So is Drew Fisher the most card-happy ref in CONCACAF WCQ? And does that tend to help CR in this spot? And is it odd that this is his third match of WCQ only, and one of the prior two was also at Costa Rica?
"Card-happy?" Why would more cards help Costa Rica? There's a 99%+ chance that they have an additional qualifier to play. It's his fourth of the Octagonal. And that's tied for the second most assignments (behind Elfath, with Barton and Escobar). So not sure about the "only" description here.' He also had a fifth lined up, but changes were made when he had to go to the CWC in January. There are seven teams he can referee. They are all playing each other. And the matchups inherently change week-to-week. He also wasn't allowed to referee any match if one of the teams was playing Canada next. Or, apparently, to referee twice in one international window. If anyone can draw up a set of assignments following those rules that would make him (or any other referee with a team in the tournament) see only six teams in three matches and guarantee no repeat of the same venue, I'd be somewhat surprised. When you factor in that you can't make such an assignment in a vacuum (as you have to account for all other assignments) and that this is actually his fourth match and not his third... yeah, no issues with one referee going to the same venue. In fact, Efath also went to San Jose twice and Barton has had two US home matches. Even Martinez, who only had two matches, went to Costa Rica twice. So maybe the odd thing isn't Fischer, it's that only four referees worked the seven games in San Jose (Marrufo did the other one) and that neither Escobar nor any Mexican referee saw Costa Rica at home. The strange thing about the Fischer assignment is that he sees the USMNT on the last day in what could have been a critical match, after avoiding them thus ffar. That said, Villarreal had Canada (twice) and Marrufo has them now, so it's clearly not a violation of some hard and fast rule.
Card happy in that he seems to control games with cards more than other WCQ refs according to the stats I could find. Maybe that was too pejorative. Highest chances of a lot of cards helps CR create the circumstances where they might possibly qualify directly: namely, the US plays a man down for an extended period. I can only find stats that show he referred two prior WCQ matches. Is three prior ones correct? Was he center in your third one? It would not be strange to ref the same team more than once, but I did find it odd that in three games he refs at Costa Rica twice. If he'd gotten an assignment every window or something, that would not seem so strange, but 2 of 3 wondows in CR? Just seemed unusual, but maybe not.
Maybe. Also odd that you'd rely on stats with something like this and not observation. Different matches have different amounts of misconduct and different needs. There's also a very small sample size here. That seems like more than a stretch, but okay. Where are you getting these mysterious "stats?" The information is in this thread. Or on Wikipedia. Or on the CONCACAF site. He did CRC-JAM, SLV-MEX, HON-PAN and he initially had another match in the MD 9-11 window. And, yes, as the referee. You do realize that officials don't swap between referee and AR, right? He's also a qualified VAR and I believe has had one match as the main VAR since it got introduced into the Octagonal, but, no, I'm just talking about referee assignments. But again, both Elfath and Martinez already went to San Jose twice. So Fischer is the third referee to do what you think is odd on Costa Rica alone. Is it a quirk of the way assigning went? Sure. "Unusual?" I guess, though we've never had an Octagonal so there is no "usual" to compare to.
I haven't watched every WCQ match. Seems pretty normal to extrapolate form stats when you can't do that. How's this: hey, Mass Ref, what I could find suggests Fisher gives out more cards than other WCQ refs. As someone who watches him all the time, do you think he gives cards out more frequently than his colleagues? I agree thiis an improved way to put my original question to you. What is a stretch? That one of CR's best chances to make up a large goal difference is if the other team plays a man down? That's the opposite of a stretch. I am not saying that will happen. Also, I am noting it is more likely to happen if the ref in charge tends to give out more than the average number of cards. This is not a stretch either. I got the stats from Transfermarket, which just came up when I googled for them. It does not list the SLV-MEX game for him. I imagined that site would be more reliable than Wikipedia when I googled, but perhaps not. Yes, I knew he would not be an AR, but thought he might have been assigned as a VAR and that was causing the difference in raw numbers. I'm sure a lot goes in to figuring out which ref to assign to which match, and maybe reffing at same team's home field just isn't one of them. As he's apparently done three already, it seems a little less odd to do 2 in San Jose, but still seems odd to me that CR is getting so much repeat business from the ref pool.
Seems like the issue is that Soccerway and other "similar" sites are showing Nation as the center for El Salvador/Mexico match, while Wiki (and FIFA and CONCACAF) shows Fischer.
Not the right San Jose! That one was in the original NASL and now MLS but he probably knows the way there also. PH
Me too! But geographic mix-ups have happened before. The last time Canada won the CONCACAF WCQ tournament in 1985, they played the critical final must-win match against Honduras. It was played in St John's Newfoundland, but a large number of the Honduras fans went to St. John in New Brunswick instead and missed the match. PH
Now I'm reminded of the 2001 MLS ASG that was held in San Jose and that had Alexi Lalas's band play "Do you know the way to San Jose" as the intro on ESPN.
I'm trying for the life of me to remember the book or movie where there was confusion between Portland Maine and Portland Oregon but I just can't.
Yup. I think you could count on one hand the number of times Pulisic received the ball and DIDN'T get fouled. Not that this changes the fact that PI card(s) could have and should have been given, but Costa Rica was at least smart enough to vary who was fouling Pulisic. It was mostly #6 in the first half and #14 in the second.
I really do not understand this tactic last night. Costa Rica needed not just to win, but to win by 6 goals. The persistent infringement just ate up a ton of time. It seemed that when they went up by two, Costa Rica just killed the game. I wonder if this came into the thoughts of the ref on why he didn't card the PI. It was hurting Costa Rica, not the US.
Costa Rica didn't start nearly all of their starters who were on a yellow card and would be suspended for the playoff if they received one last night. They had accepted that they were not going to beat the US by six goals and we're going to protect themselves for the playoff. I think they just wanted to beat the US and keep their home record against them alive.
Not just PI but many tactical fouls that were not carded. Any time a USA player had the ball going forward, they had their shirt pulled from behind, their legs clipped, or any other cynical foul. The foul was called by Fisher, but no cards. Terrible performance by Fisher.
That's one way to look at it. And, to be very clear, I wouldn't defend Fischer's performance if this was a normal competitive match. But it wasn't. And it seemed pretty clear he came into the match with a deliberate gameplan. No one gets hurt. No one gets cheap cards. No CONCACAF-style tomfoolery or afters. Yes, more cards would have been legally/technically correct. But to what end in this match? Costa Rica was playing a B team against an essentially already-qualified American side. Carding early/often, in this environment, would have just added fuel to a potential fire and, I believe, might have just incited some Costa Rican players to be even more liberal with their challenges. Fischer called the fouls and, at least partly because he was doing that and the US players trusted he would, the US players didn't react. They understood he was giving the CRC players a little more leeway than normal. Note that his first card was chosen once the match went 2-0 and, to my mind, he knew he needed to reassure Pulisic and his teammates that he wouldn't let things get out of hand as CRC started to press. In most obvious ways, this was a "do not do this at home" type match where one can say Fischer got a lot of things "wrong." But, given the actual circumstances of this match and the setting, I think it was a very sophisticated approach that worked exactly how he wanted it to. No, it wasn't pretty. But I think anyone complaining about that has to allow for the possibility, which I feel is a likelihood, that it would have been a lot uglier if Fischer reffed this like a do-or-die qualifier or even an MLS league match.
By whose standards? The game ended at full strength and ended without a fight. Broadly speaking, the fouls were called that needed to be called. I'm not sure CONCACAF will think that was a poor performance. (Though I'd really like to see inside Fisher's head and know if his card usage would have been different if it were a WC game or MLS rather than a WCQ overseen by CONCACAF.)
For what it's worth, the fun last night appeared to be elsewhere. Marrufo had 8 cautions in the Panama-Canada match, which is a lot for Marrufo... nevermind in a match that mostly didn't matter (though I read now that Canada could have moved to Pot 3 from Pot 4, so that was significant). Also several OFRs included a downgraded red in Jamaica, where Penso was the VAR. Might also be worth noting that Cesar Ramos was VAR in San Jose last night. So add that piece of data to the analysis for who is going to Qatar as a referee/VAR from CONCACAF.