Match #37 Australia : Denmark Wednesday, 30 November 2022 18:00 local time (10:00 EST) Al Wakrah Referee: Mustapha GHORBAL (ALG) AR1: Mokrane Gourari (ALG) AR2: Abdelhak Etchiali (ALG) Fourth Official: Maguette N'Diaye (SEN) Fifth Official: Djibril Camara (SEN) VAR: Mauro Vigliano (ARG) AVAR (1): Nicolas Gallo (COL) Offside AVAR (2): Gabriel Chade (ARG) Support AVAR (3): Adil Zourak (MAR) Stand-by Offside AVAR (4): Ezequiel Brailovsky (ARG)
Very early 4' caution for SPA that I didn't think he was going to give but, ultimately, was very well done.
Not booking 17' is a choice. Can't tell if it's "I don't want two yellows inside 20 minutes" or "this is a huge game and that's just not quite enough today." It was right on the border, given standards for this tournament. Outside this tournament, I think it has to be given.
45+1' just sort of shows he's going to have a very high line on cautions. I think that must be one, even in this match. I believe the fact that Ghorbal realized he likely missed a deliberate handball about 10 seconds before played into what he did there. He went to manage the frustration of the Australian player for that handball call miss, rather than dealing with the Danish player who committed the tackle. Admittedly, there wasn't a lot of fuss over the tackle itself, but it was still quite bad. I also think the time played a huge role in all this. One minute to halftime and he knew he could get there. He seems to be reffing this, on the merits, much like Turpin and Mateu handled yesterday. He's letting the stakes help him keep the players on task. The questions, in my mind, are whether a change in dynamics or simply the counting down of the clock force it to boil over at all AND if Ghorbal has the soft skills to pull this off. Truthfully, it seems like he does. He seems to have a decent rapport with the players, which is impressive given he can't know many of them. Whether or not that disappears in a flash if things go .the wrong direction is the open question.
46+' Agree with Mass Ref above. This foul should be a caution. He took another big chance not giving it, perhaps it's because it's so close to halftime. He might get away with it, but in my view, this is a missed YC.
57' Blatant holding SPA-F YC given. I think the Danish player made just a bit of a meal of this, however, it ticks all the boxes and was correct.
with Tunisia scoring about 58' in it will be interesting to see if Australia gets the message and tries to intensify their attack here and what impact will that have for GHORBAL.... AND WHAT A GOAL! Such a great individual effort! WOAH Which makes my initial point moot (for now).
Ghorbal's fitness, awareness, and anticipation on the counterattack leading to the Australia goal at 60' was very impressive.
70:25 A penalty was given to Denmark, then immediately rescinded for offside on the same player. VAR checked it and confirmed it offside. I am curious if the foul occurred before the attacker interfered with the defender's ability to play the ball, but I think that's a stretch even for me. That said, I'd like to see it again!
71' Ghorbal signals penalty and starts to book a defender for a reckless arm, but then sees offside flag and goes with offside. I think, ultimately, they got it right. Though there's really no argument not to give the yellow once you seemed to decide it was warranted. If the attacker is interfering with his opponent before the elbow occurs, then offside is the correct decision. If the elbow occurred before the attacking interfered, then it should be a penalty. Replays seemed to show to me there was physical contact by the attacker before he got elbowed. So good decision by Vigliano to uphold things. That said, this is one of those classic situations where even if there wasn't interference prior to the elbow, I think the VAR team would have stuck with the call. Can't prove that negative, but I do worry teams regularly get this sort of thing wrong.
6. Started at a 7 and he took some risks that worked, but I'm taking a point off for passing on what I felt were some clear cautions that should have been given, and since it's my rating, I'm entitled to do that.
Clip: https://streamable.com/4fztz1 This issue kind of already 'got resolved' after a CL match from 2016/17 where Soares Dias did the same thing as Ghorbal (who had a solid game today IMO and I think/suspect we'll see him one more time in Qatar) - awarded a penalty and then annulled it for offside. This was the first season after the big laws revision and the old Third Team blog tried to claim Bayern could demand a replay of the game for violation of the LotG: simultaneous offences occurred, and the lesser one (IFK vs. DFK/PK) was punished with the restart. UEFA determined, conviniently but also in accordance with common sense IMO, that the active offside happened before, so no trouble. Here: https://vk.com/video-62059346_456242609?t=42m51s
Can you guys assist me on this? I love a good SPA YC but the (yellow) attacker is on the touch line and that (red) defender in line with the ref is running at an angle towards the exact spot the attacker is heading, and there are three defenders surrounding his two attacking teammates. It seems like the attacker is going to be boxed in. Is this really a promising attack worthy of a YC? It seems like basically any time an attacker is running up the touch line in the attacking half/third like this and gets fouled, it's almost always given as a SPA YC. I would pretty much certainly give this as a YC as well, but only because of what I've seen usually happens with my previous sentence.
So once he's past the two defenders near him (and he is already past them, that's why the one who grabs him fouls) he's going down the wing at speed. He has three attackers in the middle. There are four defenders total to deal with, one of whom will presumably come out to challenge the attacker in possession of the ball on the wing. 3 v 3 in the penalty area on a fast counter-attack with a ball whipped in is a pretty great attacking opportunity. Also don't underestimate how blatant and cynically this foul was--the defender did it because he knew his team was in trouble. Same still shot and there's only one Australian up to help him and serve as a target? Different story. Then he's "boxed in." But not here. That's the kind of play that evolves real quickly into a dangerous header on goal.
MassRef pretty much said what I wanted to say, but this is one of those where MAYBE the foul isn't quite blatantly obvious, MAYBE the attack isn't overly promising, but if you add the two elements together a yellow card here is at least defensible, if not expected. For me, any high-level game where you see a player evade a defender into space with the ball my SPA antenna goes up. On a play like this, a simple foul might be able to get away without a card, but a hold or push probably brings enough to warrant a card.