Only going by highlights and what I've read, but it appears Kim Jong-hyeok was very good in Iran-Syria yesterday. Admittedly my window is limited, but he looks like the referee who has best married big-incident decison-making with all the intangibles related to presence and management. QF assignments are out fully for Asia and partially for Africa: Tajikistan : Jordan - FU (CHN) Australia : Korea Republic - AL-KAF (OMN) Iran : Japan - MA (CHN) Qatar : Uzbekistan - KIM, H. (KOR) Nigeria : Angola - SY (SEN) DR Congo : Guinea - GHORBAL (ALG)
Apparently Ma has Australian ARs. The two Chinese ARs have been supporting both Fu and Ma. Now at the QF stage, that can't happen given the scheduling. Interesting "management" by AFC. They apparently believe they need to have Ma on that match. Either that was the first order priority and then they selected the Aussie ARs, an Aussie was on that match tentatively and had to come off, or there was some other weird situation where a different crew was slotted and this hybrid crew was a total replacement. Weird no matter what. Particularly when you reason that a Chinese referee could do either semifinal, so if Ma is good enough for a second KO match, they could have just waited.
https://www.the-afc.com/en/national...ound_of_16_match_between_iraq_and_jordan.html AFC statement on Referee decision in Round of 16 match between Iraq and Jordan THU, 01 FEBRUARY, 2024 In adherence with the IFAB (The International Football Association Board) Laws of the Game, the decision to issue a second yellow card to Iraq's player number 18 Aymen Hussein during the 77th minute was based on Law 12 (Fouls and Misconduct – Disciplinary Action: Delaying the Restart of the Play) whereby the Referee must caution players who excessively delay a restart. Aymen Hussein excessively delayed the restart of the game after scoring a goal in the 75th minute. During the player's celebrations, the Referee strongly warned Aymen Hussein three times before finally showing him the second yellow card. In this regard, the second caution issued to Aymen Hussein was the correct decision by the Referee, as per the Laws of the Game. The AFC strongly encourages fans, media, and stakeholders to respect the decisions made by match officials.
The ball went in at 75:17 and he was red carded sometime before 76:37. I'm not complaining about the decision--at all. But I do find it interesting that the official statement from AFC gets one of those two facts wrong, thereby making it look like the celebration was longer than it really was. I guess it could just be a typo or a mistake.
Kim Jong-hyeok was fantastic in Iran v Syria. Not surprised he got another game. Same for the Omani Al-Kaf. For AFCON, the Somali referee Artan definitely deserves another game. As well as the Mauritanian referee.
54' of Tajikistan-Jordan would have been DOGSO if the attacker had gone down. He stayed up and got the shot off, so I think advantage and YC would've been theoretically correct. In the first half, Fu Ming had a good moment where an already-booked player went down easy asking for a penalty; when the ball was next out of play, Ming warned him demonstratively.
I am surprised not to see a bigger name on the Ivory Coast - Mali game. Those are arguably the two best teams remaining in the competition, one of which is the host. I would've expected the top referee of the round on that game, which would be Ghorbal. My theory is therefore that they're protecting Ghorbal for the final. Maybe Tessema one one of the semis. And then take your pick for the other: in my opinion, Beida.
Tessema should be out after his performance in Gambia vs. Cameroon, all eight 4ths from the R16 seem to have been 'pushed out', and also Artan mentioned by @gaolin, though the young Somalian should be proud of the great tournament he had. Ghorbal is the best referee there so an appointment to the final would be on merit, pending his refereeing tonight.
I don't like the appointments for this game. Adel refereed his two matches so far perfectly well, but he is a solid, safe-pair-of-hands kind of official who would seem to lack the 'X-Factor' for such a big clash. A positive spin would be that CAF have deliberately chosen more-or-less the polar opposite to Atcho for the next Ivory Coast tie (Adel an athletically average guy with a 'no frills' style). The Egyptian ref is forty-five, he joined the FIFA list aged forty(!), and must be in the twilight of his international career, this his first AFCON call-up. The Libyan assistant Amsaeed assigned to the match also left a poor impression on me in the group stage, not always correctly following the second-last defender, and so on. VAR is Akhona Makalima, who has only VAR-ed one(!) prior game in this tournament, where she took a very long time indeed to recommend an OFR for a clear reckless-use-of-arms penalty. Besides that, the South African lady has only worked as assistant VAR in four other fixtures. I think CAF have earned the benefit of the doubt in this AFCON, but more than one element of this assignment raised an eyebrow for me without question.
Looks like South Korea tied the game on a 90'+6 minute penalty. Looked like a legit penalty decision. Al-Kaf has some huge cojones.
Good performances in both these matches yesterday, imo. Some clips for those interested. Nigeria vs. Angola: https://www.streambug.io/cv/b418f4 https://www.streambug.io/cv/6c7753 https://www.streambug.io/cv/779e51 DR Congo vs. Guinea: https://www.streambug.io/cv/c78551 https://www.streambug.io/cv/2e958d https://www.streambug.io/cv/a40a28
What a way Mali v Ivory Coast ended. 3 reds total. Losing players crowd the referee at the end forcing the referee to push the player off him. Game ended with a Mali getting a corner but referee blowing he game early. 1 minute of extra time given and game went to four minutes. Surely, fines and bans incoming. Referee did a good job.
What an utter disgrace the way the Mali players besieged Adel after the final whistle - there was only twenty secs on the clock when Ivory Coast scored and he was quite justified to blow up and deny them the corner as he did. The Egyptian ref lost his composure after that, and pushing the player(s) back as he did might have cost him a semifinal/final appmnt as fourth man. A pity that such a sound refereeing peformance ended like that too: Adel fully justified the assignment. More than disciplinary control, reading of the game or anything like that, he showed that he had the nerve and the bottle to impose his style on this game and make the decisions he wanted. You can argue about a couple of the bookings he gave, but overall he did really well in a very tough context and should win our respect for it - bravo, sir.
Very hot ending to Mali - Côte d’Ivoire after the late winner from the Ivorians. Some incident occurred at the ensuing kickoff that led to a mass confrontation. I couldn’t see what started it. Then some moments after the ball was put back into play, the ball went out of play, and Mali wanted a corner, I don’t think Adel signaled a decision, and he whistled for full time. He was immediately surrounded by several Mali players in very close range, but due to the camera being zoomed out I could not see the details of this confrontation, but it gave off a very violent appearance. Then the camera cut into a close up shot to clearly show Adel push away the Mali #2, which was right up in his chest, with both hands rather forcefully. Adel showed a red card (I think to number 2) and quickly left the field. Edit: I see others beat out my comment.
As does the Egyptian referee at AFCON, who both awarded a PK against host Ivory Coast AND sent a Ivory Coast player off on a 2CT.
This is a lot easier to swallow due to the fact that it's been recently done in a WC knock-out match and not to mention expected.
If someone could clip the actions that led up to the shove, as well as the masscon incident just after kickoff, would be much appreciated.
It really feels like we are seeing more and more incidents like this where there is really aggressive mobbing towards / contact with referees, more aggressive than usual. We just saw heavy contact on the referee in the Morocco-RSA game, of course. It reminds me of the Uruguay ending at the last world cup. This is concerning. It needs to be seen as completely unacceptable behavior to make aggressive contact with a match official.
Now that I can look at the replay it looks like #2 pushes Adel quite aggressively after the final whistle when he first runs up to him. Horrible behavior, should be a huge suspension in all competitions.
71': Some small questions about control and defenders but I think DOGSO would've been a better choice here. Am I the only one who thinks this first half penalty kick is really harsh? Completely normal contact to me. Minimal force and the attacker lets himself fall over.