World Cup and another team didn't based purely on a referee decision. The Northern Irish had 122 minutes to score a goal after that penalty. They didn't score a goal before it and they didn't score a goal after it. This sort of thread just fuels the notion that the Northern Irish were robbed by a refereeing decision and otherwise would have gone to the World Cup. That is factually inaccurate and given other available data, chances are they would have lost the tie even without the penalty call. That's my only point in engaging on this. I have no qualms with you calling it bogus. I am surprised you think it was one of the worst PK calls you've ever seen. I agree it was incorrect. But there were elements that suggested handling and I know you have seen a lot of PK calls, so I would have suspected you've seen many worse than that one over the years. It's a fact they lost 1-0 so yes, it is a fact that the PK was the difference in this tie. But your opening post was about refereeing decisions that kept one team home and allowed another team to go. And I think it fuels anti-referee grievance to draw a direct line from this penalty decision to the wrong team going to the World Cup. Northern Ireland scored four competitive goals away from home over the course of qualifying. Three of them were against San Marino, which on a good day you, me and 9 of our closest friends could do. So the Northern Irish have scored one tough road goal in two years. Meanwhile, the Swiss won all their home games, including by two goals against Portugal. I think we know what the Swiss would have tried to do if they needed a goal at home. Because they had successfully done it in all five previous qualifiers. I don't expect we'll reach a consensus on this and I don't think I can make my point any better, so I'll cede the floor at this point.
At the end of the day, I'm not sure how practical weeding out the decisions are, unless we're talking about what portions of the considerations are applicable and what are not. Taking the handling penalty call from the Northern Ireland team, I can completely agree that it probably shouldn't have been a penalty. But what are the considerations? Does the player have time to react? Was his arm in a natural position? How natural? Natural in general? Natural for that moment? Rather than just simply referring to it in boolean terms of true or false, it's probably most helpful to see what parts contribute to it being considering a foul and what parts can be overlooked as trifling or legal.
OK, fair enough! One last word though. You are correct that I have seen worse PK calls, but not very many, in fact only a few. FWIW the worst was in the 1985 European Cup Final, Liverpool vs. Juventus. Juventus won 1-0 on a PK. The foul (trip) was over a yard outside the 18 yard line, on a breakaway, with the referee at least 25 yds behind the play. (Note: under current law this certainly would have been DOGSO.) Scored by non other than Platini, now of course disgraced being involved in the FIFA scandals. PH