Match #53 (Round of 16) Japan : Croatia Monday, 5 December 2022 18:00 local time (10:00 EST) Al Wakrah Referee: Ismail ELFATH (USA) AR1: Kyle Atkins (USA) AR2: Corey Parker (USA) Fourth Official: Mustapha Ghorbal (ALG) Fifth Official: Mokrane Gourari (ALG) VAR: Nicolas Gallo (COL) AVAR (1): Julio Bascunan (CHI) Offside AVAR (2): Ezequiel Brailovsky (ARG) Support AVAR (3): Paolo Valeri (ITA) Stand-by Offside AVAR (4): Abdelhak Etchiali (ALG)
Certainly a shout for SPA at 1' but absolutely not given in this tournament (though, a nailed-on one in MLS this season?).
On a test it’s SPA. First minute of a game not enough. Unkel rejected a similar SPA early in his FC Dallas-Minnesota United playoff game.
That scoring chance for croatia in about the 8th minute was interesting: possible pushing foul in the back of the Japanese defender to win the ball for Croatia in an attacking position. Shades of the Ronaldo foul in the 31st minute of Elfath’s first game.
12’ defender gets a touch on the ball for CK but is fouled late. GK signaled, should be foul coming out.
16' - Maybe my feed has sound issues, but it seemed like Elfath gave the handball and Parker supported it, despite the latter having a much better view - and it possibly wasn't really handball.
That's Atkins. And I am sure they were communicating in real time so they were both calling it. And it seems a pretty obvious handball. We become slaves to this "sleeve" thing to our own detriment. He's corralled that with his arm. Handball is the expected call. If it looks like a duck, etc., etc.
24' I thought the attempted advantage was good and pulling it back was also good. He was pretty clear about that he was giving a free kick, but in the end the whole restart was messy. He was doing the right stuff (aside from having to come back to spot the ball and then didn't get it all the way back) but it wasn't tidy at all.
35' Defensive third advantage to Japan and it would have paid off except for some poor execution on the attacking end.
Everything he's doing is being accepted so far, which seems like the only standard he should worry about at the moment given there are no KMIs and not a whole of management opportunities. This performance doesn't win him another assignment but it also doesn't lose him one, so to the extent status quo is good, I think the whole trio should be happy so far. But I can't imagine the second half going like this.
For the kids watching, this is a good example of how to move with attacking play that moves laterally within the penalty area.
For some reason, I don't mind his voice--maybe I've just become accustomed to it since he was one of the first US commentators I ever heard regularly. But for the amount of time he's been around, confidently reacting to every AR flag with "and up goes the offside flag" even when it 1000% cannot possibly be offside is fascinating.