2030 look-ahead...

@MassachusettsRef

 

Thanks for the input and insight regarding the rumours. Given that I have no sources within FIFA myself, I'll simply trust others but take these with a grain of salt as well.

And while I share some of those opinions about Pinheiro, it's undeniably the case that he's now getting bigger games on both FIFA and UEFA level compared to the Scandinavians. Fair or not, it's a clear sign of status and/or trust.

Perhaps I give too much weight to experience/past assignments in my own predictions and ideas about who's the likelier final candidate. Since speculating many years in advance is always going to be a guessing game, I suppose I'm trying to find some type of measurements and hints. Amount of games this WC, Arab Cup in the case of the Scandi duo, and to some extent UEFA appointments could be such indicators.

 

I’ll throw in my $.02 for whatever that’s worth in this economy.

I agree with the general consensus on Pinheiro in that his soft skills are not appealing to me, personally. Wasn’t there also a domestic game over the winter that had a really poor decision? I forget exactly what happened but it left a bad impression on me. His quirky body language and soft skills are somewhat a matter of taste, though; and I think if you can overlook those, he had a good World Cup. The quarterfinal was actually quite interesting in that his technical accuracy was poor but I actually thought he showed a different (and better!) side of himself in soft skills / game management; he was always alert to potential flashpoints and intervened proactively to prevent them. Still, i would’ve put around a dozen referees ahead of him for that quarterfinal on the basis of their career bodies of work.

I kind of get the love people have for Eskas here; contrary to Pinheiro I think Eskas has very pleasing management style and soft skills, which he is able to really rock on difficult games like URU-CPV, in which he had one of the best referee performances at the whole tournament. POR-CRO was generally well-refereed, but he missed a penalty that should have been seen live. I think expecting Eskas to get a late stage whistle was a bridge way too far. He has arguably the least-experienced resume out of all the UEFA referees, heck probably even less than Scharer. When you also consider his poor CWC (3 OFRs in his only game), the 1.5 OFRs in POR-CRO (can we really count HairFollicleGate as his fault?), team Norway’s deep run… well, you have to cut a lot of refs and Eskas just doesn’t have the body of work to go further, even though he had a good tournament. But he’s one of my favorite young-ish European refs and hope to see a lot more of him in the future!

 

Anthony Taylor retires

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/...icrosoft]-[headline]-[sport]-[bizdev]-[isapi]

 

This plus Vincic’s anticipated retirement would open two UEFA Elite spots. Any others coming?

 

Campos botched her game at the last Women's Euro and seemingly ended her top career as a result (she has been cut from the pre-list for the next Women's WC). To me she looked way out of her depth and, putting two and two together, one can guess how she ended up at this tournament in the first place. Huerta isn't very good even on women's matches and none of her three tournaments have gone particularly well. It will be very interesting if she 'survives' to the next Women's WC, but I would imagine they are preparing Rivera to overtake her.

I guess the female referee for the next WC will come from the Americas.

 

In AFC, the next Asian Cup (beginning on 7th January 2027) should be instructive. I think that Ghorbal (failed in two WCs) and Tantashev (very possible he could be excommunicated completely and not chosen for the Asian Cup!) should be finished at FIFA level. I'd imagine that FIFA will be more happy to give a second chance to Amin/Beida than Garay/Tejera; with the latter two, my feeling is that they were never really sold on from the start.

Jablonski should start being a regular name on big UEFA games this season, he seems an obvious referee for Euro 2028/WC2030. It will be interesting to what happens in Italy and Spain, while the other two (main) hosts seem clearly set. I would imagine that as many as four of the newly-promoted Elite cohort (aforementioned Jablonski plus Lambrechts, Kavanagh, Rumsas, Walsh and Obrenovic) will be at Euro 2028, and thus clearly candidates for 2030.

 

I hope she does well there and in the next WWC. She is plastered and advertised all over social media, Facebook, Instagram and I am sure others although I am barred from Tiktok by my job. So folks will know her if this keeps up for four years.

I watched her game since Massref knew about her previous matched. She wasn't bad to my fan eye although it was an easy match. She did let one clear SPA Yellow Card by Netherlands go that I saw, but nothing else earthshattering.

Btw, does anyone here have anything to do with that Facebook Refereeing World page? I am just curious.

 

Would Arberola, Busquets, and Sánchez be the options in the Spanish case?

 

1) Everything becomes quite fluid after a big tournament, but clearly all three of them are well-placed. Of that trio, I do think that Eskas was the one who generally savoured the most trust from FIFA - his R32 appointment was clearly a step up from the (still good) ties that were awarded to the other two. From the R16 onwards, only six UEFA referees were used: clearly, the assessment was made that the two OFRs in Portugal-Croatia made Eskas jettisonable, as he was appointed as fourth official for a R16 match (while Nyberg and, as we know, Pinheiro were kept alive). I think people have read that as 'Eskas naturally ran out of road due to his inexperience', but I would actually disagree with that. Norway's progress is actually a red herring in this episode.

2) At a stretch, there is also from the 1st Category: Vergoote, Kikacheishvili, Fotias, Minakovic, Balakin and maybe Van der Eijk. An interesting element in this is the expansion of the U17 World Cup, which allows FIFA to themselves assess a much greater number of referees from the confederations than they were able to previously.

At UEFA level, I would say it seems pretty obvious that they are preparing Alberola and Colombo to be referees at WC2030, but I'm sceptical that either have the quality - we will see.

I don't mean this as a criticism to your comment, so please don't take it that way, but Garcia was not good at all. It was a weird game and weird appointment, but she did handle the game poorly - any kind of disciplinary management was firmly off the table, and even simple decisions were taken with way too much delay and looked unconvincing. It is unfair to group together Penso and Garcia - the American could have refereed this game to a good standard. The best thing you can say is that FIFA correctly read this fixture as being a 'nothing game' and appointed accordingly.

 

Thank you, @Mikael_Referee. What a privilege to have you here.

 

@MassachusettsRef I know LA2028 Olympics are not far away. How does this factor into the calculus for you? I know the olympics are a much smaller tourney than other FIFA ones. Do you think FIFA uses a lot of WC2026 regulars or bring in a new corp of promising officials? Especially with Euro's I think going on at the same time.

 

None taken. What you don't know about me is my support for the ladies. I am a USGA benefactor that helps them play more golf and I go to about 3-5 LPGA tournaments a year. It is my "church." So, I root for the ladies where I can. Just being a southern gentleman.

Thanks for the insight. Shows what a fan does not know.

 

I don’t think I can add to the substance of your statement here but did want to add my personal observations of Garcia

I had the chance to see her work in person during an early round CCC match; one of the MLS vs semi-professional Central American club games.

she was, in short, fully unconvincing. This was a fully mismatched game in terms of skill so one team resorted to fouling and gamesmanship from the kickoff and she simply didn’t deal with it. Just zero buy in from players and rapidly increasing frustration from the beginning.
Near the end of the match there was a violent conduct incident which she somehow saw, whistled as a foul and gave no card. She was called to the monitor almost immediately and then gave the red card but how she saw that and didn’t sanction it was incredible.

 

Sometimes I wonder about this: what is the reason that some referees (eg Dickerson and Szpala) get into the higher ranks of Concacaf but others (eg Rivas and Vasquez) don’t?

I mean, personally I agree with the ultimate decisions, Dickerson and Szpala are more talented referees in my eye. But did Rivas and Vasquez ever actually get a chance at the Concacaf level? What’s the highest level Concacaf game they’ve done, a match like Guatemala vs Dominica or something like that? Maybe something in the Concacaf league or Caribbean Cup or something? I just don’t know what they’re basing the decision on. It feels like I’ve never seen these guys on a significant Concacaf match at all (let alone anything at a FIFA tournament).

 

Ha, didn’t even remember that.

Looks like he reffed a single match there, Canada vs Guadeloupe (not even a FIFA member by the way) on MD1. Unless that match was seen as a disaster or something I’m still left wondering.

 

Had quite the red card in this match: (1:31)