ok, i haven't seen anyone else mention this yet, but the turkey england game slightly mirrored the arsenal manure game as far as tempers were concerned. now, signor collina didn't start pulling out cards, he called over becks and alpay and told them to calm down their players and that the game is too important for their fighting to ruin it. i.e. he used common sense, which is something that no english ref possesses. and now collina is being praised by uefa for taking care of everything. this pisses me off that english referees don't function on nearly the same level as others as far as common sense. f***ing FA
They don't call him the best ref in the world because his bald head looks cool. Collina has every player's respect, something most England refs don't always have, and the players know that he will give them a fair match time and time again. Not saying Premiership officials don't have the player's respect, but they are in contact with Premiership players more often, and familiarity breeds contempt. Kudos to UEFA for seeing that the Turkey/England fixture was a powder keg waiting for a spark and getting Collina in there. I can't think of any other official that can calm a game down with a few words and gestures better than he. Perhaps the FA should fly him in for the manUre - Arsenal return in March.
Collina was called in after the original ref got injuried. Why he wasn't first choice is beyond me. Basically we need for collinas at every level.
I think it would be great if Collina did the game (well every game for that matter) but I just don't see it happening. First off I don't ever remember a internation ref being called in for a domestic game. Second what would the FA be saying about its own refs then? Third I don't know if the agreement the FA and refs have would even allow for an international ref to come in.
i am a big fan of collina as well, but..... let's not forget what happened at old trafford, it is definetely players and managers (from both team) to blame, not so much of the referee's lack of control in the game. these are professional players: they have to have accountability for their action and display of common sense regardless of adversity they face. arsenal players could have come out of that game as a such a "winner" if they hadn't act the way they did at the end of the game...they could have laughed their ass off at manu and v. nistelrooy all the way to highbury...but they blew it. from what i remember reading after the game, there were a lot of praises for referee's handling of the game in very difficult circimstances.
What I meant was that a ref such as Collina would have never let the situation get to where it was at the end of the game. A ref does exert a great amount of control in a match, especially if they take charge early and bring both captains in when it starts getting chippy... In a related note, what would the press in England be asking for if the Yanks/BoSox game from Saturday was played in England? They wanted bans and point deductions for a shoving match so I can only imagine they would have had Pedro Martinez hung at noon in front of Buckingham Palace, Don Zimmer placed in the stocks, and both Boston and New York eliminated from the playoffs and sent down to the clas "A" Carolina League!
I think that the FA assessors in the stand have a lot to do with the standard of officiating in England. The referees seem to be under great pressure to apply the letter of the law rather than use their common sense. This results in early use of cards rather than a quiet word and spoilt games through sendings off where the referee has made a rod for his own back. The press are one thing, the people who go to the games are quite another. While the press will moralise from their holier than thou perches, I can tell you that in the pub I was in for the Old Trafford fracas everyone was loving it. The overriding point of view was that if Vieira was going to get sent off he should have really hurt the horse-faced diver. And I hope that when Wenger goes before the FA to explain his comments after the game he just asks them "What part of he's a cheating, diving twat don't you understand?"
Collina did have the advantage of half time, while the Arsenal Manure game did not explode until the 74th minute.
I didn't see much praise for the referee after the Arsenal-ManU match. I saw a lot of complaining about how he let the match get out of hand, as well as his handling of a number of individual circumstances. Of course the FA's stupidity in assigning the same referee as had done the controversial Charity Shield match ensured that the referee would already have a question mark hanging over him before play began.