Matchday 1 USA : Mexico - BATRES (GUA) El Salvador : Trinidad & Tobago - RODRIGUEZ (MEX) Costa Rica : Honduras - AGUILAR (SLV)
GREAT Update. Batres again for USA-Mexico. Not much of a surprise. He has handled the job well before.
From WorldReferee.com - http://worldreferee.com/site/copy.php?linkID=14&linkType=referee&contextType=bio
This is a case where someone jumps to conclusions. Batres is a very fair referee and will call it like he sees it.
I agree - I just thought it interesting what WorldReferee said - not that I agree with them. Just sharing 8^)
I agree that Batres is one of the best in the world. But I don't think anyone is jumping to conclusions, Alberto. In fact, I think the statistics support exactly what you say: that he is fair and calls it like he sees it; not afraid to issue red cards when at all necessary, which can be quite often in CONCACAF qualifers (as, I believe, Mexico saw in its last qualifier). Anyway, although I think he is the best in CONCACAF, I'm a bit disappointed he has this game. It means there's almost zero chance he'll get the return leg in Mexico City, which is where I'd much prefer to see him. I'm looking at who's left in the top-tier pool of CONCACAF referees and, other than Mexican referees and Marrufo, it's really just Aguilar, which would be brutal. Here's hoping there's a CONMEBOL referee for the return leg...
Are all the hex matches going to be officiated by those on the 2010 provisional list? I'm guessing no since theres only five refs from CONCACAF on the list.
I'd also guess (and am almost 100% certain that it is) "no," particularly since 4 out of 5 of those referees are from teams in the HEX. The real question is whether or not non-CONCACAF referees come in for some of the matches in the final four matchdays or so. I might be getting my history wrong, but I believe that practice was extensive in 1997 as FIFA had referees exchange among all confederations for the final few matches (in fact, Collina did the final US match and Brian Hall did an Asian playoff), scattered in 2001 (with some CONMEBOL refs coming in for crucial games) and almost entirely abandoned in 2005.
Well, the World Referee site implied in the quoted blip in hradilv's post that Batres was card happy. Clearly that is not the case. We have a lot of misconduct in CONCACAF matches. This is an exampled as I noted in my post of how statistics can be misleading. You read five cards and a good chance of having a player sent off and think the referee is card happy or quick to send off.
I didn't see it on the first replay. I was looking for a leading elbow thinking that must have been what it was for.
He made that game look very easy. I kinda like his style of not getting into a major discussion with the players on calls (at least, from what I saw). He seems like a calm, quiet guy out there.
agreed...both cards were deserved and he kept good control of the game...hat's off to Mr. Batres...nice game...
An excellent job by Batres. I believe the players played with quite a comfort level with him. Similar to what we witnessed with Collina. For such an important match he was very steady and there was not much argument with respect to his decisions. The straight red card to Marquez was a great call. No hesitation shown on the decision. My only quibble was on the Mexican shot across the US goal line. The player was in an offside position and the ball even went off his foot if I am not mistaken.
Initally, I thought the same. But the replay they showed last night, it looks like either Gooch or Hedjuk was far enough back the the MEX player cound be on side. It looked close to me, either way.
The Mex player's feet were on the goal line, so either defender would have had to be on the goal line, in addition to Howard on the goal line. I did not look close to me - clearly offside. The only thing that I can think of is that the AR didn't think the ball was played by him.
Matchday 2 El Salvador : USA - ARCHUNDIA (MEX) Mexico : Costa Rica - VAUGHN (USA) Trinidad & Tobago : Honduras - QUESADA (CRC) Vaughn was previously reported, yet still interesting. Marrufo is the only American in the running for the World Cup and it seemed, based on the earlier qualifying appointments, that Salazar and Toledo had passed Vaughn. Yet Vaughn gets the first hex appointment for an American AND it's probably the biggest match an American can get. Seems a bit odd. As an aside, his crew consists of Strickland, Vasoli, and the Canadian DiPiero. Archundia's definitely the best we could hope for and Quesada is likely the most experienced CONCACAF referee who is not on the list of WC candidates.
In the Central America forum the Ticos are complaining about getting Vaughn after he gave two red cards in the Mexico-CRC game in the Gold Cup last year. I was going to ask him about the games at the Iowa Referee Academy, but he disappeared to officiate the KC Wizards-Minnesota Thunder game.
Actually I have a buddy that lives in CR and he said that the had a 20 minute or so bit on TV a few nights ago about Vaughn and his terrible calls in that game. He actually ejected 3 Costa Rica players, 1 during the first 90 minutes and 2 in extra time where Mexico scored the game winning goal. They call him "Terri-blon" not "Terry Vaughn" which mean "Really Terrible". I saw him ref last year about 4 or 5 games and I could say I don't disagree with them that much. Give it to Concacaf to name him for a game where there will be a game with about 100,000 people. Hopefully he will do OK under the pressure.
Just a comment here. It used to be that no referees from any of the participating teams in these World Cup preliminary rounds could be used in any of the games in those groups. I think that they even went outside CONCACAF for some of the games, perhaps the USA-Trinidad match in 1990? I suppose they finally decided that the referees from the remaining CONCACAF countries were not good enough to be chosen so had to use referees from the teams involved. PH
I think you are right. That should be the norm. At one point years ago (mid to late 90s) and at the request of Mexico they actually got refs from South America because Mexico felt that Central American refs held a grudge against them. I'm not sure why it stopped. I wish they would do that again since most of their international refs are usually pretty good and are used to the pressure.