2022-2023 UEFA Referee Discussion [R]

He also showed a human side when he went to the only player who missed a pen.

Comforting Martinelli after his penalty miss. Fair play Lahoz! pic.twitter.com/PWuRXhiq5X

— AfcVIP⁴⁹ (@VipArsenal) March 17, 2023

 

I don't want to make a big deal of it (at least not here in the Ref Forum; I may bring these things up among my fellow heathens down in WoSo), but I have to say from a fan's standpoint, this should be an easy handball call and at least a couple years ago I don't think many fans would make a fuss over it. Only now, in the last couple years with new guidelines about the arm being in a "natural" position, many fans might get excited over this, either in defense of their team, or to say their team was being treated unfairly by a lack of consistency by the referees.

I'm not a lawyer but this is a case where laymen easily understand the legal concept of "willful negligence", the idea someone is liable for an "accident' when they willfully chose to avoid taking steps to keep an accident from happening, so much so that it should be treated as if they either wanted the accident to happen or simply didn't care that it happened. Why bother having a ban on handling if a defender can get away with this?

Regarding VAR procedure (whether a VAR should send this down to the field as a "clear and obvious error"), I have no strong or well-considered opinion and leave that up to the referee community. But by the Spirit of the Laws, this should clearly be a penalty

 

No doubt. A lot of them are called defenders

 

Is it even possible (let alone desirable), to not have a ref do the same team twice when you've only got 7-8 refs you trust and 13 matches to assign?

I think it's highly likely that a couple of refs are going to end up doing the same team in both the quarters and semis.

 

Derby della Capitale not disappointing here; 2CT in the first half (I thought a good decision); apparent tying goal disallowed via VAR (good decision); two coaches dismissed in the 2nd and at least two red cards after the final whistle

Chippy with lots of flopping - I thought Davide Massa did well in this one.

Interesting that he did not wear his FIFA badge - Serie A doesn't do that?

 

Serie A FIFA referees haven't been wearing their FIFA badges on domestic matches since Colina was a referee.

I know they never wore them in the 2000s and 2010s for sure.

I'm too lazy to look up videos of matches in the '90s, but did they ever, at any point, wear them in the 90s?

Now that on UEFA matches referees wear the UEFA badge instead of the FIFA badge, there is a good chance now that new generation of Italian FIFA referees will almost never actually wear their FIFA badge.

Unless you go to the World Cup or one of the Youth World Cups, the Olympics, the FIFA Club World Cup, and/or do an intercontinental World Cup playoff match you'll never wear a FIFA badge.

So if you just become a middle of the pack Italian FIFA referee who isn't good enough to go to a World Cup, you'll never wear your FIFA badge which is kind of sad.

I'm generally pro UEFA in the UEFA vs. FIFA battle (the expanded Club World Cup is totally ridiculous and unnecessary). However, the UEFA match official badge is completely unnecessary and ridiculous.

 

The only good thing I see about the UEFA badge is that non-FIFA referees who are assigned to a game don’t look out of place wearing whatever their domestic badge is. However, I think those who are FIFAs should still be allowed to wear their FIFA badges during the game. The UEFA Match Official badges are visually similar enough that it wouldn’t stand out to your average viewer. Getting a FIFA badge is a big honor for referees, they should be able to wear it on any game.

 

I'm sharing this here for the folks from the bench running onto the field aspect. A little extra work for the 4th and AR1. It reminded me of the World Cup discussion.

 

Kazakhstan shocked Denmark with a 3-2 win in European Cup qualifying today, after trailing 2-0 in the 70th minute.

The complexion of the match changed after a hand ball call for a penalty kick, leading to Kazkhstan's first goal. The angles shown on the videos here aren't the greatest, but when combining both the original cross and the slow motion replay, it appears the ball hits the defenders armpit area and should have been a play-on (the play starts at 3:26 of the video). Note that it also was not immediately whistled.

 

Scary moment in Spanish third division. It looks like AR1 and the fourth were on it.

 

https://www.youtube.com/live/uY33ZPW3jOM?feature=share

Start watching from the 2 hour and 46 minute mark on the video (120+1' in match time).

Make your own opinion on the VAR intervention.

Then just watch the administration penalty. I thought this is something that would only be ever given at the local park by some referee who wants to show everyone how smart he is.

Incredible. What are we doing here.

 

Ugh. The PK itself is a classic question of when does something become C&O? I do think PK is the right call.

Agree the PK administration was a great example of what not to do. It seems she only decided it was extended time after starting the set up. And then instead of just announcing it, she turned it into a products about getting away from the PA- which is totally without basis and gave the defenders something rightly to complain about. Ugly handling of a very rare situation.

 

That’s a really soft PK. Not to mention the attacker drags a toe and then hooks her own foot. That’s not a PK for me. Certainly not a C&O error for VAR to intervene.

But she makes up for it with disaster of managing the take. That was spectacular.

Given the foul occured with more than a minute of playing time left, why is that considered beyond time? It seems a much simpler decision to allow the kick to be taken and then if it’s not in or immediately cleared or scored on a rebound just blow the whistle for full time.

 

Can someone explain what's going on here? I don't understand why the PK administration suddenly devolved into a bunch of players walking around in confusion

 

Because the R--eventually--told them that the PK was in extended time and there could be no play off the rebound and (incorrectly) chased them away from the edge of the PA. (As @mathguy ref notes, even the decision that time was being extended for the PK was shaky.)

I believe the defenders were complaining that they were entitled to line up to try to go clear the ball once the GK played the ball--Law 14 says that a PK in additional time ends when played by any other player, so a smart defender wants to do that in the event of one of those super quirky (and very rare) plays. By not letting them line up, the R also allowed them to further delay the PK with the kicker standing on the ball waiting.

 

I think the announcers get this right: the contact with the right foot drives that foot into the left foot to cause the attacker to trip. (NFL players try to do that to tackle a runner who gets past them.) While I think PK is the right call, I certainly I can see debate as to whether that meets the C&O standard. For me this play really highlights a challenge with trying to use VAR in soccer--we are not only trying to make subjective decisions objective, but we have popped a further amorphous standard on top of that with clearly and obvious.

 

Ok so it was about a stoppage time PK being the last kick, I see.

Also I guess I’m an outlier because I think this was clearly a PK, the defender trips the opponent, sure the thing that actually makes the attacker fall was her own leg running into her other one but that wouldn’t have happened if the opponents trip didn’t put her own leg there in the first place.

I feel like the outcry of VAR not calling this would be much larger than VAR calling this. This seems like a clear and obvious foul to me.

 

Highly solid point

Some day, we — or you, you referees, I don't have to be around — should get around to asking if this isn't the problem in general with all the rule changes in the VAR era. That IFAB and other governing bodies think VAR allows them to turn subjective decisions into objective ones?

Isn't that what the support-arm rule on handballs is doing? Trying to turn a subjective decision into a simple black-and-white one that VAR can verify?

Isn't that behind all those "specific actions" to define what constitutes an "active" offside? Bureaucratic rule-making nonsense taking the place of commonsense, leading to absurd goals like the Rashford/Fernandes goal in a Premier League game in January?

 

I had a little difficulty at first (thank God I'm not a referee) because of the angle on the main broadcast, where it looks (to an untrained eye like mine) like the defender is reflexively turning to his side (to avoid getting hit straight on in the face). But he's not. The shot is coming from the left side of the 18-yard box; the defender is turning to face the shot and, potentially, "make himself bigger"

I wonder if referees are less forgiving since the defender is on the goal line.

At any rate, I, too, am cool with this call and even though, as it's been recently pointed out, it's not at all universally accepted that a defender put their hands behind their back, I think they should or risk the consequences. The defender had time to face the direction of the shot. The defender had time to start putting his hands behind his back and avoid making this a borderline call or anything close to one

 

Quarterfinals, first leg

Man City - Bayern: GIL MANZANO (ESP) [VAR: Martinez Munuera (ESP)]
Benfica - Inter: OLIVER (ENG) [VAR: van Boekel (NED)]

Notable that Oliver does not have an English VAR. Attwell is AVAR.