2020-2021 UEFA Referee Discussion [R]

I imagine Ioannis Papadopoulos, Konstantinos Nikolaidis, Vasileios Nikolakakis and Evangelos Manouchos will get free money for not working the 2020-2021 Champions League prelim final.

 

To quote your word from a few years ago, the "renaissance" in Italian refereeing is well and truly over, at least for now.

Since 2012, every Final referee has done at least one QF or SF in an earlier year (Kassai in 2011 was the last one to skip this step). Those who satisfy this criterion and haven't done a Final before are Collum, del Cerro Grande, Makkelie, Marciniak, Mateu Lahoz, Oliver, Orsato, Taylor, and Turpin. Up to two names may get added to this list soon, but more likely none or at most one. We can probably rule out Collum, del Cerro Grande, and Oliver. Among the rest, there's no perennial candidate like Skomina anymore, and form will play a huge role in the next year, so it's anyone's guess at this point. If there could be a dark horse outside this list, then it's probably Hategan.

 

I would love to hear more about these young FIFA internationals like Kaarlo Osakri Hämäläinen (26, Finald) and Yigal Fid (27, Israel). Really anyone below age 30. What was their trajectory like?

 

I don't know anything about Hämäläinen but Frid is a very (very) poor referee, I'm flabbergasted that UEFA decided to promote him.

 

Me and my refereeing friends were all asking round but nobody knew anything about him! With no U17 EURO this summer a few of the risers to 2nd Cat. are quite unknown.

 

Moen refused to complete the fitness test as he was more interested in the $$$ from handling games in Saudi Arabia. I have zero sympathy for him, if Terje Hauge had any nerve he would remove him from refereeing at all in Norway, but that's a different story...

I feel really sorry for Mažeika who is clearly a victim of politics - it's fine that the quite weak Tiago Martins stays in 1st while fellow Portuguese Veríssimo deservedly goes up, but having two from Lithuania is obviously too much... (Rumšas is very talented and maybe future Elite, by the way).

Sure he was a bit shy in his games and not even a candidate for Elite, but he never deserved to be demoted. C'est le vie. A short highlights of this interesting Kosovo - Bulgaria game handled by him is a nice memory.

 

the Collum match of Serbia v. Russia seems like a higher profile match to me. As far as soccer Serbia is above average but that match has the obvious history with Russia between the 2 nations.

 

Serbia was part of Yugoslavia, which was not in the old Soviet Union/Russia sphere of influence. It is not like the other
Eastern and Central European countries that were republics of the Soviet Union (Ukraine, Belarus, etc.) or under their control like e.g. Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. So it shouldn't be a tense match.

PH

 

Somehow I knew we would hear from you about this

 

I had also guessed that only a Scottish referee would be assigned to this match.
If they can handle Celtic vs. Rangers, this one is a walk in the park! Likewise who else but an Italian for
Germany vs. Spain? "Don't mention the war."

 

Serbia and Russia are allies if anything. The two nations consider each other to be "Slavic brothers" Russia offers a lot of financial and military support to Serbia.

Serbia's view is that Russia has Serbia's back.

 

Where are the Nation's League assignments for Sept 4 and beyond?

PH

 

Frappart appointed to the Malta - Latvia match in Group D. One of her assistants is not on the FIFA list.

 

Big appointment for her, and for women's officiating generally, and we should all be very pleased for her/them that they have got the recognition.

In truth, though, it might well have been a bit of a "slap in the face" if she had not been given one at this time. Just looking at the fixtures for this week and next, and only looking at the four main UEFA competitions namely Champions League and Europa League qualifying, Nations League and UEFA U-21s, there are more than 150 games to be covered in this 2-week period! That is 300 Referee and 300 Assistant appointments in a 2-week window, in the middle of a pandemic with all sorts of travel restrictions.

Not taking anything away from her, but right now National Associations are being stretched to satisfy the requirements from UEFA, and that is reflected in a number of the appointments.

 

4 September

Italy - Bosnia and Herzegovina: Anastasios Sidiropoulos (GRE)
Netherlands - Poland : Georgi Kabakov (BUL)
Romania - Northern Ireland: François Letexier (FRA)
Norway - Austria: Mattias Gestranius (FIN)
Scotland - Israel: Slavko Vinčić (SVN)
Slovakia - Czech Republic: Andris Treimanis (LVA)
Lithuania - Kazakhstan: Rade Obrenovič (SVN)
Belarus - Albania: Kristoffer Karlsson (SWE)

5 September

Iceland - England: Srdjan Jovanović (SRB)
Denmark - Belgium: Sandro Schärer (SUI)
Sweden - France: Szymon Marciniak (POL)
Portugal - Croatia: Davide Massa (ITA)
North Macedonia - Armenia: Irfan Peljto (BIH)
Azerbaijan - Luxembourg: Christopher Kavanagh (ENG)
Cyprus - Montenegro: Harm Osmers (GER)
Estonia - Georgia: Donatas Rumšas (LTU)
Gibraltar - San Marino: Aleksandrs Anufrijevs (LVA)

6 September

Spain - Ukraine: Benoît Bastien (FRA)
Switzerland - Germany: Michael Oliver (ENG)
Wales - Bulgaria: Fábio Veríssimo (POR)
Hungary - Russia: Maurizio Mariani (ITA)
Republic of Ireland - Finland: Fabio Maresca (ITA)
Serbia - Turkey: Aleksei Kulbakov (BLR)
Slovenia - Moldova: Jérôme Brisard (FRA)
Kosovo - Greece: Pavel Královec (CZE)
Andorra - Faroe Islands: Harald Lechner (AUT)
Malta - Latvia : Stéphanie Frappart (FRA)

7 September

Bosnia and Herzegovina - Poland: Cüneyt Çakır (TUR)
Netherlands - Italy: Felix Brych (GER)
Northern Ireland - Norway: Bartosz Frankowski (POL)
Austria - Romania: Glenn Nyberg (SWE)
Israel - Slovakia: Nikola Dabanović (MNE)
Czech Republic - Scotland: Serdar Gözübüyük (NED)
Kazakhstan - Belarus: Giorgi Kruashvili (GEO)
Albania - Lithuania: Serhiy Boiko (UKR)

8 September

Denmark - England: István Kovács (ROU)
Belgium - Iceland: Paweł Raczkowski (POL)
Sweden - Portugal: Danny Makkelie (NED)
France - Croatia: Ovidiu Hațegan (ROU)
Armenia - Estonia: David Coote (ENG)
Georgia - North Macedonia: Peter Kjaesgaard (DEN)
Luxembourg - Montenegro: Lawrence Visser (BEL)
Cyprus - Azerbaijan: Filip Glova (SVK)
San Marino - Liechtenstein: Enea Jorgji (ALB)

 

I actually don't know the answer to that one, to be perfectly honest. Not sure if it's to do with performance levels domestically, though, as I think Steinhaus' challenge in the Bundesliga is significantly greater than Frappart's in Ligue 1.

It might be interesting to see what happens in mid-October. In the similar two-week window to the current one, there are another 150 or so top-level UEFA games to be covered, all at a time when most of the European Leagues will be back up and in full flight, and most of which are also scheduling a raft of midweek games to try and recover lost dates.

Bottom line is that I think we will see a few new names making an appearance on UEFA fixtures in the next few weeks.

 

I don't usually dissect these appointments, but I found it striking that no Scottish referees were listed for any of these
matches. Also, are referees from Wales, Northern Ireland and Irish Republic not considered either?
As was pointed out, with hundreds of matches in short time frames, there are lots of slots to be filled.

PH