Oh, I presume it's absolutely nothing and you'll see him soon. I was implying (or commenting) that CONCACAF often spreads the wealth around in WCQ for Mexico and USA. Sometimes unnecessarily, in my opinion. Ramos is going to 2026. He'll have a couple qualifiers, I'd imagine.
62' Really should be a second yellow for SPA to Honduras, only in Concacaf. ... If it's a foul, I should say. I think it was a pretty soft free kick to give regardless. But once you do, it's definitely SPA.
Also absolutely crazy that there wasn't any added time added on top of the original five. We had long stoppages for an injury and a sub in there. Lopez reffed well overall, but these two things spoil an otherwise good performance where he had good control of a tough match.
Suriname v Guatemala is Hernandez… of Mexico. Fascinating. At this point Rizzoli is like Oprah and the Mexican referees are the audience. Everyone gets a whistle!
I don’t think this Jamaica 2-[1] goal should stand. Player in an offside position is in the way of the opponent and blocks that opponent from challenging for the ball against the attacker who scores. Just as I’m typing, Bryan Lopez (GUA) is heading over to review the play. VAR is Benjamin Pineda (CRC). Correctly overturned.
Penalty overturned in the 26th-ish minute. There was hardly any contact, to be honest, I wish such situations were sanctioned with a yellow card for simulation, it’s obvious the attacker fell easily to con the referee.
Julio Luna of Guatemala rounds out the matchday with Bermuda : Trinidad & Tobago, which is definitely one of the lowest profile ties of the stage. But, still. Very surprised to see the wealth spread around so much here.
Second OFR of the first half to disallow El Salvador goal for a foul in the APP. This one I’m not so sure about there’s some contact with the area where the shoulder meets the back of the defender, but I don’t think it’s clearly and obviously enough for a foul.
El Salvador : Guatemala - LAUZIERRE (CAN) Honduras : Haiti - NATION (JAM) Curacao : Trinidad & Tobago - RAMOS (MEX) Jamaica : Bermuda - RADIX (GRN) Chapman/Koroleva VMOs with Radix. Penso/Beaudoin VMOs with Lauzierre. Rivas there, too, as fourth. The Radix appointment is in line with expectations; that should not be a tough match. Lauzierre has an elimination match, essentially. And it's his second assignment. I know maybe those teams will finish 3rd and 4th anyway, but that one surprises me some. Nation gets a very, very big and potentially tough match. Ramos' is very consequential and keeps him alive for almost any Central American game in the November window. So Panama-Suriname and Costa Rica-Nicaragua remained unannounced, to my knowledge. Eflath did have the Mexico-Colombia friendly on Friday, so it seems unlikely he'd slot in on either. Same goes for Tori Penso, who had Argentina-Venezuela. Still, an entire window without an American CR would be astonishing. Maybe someone like Gonzales Jr. or Freemon gets the Costa Rica game, which shouldn't be considered top tier insofar as difficulty goes. Panama-Suriname is a mystery. Guatemala and El Salvador both in same group so can't be Barton or Escobar. And Martinez was already there. Brown, perhaps? Just as it's noteworthy we haven't seen Elfath so far now, it also seems somewhat noteworthy that Barton hasn't slotted in. Imagine he'll be saved for what feels like one of the biggest Group B or C matches in November.
I don't know if "native language" considerations are ever considered when making assignments, but it's interesting that Lauzierre, a native French speaker (he's Quebecois), gets the match between two Spanish-speaking countries instead of Ramos, the vastly more experienced native Spanish speaker.
A friendly and not specifically CONCACAF, but count me as not overly impressed by Williams. This match was not that tough and he seems to not be up to it. It feels like he has two distinct gears--either almost unnecessarily chummy or rigidly officious. It's weird. He's probably technically good--better than a lot of what we see from the Caribbean, but at the same time doesn't have an obvious feel for the match and overall management.
Interesting OFR in Panama - Suriname: Surinamese defender gets called for handball just outside the penalty area. A replay shows that the contact with the arm was inside the penalty area, but it's never a handball, as the arm was very tight to the body. So after the OFR we restart with a dropped ball (about which Panama wastes about a minute of their own time complaining).
Lauziere adapted himself well in El Salvador vs Guatemala in a type of game that must have been fairly unfamiliar for him, especially in the most testy first half, in which he adopted a very authoritative personality. Throughout the match, he had a very good, consistent, foul detection and didn’t fall for any of the play acting, along with a good close presence to flashpoints. By the second half, it was clear the players respected him.
interesting. Sounds like proper use of VAR—if a foul it’s a PK. But the result is a non-reviewable DFK gets taken away because it gets reviewed for a PK. But I don’t think the VAR has discretion to say itks not a C&O error to not award the PK because it wasn’t a HB offense. But an example of the sometimes random impact VAR can have on the game.
The really interesting (additional) equity angle here is what happens if it was just a phantom handball? With this situation, you can initiate a review because the argument is "okay, if this was a foul then the foul was inside the area" because you can see the point of contact. But what if there was no point of contact with the hand/arm? The worse the decision is, the harder it is to overturn in this case. Which does sort of does undermine a fundamental argument about VAR. And of course the standard equity angle is that if the mistake was 3 inches in the other direction and the handball contact was outside the area, you can't initiate the OFR at all. But that's already baked in.
MD5 Suriname : El Salvador - NATION (JAM) Bermuda : Curacao - PENSO (USA) Trinidad : Jamaica - W. LOPEZ (GUA) Haiti : Costa Rica - DICKERSON (USA) Nicaragua : Honduras - ELFATH (USA) Guatemala : Panama - RAMOS (MEX)
Guatemala v Panama could be a straight war. Excited to see Ramos on that one. Penso does get potentially most benign of the matches, you'd have to say. But still nice to see her get yet another appointment. Plus best second place teams matter, so it's relevant for that reason alone. Dickerson gets an elimination match, as there doesn't seem to be a realistic scenario where both Haiti and Costa Rica can qualify (yes, there's a mathematical one, but I wouldn't say it's realistic unless you think Honduras can lose both matches and Group C sneaks a best second-place). Elfath sort of eased back in. Important and likely a hot environment, but ultimately you would think the result will be straightforward.
I wonder if PRO asked or helped facilitate US referees on MD5 instead of MD6. Does seem a little weird that the three top crews are all there and not saved, particularly as most of the remaining names (Martinez, Barton, Escobar, Calderon) could have conflicts. I guess Fischer is likely to appear again, too, so maybe it's just a coincidence. But given MD6 could influence best second place rankings and all four of those teams could be in the mix, it does seem a little weird that those names were saved for MD6 and the US/Mexico big names are on MD5.