Final Analysis: NED-ESP - Webb (ENG) - Part I

Re: Final Analysis: NED-ESP - Webb (ENG)

The worst thing about all this is teh more the Dutch desperately try and put blame on others they are creating a long term period of dislike for their national team. Look at Zidane. One of the world's great players will always be remebered for losing the plot in his last game. All the appreciation for Dutch football tarnished by the negativity of their team. Nothing wrong with hard work and controlled play but when it is planned aggression and you have rubbish like Van Bommel in your team then all the bonhommie disappears. To blame the referee is quite extraordinary. Nine hooligans and a diver does not add up to a great spectacle and the idea of this team winning the World Cup would have put the game back 30 years.

I presume having blamed the referee and the Spanish team you'll all have a go at the bloody octopus now. Your fans are as charmless as your team and you deserve each other.

 

Re: Final Analysis: NED-ESP - Webb (ENG)

I was pulling for the Dutch man. They were lucky to have escaped the first 20 minutes without being two men down. Webb allowing them to do this is, IMO, what kept the match close. Instead of coming out and playing total football, they thugged it up. Personally, I have a great admiration for the way the Dutch have traditionally played football. On Sunday, they decided not to play that way.

 

Re: Final Analysis: NED-ESP - Webb (ENG)

The thuggery started the last 10 minutes of the Brazil game, which i had wanted them to win, the Uruguay game and then to a head against Spain. It was almost as if they thought we have got this far and panicked.

The bizarre thing is that their tactics through the tournament lead to one of Europe's best strikers not even scoring one goal.

 

Re: Final Analysis: NED-ESP - Webb (ENG)

Denial is not only a river that flows through Egypt. You are not thinking clearly. Holland fouled a lot more than Spain. Your team played like a bunch of thugs. They lowered the bar with respect to negative footballing. Johann Cruyff acknowledges it. Time to let this go and regroup without a further loss of dignity.

 

Re: Final Analysis: NED-ESP - Webb (ENG)

Spot on.

 

Re: Final Analysis: NED-ESP - Webb (ENG)

Heh, perhaps you've not seen the public's reaction (continued youtube parody, tweets at the time and post-match reaction on forums all over the web) to Zidane and are judging this on media only, but... Zidane is basically a hero everywhere but Italy and some small portion of the French people who thought they'd have won the tournament with him still on.

That's BECAUSE of the headbutt, he is celebrated legend for sticking it to Materazzi, not vilified.

I should also note, just for casual reference that De Jong's ninja kick has already been "This is Sparta"'d for humor, and probably will long-term be looked upon with laughter rather than shunning.

 

Re: Final Analysis: NED-ESP - Webb (ENG)

I would not take it for granted that Zidane is a hero everywhere and where he is I doubt it is amongst true football fans. I doubt an hour has gone by since that day that he has not regretted it. Being remembered solely as one of the all time greats is somewhat more important than being a hero to the tweeting community.

 

Re: Final Analysis: NED-ESP - Webb (ENG)

I personally don't have any problems with Holland playing the way they did.
I think that if the Germans played a similar way in the Semi's they would have won and that the Dutch were succesful against Brazil playing in a similar way.So fair do's for the tactics and having the guts to play that way in a World cup final.

But what I have a problem with is their complaining after the game that the referee was too harsh in dishing out cards and that now they are now wanting to be seen as the ones that were the most honest. Yes Spain a few times exaggerated the contact and also retaliated,but you cannot then blame them for doing that if you are going to play in a physical way.

It's almost like they expected the other team to behave in a honest way ,while they get away with being thugs a bit like against Brazil ,WHERE Robben dived and dived and Van Bommell fouled and fouled without getting booked.
De Jong has gone on to say that FIFA have turned the game into a game for softies -

What does he expect?
Challenges like that he made to go unpunished. When in fact such a challenge could have ended a career or could have killed a player.
A similar tackle caused a player to die in a malaysian league a couple of years back.

And then the attitude from the dutch federation top officials smacks of being sore losers-

When you succeed playing that way you are hailed as tactical genius but when you lose playing that kind of football ,be prepared for the backlash as well.

 

Re: Final Analysis: NED-ESP - Webb (ENG)

 

Re: Final Analysis: NED-ESP - Webb (ENG)

It might be close...until you count every foul of the Dutch which should have been counted...and then Holland would be 10 or 15 fouls ahead once again! Your bias is understandable but please don't try to convince neutral referee observers that the Dutch got the raw deal in this match from the referee. That is simply not true and quite laughable actually.

 

Re: Final Analysis: NED-ESP - Webb (ENG)

Of course we are against you! It is impossible that we might actually be more objective than you, an ardent Dutch supporter! Similar attitude to that displayed by so many of the players, coaching staff, and administrators -- it's not our fault, we were angels, the referee was out to get us and Spain were just as naughty.

I'm sorry, but your statement is just ridiculous.

I respect the depth of your passion and support for your national side, I really do. I wish more people in the USA had the same feelings. But those are the kinds of feelings that color one's opinions on matches involving their national team, and the World Cup Final magnifies those feelings even more. There is no way you can have anything close to an objective view on this match, and your comments clearly show it.

Several of my referee friends were rooting for Netherlands in the final. I was one of them. By halftime, because of the disgusting display of aggressive and reckless play I saw from Netherlands, I no longer wanted them to win the match. Many posters on the referee forum felt the same way and said as much.

 

Re: Final Analysis: NED-ESP - Webb (ENG)

I have no problem with fouling. But this match was not simply fouling to disrupt the other team's ball possession, which is a legitimate strategy and not something that bothers me. This match was hacking, aggressive, reckless, dirty fouling. There is a big difference.

 

Re: Final Analysis: NED-ESP - Webb (ENG)

This is a good point that many folks who wish Archundia or a more strict referee had been in charge of the final need to acknowledge. Some have said Archundia never would have let the match go the way it did, being that physical and with several players who COULD have been sent off, not be sent off.

But, Archundia had a similar moment in the 3rd place match as you noted. It was a red card tackle for sure. One would think the sendoff would be easier for the referee in the 3rd place match, since it is a much less important match. Sure, lots of people are watching but it is a consolation match whose result matters relatively little, not the championship.

There is no guarantee that having a different referee on the final would have changed the tone of the match much at all.

 

Re: Final Analysis: NED-ESP - Webb (ENG)

We are getting a bit off course, but I don't blame Netherlands for 'only' countering. Trying to disrupt Spain's ball possession in midfield and counterattacking is a reasonable strategy. I do not consider counterattack by definition as a defensive strategy. There are infinite ways of doing it; some teams are very good at it -- see Germany.

Spain's style is not the only or best 'attacking' style. Some would argue, and have argued, that they are too patient and not aggressive enough in moving forward. There are infinite number of ways to play football and try to score goals. Obviously, some teams are more defensive-minded than others. I don't think you can blame the Dutch for NOT coming out and aggressively going at Spain or trying to 'beat them at their own game.' Each team has its own strengths and weaknesses and needs to play to their strengths in an effort to win the match.

Germany did some great attacking on the counterattack. Excellent passes, great combinations, great attacking runs and good 1v1 stuff. They should not be downgraded simply because they were patient and waited for their opportunities to come on the counterattack. Neither should Netherlands. They easily could have won this match and they managed to produce a couple of great goal-scoring chances.

 

Re: Final Analysis: NED-ESP - Webb (ENG)

Archundia made a very lenient decision (and I disagree with it), but was that tackle really comparable to de Jong's foul? A more apt comparison would be van Bommel's earlier foul, which was also a sure red. Some might compare it to Puyol's foul before that (debatable red), or to van Persie's repeated bad fouls even earlier.

Webb's situation wasn't just a case of one bad foul. Archundia's was.

 

Re: Final Analysis: NED-ESP - Webb (ENG)

The foul by the German player was NOT as bad as the De Jong karate kick, obviously. But I thought at the time both should have been red cards in that respective match. Archundia was more likely to be able to get away with a caution in his match than Webb was in his match.

I don't think Puyol's or any of van Bommel's or van Persie's fouls were ever going to be red in a World Cup Final. At least not with Howard Webb in charge. And I'm ok with that.

So I don't really compare the German foul to any of those other Dutch fouls. In terms of their level of recklessness or danger, yes. In terms of what they meant in terms of card color for the referee on that given day, no.

The bar for a red card and for a yellow card is different in each match. The bar for red and yellow will generally be higher in the WC final than the 3rd place match; would you agree?

It seems pretty likely that Webb had a poor view of the De Jong tackle, which is why it wasn't red. I don't know that I can give Archundia the same excuse.

 

Re: Final Analysis: NED-ESP - Webb (ENG)

Webb's blocked view may be a partial explanation, but he saw enough that he should've checked with his assistants and gotten the call right. He halted a Spanish 2-v-2 advantage to show a card, so he knew the foul was bad.

Regarding your point about different standards for cards in different games, I don't think these differences should extend beyond decisions that are truly borderline. Refereeing will never be an exact science, but when we rely upon standards that aren't part of the Laws of the Game, we risk becoming completely arbitrary. In this game, I think that Webb's big problem was not applying his usual standards ... because a typical red card was no longer red, he seemed to lose his bearings a bit.

 

Re: Final Analysis: NED-ESP - Webb (ENG)

I have to comment on this. Johan, what do you think Webb should have done to "stop" them? He issued 9 cards to your countrymen. Which, by the way, is a record for cards issued to one team in any World Cup match. What powers does Webb have to "stop" these behavior beyond issuing cards?

I think there's a lot of sniping going on here. The mods have been fairly generous to let some non-productive comments go...

Fellow referees, when a fan comes in here and makes uninformed comments, it's an opportunity to inform them. They're either going to listen or learn, or they are here just to tell us all how lousy we are. If it's the latter, there's no point responding to them. It usually will only take one or two exchanges to figure out what their purpose is, and if they aren't going to have an open mind, honestly, they don't deserve a response. It's not the purpose of this thread. Try to educate them the way we see things, and if they still want to say, "Webb screwed Oranje," well, then they should just be ignored. You're not going to get through to somebody who simply is venting.

It pains me slightly to see comments such as, "The Dutch can have no complaints." I saw plenty that Spain was guilty of that could have been handled differently. I think issues like the Puyol challenge are very interesting talking points. I don't see any problem in discussing these, instead of simply dismissing the Dutch due to the fact that they were guilty of kicking the game out from under the Spanish.

That doesn't mean that the Dutch have a carte blanche to blame Webb for the loss. I remain mystified about all the complaining about the non-corner kick call. Referees miss these kinds of decisions every game. The awarding of a goal kick had nothing to do with the horrendous defending at the other end that led to the Spanish goal. I was listening to ESPN radio as I was driving and found Tommy Smyth's criticism that the two were somehow related to be, sadly, typical of Smyth's uniformed asinine comments. The man has no sense of responsibility.

Fans, specifically Dutch fans, you're disappointed you lost. Maybe some of you are following the lead of your players and wanting to blame the referee. Yes, the Spanish made several fouls seem worse than they were. Sometimes they went down easily. That does not change the fact that what happened was a foul. A player rolling around on the ground does not impact the decision of a referee like Howard Webb to issue a caution; look at how he dealt with the Slovakian keeper in the Italy game. Most of those cautions were issued because the fouls were reckless or tactical.

Diving/simulation is not a foul. It's misconduct, and therein lies a subtle but important difference. A foul is an offense against an opponent. Misconduct is an offense against the Spirit of the Game (that is sometimes tied to a foul). A player guilty of misconduct has not always directly affected an opponent. It's senseless to think that the Dutch were frustrated by the simulation and therefore were justified in their behavior.

I worked a U14 match last night where the winning team was making snide comments about the losing team, and the losing team just kept playing hard and ignored the poor winners. It's a sad day when a bunch of 13 year-olds seem to be more focused on playing the game than a bunch of professionals who hold ridiculous grudges and play without care for the health or respect of anybody else on the field.

Referees have an extraordinarily difficult time deciding when to punish simulation. We are most certainly empowered to do so, but we also do not want to caution a player who may be genuinely injured.

A player may be fouled and simply goes down to make sure the referee awards the free kick; this does not change the fact that a foul occurred, and the attacker is simply making a logical choice to take a free kick in a dangerous spot. Holland, one of your own players, Arjen Robben, is among the best in the world at this. And his doing so seems to raise as much ire from opponents as you feel from Iniesta's behavior on Sunday.

Should a player be cautioned for this type of behavior? Perhaps. The referee would then be subjected to scrutiny for "making the game about himself" and being too free with his cards. He is damned if he does, damned if he doesn't. If we give cards for every act of making a foul seem worse than it is, I could have seen Robben earning at least 6 cards in this tournament.

The responsibility ultimately lies with the players to not force the referee to have to make these decisions.

As a USA fan, I honestly can say that after years of watching our team commit reckless tackles and having players sent off in crucial moments, this tournament was a beautiful thing. Our team played smart. We did not have one player sent off, and totaled only nine cards through four matches (though Dempsey should have probably gotten a red against Slovenia). Holland had 24 through seven. Our players tried very hard to play in a manner that did not allow the referee to make decisions about their participation. Holland showed little regard for this through the entire tournament.

The players in this game, ALL of the players, chose to play a very cynical match. Neither Holland nor Spain seemed to care about the impact of their behavior on their own team. Their own petulance and desire to hack each other, and simulate, and scream at the referee was more important than whether their continued participation in the match was essential to their team's success. Both teams are at fault.

Holland had its chances, so did Spain. In the end, Howard Webb did not cause Robben to fluff his golden chance, or Sergio Ramos to miss his unchallenged header, or do anything that causes the entire Dutch back line to forget about Iniesta on the far side of the goal. Holland had 109 minutes of 11 v 11 to get their goal, and they failed, and Howard Webb had nothing to do with that. It is fine to discuss and criticize individual decisions, but that somehow any referee decision impacted the outcome of this match is simply not accepting blame for one's own performance.

 

Re: Final Analysis: NED-ESP - Webb (ENG)

There is a lot of room for 'in the opinion of the referee' in the Laws of the Game...enough room that a yellow card for some referees is not a yellow card for others. Or a yellow card for the referee today might not be yellow for a different game and the same referee tomorrow. I think it extends a fair bit more than decisions that are 'truly borderline.'

You might be right that Webb was not applying his usual standards, but I don't think so. And, his 'usual standards' for EPL or Champions League or anywhere else might not be quite the same as the World Cup final. Different competitions, different leagues, different teams call for a different approach, a different threshold for misconduct, etc.

For comparison, though, I'm not convinced that any of the other tackles in the final besides the de Jong karate kick would have been red in an EPL match.

In other words, I think Webb probably *was* applying his usual standards, except for the miss or the poor decision on the karate kick.

I agree he should have gotten input from his team (and he may have; hopefully we will learn more as the days and weeks go by) to get the decision right. I think he sensed enough to know there was a bad challenge and was smart enough to issue a caution, but not smart enough to get input from his crew and go with the sendoff.

 

Re: Final Analysis: NED-ESP - Webb (ENG)

The foul by the German player was NOT as bad as the De Jong karate kick, obviously.

Not sure about that. Aogo turns the ball over and in a fit of rage/panic/exuberance goes flying in with both feet at his opponent's legs in the vague vicinity of the ball. de Jong tries to play a high ball with his foot in a crowd and ends up planting it square in an opponent's chest. Both were irresponsible, idiotic plays, but I'm not sure which one was "worse".

 

Re: Final Analysis: NED-ESP - Webb (ENG)

Well, he absolutely had to play the advantage to Robben. He had gotten through Puyol and was alone on the keeper. Blowing the whistle before the play had carried through was not an option. The issue then becomes, once Robben failed to score, do you go back and call the DOGSO? Robben clearly got through and took a bad dribble (trying to keep it away from the second defender) that enabled Casillas to smother the ball. Did the advantage materialize? I'd argue it did - but reasonable minds can disagree.

Then there's the issue of the foul itself. Robben and Puyol had both used their arms to jostle for position, Robben got the inside track, and Puyol then grabbed Robben around the waist momentarily before falling. Keeping in mind that it was a rapid counter-attack and Webb is trailing the play by 30 yards (see the below video for a good sense of where he was and what he's looking at), would he see enough of a foul there? He couldn't possibly see Puyol's hand around the waist, so he almost has to go by Robben's stride to gauge whether there's a hold or jersey tug. Robben's stride changes ever-so-slightly, but he fights through it with relative ease, and it might not have seemed like anything more than the usual jostling that occurs going after a 50-50 ball. Although you could argue that the slight change in stride was what enabled the second defender to get back in the play just enough to force the poor dribble from Robben.

Puyol did try to give up a professional foul as he fell with a blind leg sweep, but missed. Had Robben been clipped and fallen (or stumbled and lost the advantage) that action by Puyol would have made it in an easy call for a straight red (or second yellow).

This was really one of the tougher advantage/DOGSO decisions I've seen.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oma9jAyIuSA&feature=related"]YouTube- Puyol Big Fail against Robben Spain vs Netherlands[/ame]