To be fair this game would have been pretty agricultural for the WC's standards. In eg. Qatar vs. Ecuador and Poland vs. KSA, the refs were actually quite strict. I think Taylor is going to be appointed for the third place playoff tbh. That game is Saturday afternoon and the key PL clash he has is Weds night. There is nobody else left if you consider Ma and Barton as 'rejected', Kovács/Matonte from semifinals and Ghorbal remaining.
I hadn't noticed until after I posted this morning that the PL match is Wednesday. That does make sense in the context of the event. The whole tournament still seems a very weird appointment for him, though.
Yeah. I see what they were trying to do, but Al-Ahly vs. Seattle and third place playoff (with all respect ofc!) is hardly much consolation for an English referee (in their psyche) who missed out on a Croatia vs. Brazil quarterfinal at the WC. 'We' are well-known for being quite arrogant at UEFA courses/assignments and not showing thaaaat much interest in EL appointments etc. I think he'd rather the rest for Arsenal vs. Man City than Saturdays game, probably quite easily... I would cavaet that by saying that while Taylor is a good Elite ref, he is mostly really solid rather than brilliant per se, and I don't think he was treated unfairly in Qatar.
Well... expect the unexpected and all that. Taylor for the Final. Which I guess explains everything. So obvious that it was impossible to predict! Confederation neutrality is broken to give Ghorbal the 3rd place game which is something! I guess they just didn't know what to do with him given the presence of two African teams, but got to think they could have planned to use him better.
Just noticed Nesbitt is on the final as offside VAR. I'm telling you, she's on track to break all sorts of FIFA participation records by the time her international career is over. Her versatility (men/women, geographic, senior/youth, on-field/VOR) and age make it almost a certainty.
Quite boring final so far. As expected, Real are in control and are basically passing the ball around for fun. 60’ disappointing not to see a card become out for dissent here when the Al-Hilal player spikes the ball into the ground in protest. Sure, the game is under control, but come on.
VAR intervention in the third-place match. Incident from 5:42 in the Fox Deportes highlights video. Does the referee say "Which one is number 2?" with the mic open? Do I hear that right? VAR decision explanation from 7:23. Arturo Vidal is always happy to help referees with the decision process.
What a nice fellow! It's interesting to compare this DOGSO to the 2nd penalty given in the World Cup Final. I thought there was an argument for only SPA on that one. from a theoretical perspective, this is way less of an OGSO than that one was. So it depends on where the threshold is.
Now the way this guy announced the VAR result? This is really like. Said the result, said the reason why, and what misconduct was. This is exactly what I hoped for when I heard that FIFA would be trialing this. If this is how it's always going to be, I think this will significantly improve the view of VAR and should be implemented across the world As for him saying "which one is number two", yeah he did say that, maybe not the best thing to broadcast to everyone but I'm sure it's going to take some practice.
I think this is a pretty good DOGSO call. This is the moment of the foul and if he isn't tripped he's going to have possession, direction towards goal, he will be ahead of the middle (last) defender with speed, and inside the PA.