There’s a few more angles at 18:30 in this highlights package: FWIW I don’t have any problems with this one: I see two arms extend into the chest of the defender with enough force to genuinely throw him off-balance, with a clear impact on the play as it allows for an uncontested header. Even if one thinks Hakimi could have stayed on his feet, he would still have been in a more disadvantageous position to contest the header than he would have been without the push. What is your read on this play that leads you to conclude it’s not a foul?
Anyone know what time to start watching the match to see all this chaos? Going to try to find a copy to watch, unless there’s a YouTube highlights video that has everything
I'm even more convinced this is a joke of a call now. The defender and attacker do the exact same thing. In fact, the defender is going toward the attacker with the arms extended while not looking at the ball. The defender is the one who puts his arms up first. The attacker puts his hands up, too. Not my problem that the defender is backpedaling + weaker + incentivized to go down easily once he realizes he can't defend. This should be nothing. Not saying the VAR would have overturned it (he wouldn't have) but the fact that the referee whistles before the ball is in the net only adds to the issues here.
I don’t think it’s just the natural way of life that this keeps happening. I think it’s the consequence of weak leadership. In the Mali incident, the one player who got a red card just had to serve a two game suspension (qualifying matches) for pushing the referee, nothing more. The other players involved got off scott-free. This is weak leadership. Strong leadership would be something like banning referee assaulters from participating at the next tournament. And to have some real fun, let’s look at how CAF ajudicated that 2015 incident: So to recap, CAF’s idea of how to handle a mass referee assault involving punches and kicks: - $50,000 fine for the FA - Pay damages for the door and refrigerator! - Referee suspended for 6 months for doing a bad job - No players or coaches punished in any way - Team allowed to play at the next AFCON as if nothing happened It’s truly a mystery why this keeps happening!!
I have no dog in this fight, but I thought it was interesting comparing this to what was written in today's newsletter from Ali Howorth's On The Whistle. Ali was on site in Morocco for most, if not all, of the tournament. https://alasdairhoworth.substack.com/p/the-final-that-gave-us-everything
Someone feel free to correct me if wrong but I think Mikael’s comment was referencing the 2023 tournament.
I think he's referring to Koman Couibaly, the Malian referee who disallowed Maurice Edu's winner v Slovenia in the 2010 World Cup. Ironically, Senegal's captain is Koulibaly but I don't think he was involved in this incident as that was Seck and Sarr that were involved.
Going back to this, having watched it way too many times now, I truly don’t know what to think. Don’t want to be a conspiracy theorist but I find it really odd that at least seven Senagelese players lined up on the penalty area don’t even enter to contest a potential rebound and don’t react at all to the save. Like, nothing. Maybe they just presumed a goal and that’s Occam’s razor as no Moroccans were near them sprinting in. But maybe not. When have you seen a major moment game-deciding penalty save that no one from the defense celebrates? The focus on the penalty decision itself makes sense, particularly here. But the execution of this penalty is very, very odd in multiple ways.
Not quite comparable to the Uruguayan reaction to Ghana’s miss in the 120th minute in 2010, now is it? And it’s everyone, both sides. For all we know, that’s how Gueye persuaded his team to return to the pitch.
Yes, exactly. It's definitely one possibility, which is something I'd normally say is insane. But the video gives a decent amount of evidence to support the theory. The problem with it being the real outcome is the same problem with all conspiracies... if 7+ Senegalese players knew (or strongly believed) he'd missed the penalty intentionally, that information comes out eventually. No way that's kept secret forever, particularly as there is visual evidence for people to ask about (i.e., in addition to the players not moving, it does appear the captain is instructing them or telling them all something). So have we heard anything from the Senegalese camp about the theory?
I'm not saying #19 was in an offside position.. We will never know without a review, but it is very close. The defenders close in quickly to clear the ball for a CK, but #19 (White) was directly challenging for the ball at this point. (Interfering with an opponent). So without an offside review, the CK is taken which leads to the "no foul call", which can be reviewed, then the PK. So if a PK is awarded, it seems a shame that the APP that led to the CK is not checked. Yeah, I know, slippery slope and then where do we draw the line on how far back we go. Just doesn't seem right but I can't exactly put my finger on it.
Not just can’t be checked, but couldn’t be changed if it was. A fundamental concept of the LOTG has always been that once a restart is taken, decisions before tht are final. (With. Narrow exception relating to send offs.) reviewing things before a restart after. Goal is score (or PK is awarded) would be a radical change to the game. (At least the possibility of reviewing CKs doesn’t go there, but requires CK’s to be reviewed before they are taken.)
I'm not advocating any radical changes to the game (especially the fundamental concept of restarts), but I think this particular example is good one for reviewing a CK *before* it is taken. It quite possibly should have been an IFK for green. Then again...I don't want *everything* reviewed. I'm arguing within myself. Argghh.
If I understand the planned (and currently active) reviews of corner kicks correctly, it's simply an objective question of whether or not a corner kick should be a goal kick or not. Unless something is actively evolving, VARs will not be tasked with clearing the APP for corner kick decisions; so you can't get an offside or a foul to negate a "bad" corner kick, you can only get a goal kick. Of course, there's so little detail on all this and no real good reporting. So we're left asking otherwise simple questions without answers. Like whether or not bad goal kicks can also turn into corner kicks. You'd think with the now decades-long focus on VAR issues, soccer journalists/media would pursue such questions with some vigor. Alas.
Learning the APP on every corner kick would add a lot of delays. And if you’re doing it on CKs, why would you not do it on attacking free kicks?
So The Algorithm just informed me that a CAF continental senior final was abandoned and led to a forfeit relatively recently: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_CAF_Champions_League_final How about that?
Investing find. So CAF initially declared a winner, then walked it back and ordered the second leg to be replayed, before the CAS stepped in and basically said it had to be a forfeit? So the question is, why didn’t that apply here? AFCON’s regulations (https://www.cafonline.com/media/bl2lhb3v/bm58fa2qjh76asriri5s.pdf), specifically Chapter 35 Article 82, make it very clear that a team forfeits the match if they refuse to play or leave the ground before the regular end of the match without the authorization of the referee. Maybe someone can quibble about what “refuse to play” or “ground” means, but I think it’s quite clear that Senegal’s actions violated the spirit and probably most reasonable interpretations of the letter of the law. See, this is the problem. CAF needed CAS to handhold them to the right answer in 2019 because CAF can’t be trusted to enforce their own rules.
I don't have an answer on the final outcome. I would point out, the more I have thought about it, that the fact that this was leg 2 of two-leg final does make it, functionally, a lot different than a one-off final of a tournament. In the former situation, you have a team walking off in an away match. In the latter, you have your marquee game on neutral ground (yes, I know in this case the match happened not to be in a neutral nation). A final is still a final, yes. But I can see a lot less effort being expended to make an away team go back and finish a game versus telling a team to return to finish what is, functionally, a continent's Super Bowl.
Ok, so the word that is leaking out in Africa is that Moroccan players are indeed blaming Senagal for walking off the pitch, and that this delay led to the players "getting cold" and particularly to the very bad PK. Apparently the officials refused to let the players "warm up" again, after such a long delay that is the excuse given for the miss... and in light of not moving or touching a ball for so long, the kicker went for a "safe kick" rather than a placed kick. Now, I'm not saying that is true... in fact it is laughable. but i post it here just in light of MassRef's very real point that the truth about that PK would leak out eventually. Well, what is leaking out in African soccer circles is that Senagal is to blame for the miss by walking off. Which, if the "gentlemans agreement" theory was correct, would not fit with the first wave of post-match rumors.
Well, not necessarily, right? If some sort of gentleman's agreement was made, the Moroccans would have no incentive to leak it. Because then their fans would know they, essentially, fixed part of the match and ultimately lost a continental final they could have won. Moroccans have every incentive to blame the Senegalese. For one, their behavior was legitimately unacceptable. But more to the point, no one who cares about Moroccan football would praise them if they (or the player individually) agreed to miss the kick. Public knowledge of that would backfire. The question is more about what the Senegalese might say. Now, they also don't have too much incentive to say anything because, again, a technical argument could be made that the players conspired to "fix" an inflection point in a major cup continental final. Given Senegal is already under investigation for its behavior, talking publicly about any discussions around the penalty seems unwise. So if there was some sort of conspiracy, I think it would hold for a little while. But, long-term, I bet someone from the Senegalese camp, one day, reveals the alleged "truth" about this penalty. Whether or not it is the real truth will probably always be impossible to know with certainty.
Not that it is particularly related, but still nonetheless perhaps interesting given reflections above on AFCONs past, here are some refereeing incidents from the infamous 2010 semifinal between Algeria and Egypt: