The previous CONCACAF thread slipped way down and its technically a new season anyway, so starting this up. A rundown of some relevant Nations League assignments and then a couple clips I noticed: League A Trinidad & Tobago : Curacao - PARCHMENT (JAM) Panama : Martinique - ORTIZ (MEX) Guatemala : El Salvador - BROWN (HON) Haiti : Cuba - ENCARNACION (DOM) Grenada : Suriname - WILLIAMS (TTO) Jamaica : Honduras - QUINTERO (MEX) Martinique : Curacao - VERGARA (PAN)* Guatemala : Panama - MARTINEZ (HON) El Salvador : Trinidad & Tobago - MONTERO (CRC) Cuba : Suriname - GUERRERO (MEX) Jamaica : Haiti - RAMOS (MEX) Honduras : Grenada - BARTON (SLV) I noted in an MLS thread the lack of any PRO officials here. Weird, given the light week for MLS. US refs almost have to be used now on MD 3/4 now. Also, Vergara was apparently a replacement for Calderon. I only know that because I saw the highlights, realized it wasn't Calderon, and went digging. Vergara was originally on the Sep 8 Belize-St. Vincent match, which took place in Martinique on neutral ground. So it seems very possible he did two matches in the span of 48 hours. With weather issues it's possible there were other changes. What's above (and below) is the best I've got. Leagues B & C, select matches Guadeloupe : Sint Maarten - LAUZIERE (CAN) Dominican Republic : Montserrat - NATION (JAM) St. Vincent : Bermuda - DICKERSON (USA)* Antigua & Barbuda : Guyana - ESCOBAR (GUA) Anguilla : Saint Martin - HERNANDEZ (MEX) USVI : Cayman Islands - RADIX (GRN) BVI : Turk & Caicos Islands - RIVAS (USA) So CONCACAF announced Vazquez in St. Vincent but Wikipedia has a more recent edit that shows Dickerson there. I know Wikipedia isn't the gold standard but you typically don't get a late edit on the niche subject of referee appointments unless it's someone in the know. Guess we'll see who goes out there tomorrow. Vazquez did do the Mexico-Australia friendly earlier in the window. Rivas went solo to his match; AR1 from Guyana and AR2 from Jamaica.
So with the caveat that he might have been on his second match in 48 hours and working a level internationally he had not yet come close to touching, I have some questions regarding Vergara and his recognition of DOGSO (and maybe his overall control). At 59:34 (4:48 highlights) I'd like to hear arguments for and against DOGSO there. It's a strange one for sure (and maybe a hint of SFP/VC in the nature of the foul, but hard to tell). My best guess here is that the foul was so unnecessarily physical that it made the OGSO look not so obvious. But that if you look at it as just "were all components of DOGSO satisfied when the foul began"... the answer is yes? 5:19 at the highlights is a penalty. I have no idea how it's not DOGSO red. But somehow it wasn't. And then 5:45 of the highlights shows two VC red cards and then a replay of the masscon and side fight that led to it. Ultimate decision seems correct, but nothing in this package makes it look like Vergara set the world on fire here. Rivas match, set to the penalty decision he had. Worth listening to with volume because you can hear players talking with Rivas.
It seemed like it was directly behind (if not 5 yards over) play so the angle wasn't sufficient to determine distance/defenders to challenge even though, to me, I would call it a DOGSO. As for the penalty/DOGSO red. A lot of (grassroot) referees seem to forget the red component when it comes to penalty reds where the "attempt" is all but forgotten. They either get a yellow when it's obvious or not even a card.
On the first potential DOGSO, it really depends on when the foul started, for me. If it only started after the attacker had overrun the ball, I have SPA. But if it started earlier in the run and / or caused the attacker to overrun the ball, I would have DOGSO. Also, you didn’t mentioned the very wrong offside call that annulled a Curaçao goal in the 79th minute.
It took 86 minutes, but Escobar finally got his totally gratuitous 60-meter sprint down the middle of the field to get his bingo card filled out for the night.
Seems like the entire Costa Rican team was indeed replaced. In the other game, Dickerson was indeed replaced by the intended FO, Vázquez, ARs remained the same. I plan to go through the games and check the appointments at some point (all but the incomplete PAN v MTQ and the non-existent GUA vs SLV, which I try to find footage still).
Looking at the appointments for the Women's Gold Cup Q, I must confess I know very few of these refs, and there is little to be found. FIFA axing the DoB on their lists really made it even harder to properly tell if some are young talents or not. In general, almost no big names, from the refs only the CONCACAF FOs from the WWC (Araya, Marcotte) are seeing action + a number of the ARs (Mayo, Ramírez, Yee Sing, Perelló). Has somebody more insights into the refs from CONCACAF here? Even for the American refs, not even a DoB is to be found online...
Link to assignments: https://www.concacaf.com/concacaf-w...d-cup-referee-appointments-september-matches/
I’m surprised to see Brooke Mayo on that list. Otherwise, should be a good opportunity for the other American refs.
Well she’s the only Women’s World Cup Final match official on a list with a bunch of people who are, well, significantly less accomplished.
Oh. I just don't see it that way. This is the qualifiers for our senior continental championship and she's one of our FIFA ARs. And a bunch of our referees are working. It follows that she would be, too. If this is about the absence of Nesbitt/Mariscal, well, okay. Maybe they're busy or CONCACAF didn't feel they needed everyone or they are being saved for the next matchday. Same with Penso/Koroleva. But any story or anomaly here is their absence, not her presence. There's no offense intended here, but Brooke Mayo wasn't a big name in international officiating until about a month ago. And even if she was... guys like Parker and Atkins (and Fletcher and Anderson/Morgante before them) still do continental qualification matches all the time. It's kind of the first and primary role of the job of being a FIFA, actually.
The answer is really simple: Korolëva, Nesbitt, Mariscal (with Simon as FO) are in charge of the first leg of the Olympic play-off between Jamaica and Canada today, a much more important game, especially since it is without VAR. García, Caudillo, Díaz & Karen Hernández have the second leg on Tuesday.
Pretty surprised to see Drew Fischer refereeing the Campeones Cup Final. I would’ve expected a non-Liga-MX non-MLS ref.
Very unusual moment in LAFC’s would-be 1-0 goal. Free kick for LAFC. Ball was stopped and Chiellini rolled it to himself with his foot and then made a pass to a teammate while the ball was rolling from his own touch. Fischer appeared to acknowledge it and allow play to continue anyways. Then LAFC go right down and score, Tigres protests, and Fischer takes some time to think about it before eventually going back to LAFC’s free kick and disallowing the goal. Weirdly, it seems he restarted play with the LAFC free kick instead of giving an IFK to Tigres. Big oopsie to allow the play to continue in the first place, but something doesn’t sit right with me that he made his own decision about the incident at first, and seemed fine allowing the goal until Tigres protested and changed his mind.
I’m not sure he saw it — at least correctly. You can see in the aftermath (as Tigres players were crowding him) that he was trying to talk to the 4th, Pierre-Luc Lauzierre. Fischer can be seen asking “PL, was the ball rolling?” After he gets the info from PL, he immediately calls off the goal. He explains to the LAFC player “I didn’t see it, he did” and pointed to PL. The replays afterwards show that he was looking right at it, and seemed to make a gesture to play on when there were initial reactions from Tigres. Now whether he just didn't really see it correctly in the moment, or it was one of those calculated risks in the moment that didn't work out for him? Who knows. Ultimately the goal being called off was correct.
Based on what I see, this seems correct. But it does invite the question of when a team member is or should be obligated to act on something like this. Like Lauzierre only becomes involved (and Fischer only consults him) because the goal is scored and Tigres complains. But if this had led to say, an attacking corner kick, I think we have to presume Lauzierre says nothing given he didn't involve himself in dynamic play. Or even a penalty kick. So there are a number of permutations--all of them, possibily, except a goal--where the attacking team benefits here despite an officiating team member knowing play wasn't restarted legally. I think that's the part that doesn't sit well with me here. If the ball is moving and you know the ball is moving and you're willing to step up and say "yes, Drew, the ball was moving..." why not just say "hey Drew, stop play now because the ball was moving?" I get the path of least resistance angle here. And the desire to now "show up" your referee, so to speak, on something that's rather technical. But being willing to do so prevents what we saw on this play last night. On a different question... the 2CT to LAFC. Did any replay angle show contact before the attacker started to fall? It's a tough one to wave away as a dive. And Palacios seemed to accept it so maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree. But the highlights package doesn't really show contact and it appears that the attacker is leaning and lifting the landing gear before any contact could occur.
The argument would be that Chiellini was repositioning the ball and then struck it for a restart while it was still moving and before it came to a complete stop. And I think that's what happened. It's not like his first touch was intended to restart play there. IFK the other way would be, in my opinion, simply wrong.
I don’t agree, because you can see he’s looking directly at Chiellini with an uninstructed view during the whole sequence and then gestures essentially “play on” with his left hand. He clearly saw it and visibly reacted to it. To me, the more likely explanation is that he changed his mind and then “asked” the 4th official in order to sell the decision. Either way, somebody on the crew saw what happened and only intervened after the protests, whether that be Fischer or Lauzière. Fischer’s always been a very “the right call is whatever the players expect” referee, and this incident is a nice microcosm of the flaws of that philosophy taken to an extreme. The free kick is taken at first, and he allows it because no one has a big problem with it. But then when a goal is scored and Tigres acts very upset about it, suddenly the referee’s (or 4th’s) own opinion changes as a direct consequence of the apparent change in expectations from the players of one team. In truth, it’s very possible that Tigres’s expectations didn’t change at all, that they just figured they had a decent chance of getting the referee to change his mind if they put up enough of a fuss. And they were right! Next time someone says the line “arguing with a referee has never changed the decision,” we’ll have this clip.
Nations League Quarterfinals League A United States : Trinidad & Tobago - NATION (JAM) [Fischer VAR] Trinidad & Tobago : United States - LOPEZ (GUA) Costa Rica : Panama - ESCOBAR (GUA) Panama : Costa Rica - MARTINEZ (HON) [Chapman/Ford VMOs] Jamaica : Canada - T. PENSO (USA) [Mayo/Nesbitt/Simon; Jurisevic/Parker VMOs] Canada : Jamaica - RAMOS (MEX) [Elfath/Atkins VMOs] Honduras : Mexico - CALDERON (CRC) [C. Penso VAR] Mexico : Honduras - BARTON (SLV) [Fischer/Lauzierre VMOs] The plan for Tori Penso couldn't be much clearer. At this point, I think the big question is whether she plays a role at Copa America next summer or not. Barring something unforeseen, her being the first woman to whistle a Gold Cup match in 2025 seems like a lock. One other assignment of note: Vazquez has Bahamas-Guyana in League B with Richardson as his AR1.
Good for Tori. I too wonder about Copa America next year. My guess is she will whistle at least one game there because it seems that pushing the Chosen One female referee supersedes anything else for FIFA. Those games could be a big ask, though; in 2016 most of the Copa America games were way, way more difficult than anything you’d see in MLS or even in the Concacaf appointments she’s already gotten. I mean, prior to WWC23 Penso’s men’s Concacaf was limited to a first round WCQ Puerto Rico 7-0 Bahamas, 2 Caribbean Cup games, and 2 Concacaf League games including a QF. So for her to go straight from that to Club World Cup, Nations League QF, and probably Copa America next year, that’s a huge jump. And, bluntly, it really isn’t fair to other concacaf referees who would be competing for those spots who have had to earn their place through dozens of matches and a step-by-step progression system.
The problem on Copa is that the referee pool will be limited. And two Americans feels like a no-go. Because then how do you not have two Argentinians, two Brazilians, two Mexicans, etc.? And if you have two from all those countries, you have more referees than matches at some point. So I don't think she can go if Elfath goes and there's no reason for Elfath not to go. In fact, I think Elfath must go. I think having her go as a fourth would be a huge sign though. Frappart did the same with EUROs, remember. Also, for Penso to go to a Copa without a Gold Cup would be something. I mean this match in a couple days is her biggest international yet. As you point out in the next paragraph, some of those Copa matches can destroy the most experienced male referees--even the perceived "minor" ones. I just don't think it's a good idea to put her in a situation where she could easily fail, because the aftermath won't just be about a referee failing at that point. And it would be hard to come back from that.
Yes, but there's a women's tournament there, too. We went through this last time with Tokyo. FIFA made a huge deal about the lists actually being one gender-neutral list. So many of us believed Frappart was certain to get a men's game. And then she didn't.