This is the big mistake a lot of people make. He is so good precisely because he does not fall into the "management" trap. At this level, in this type of tournament, it does not work, particularly in the Final. Clear examples are found in the 2010 and 2014 World Cups. One reason the officiating was so much better at Euro-2016 was the fact that cards, including reds, were given when justified. It is high time this bogus concept of management was put where it belongs, in the garbage bin. The game, and tournaments in particular, will be better off for it. This we agree on! And doubly lucky that it was outside the 18. PH
Thank you! I started working as a referee as I was playing less and less. I remember going to several clinics with national instructors as I was starting out and thinking "this doesn't make a lot of sense, but maybe I've been missing something all along so ok...". It turns out I wasn't missing anything. Like you said above, ignoring obvious infractions for the sake of "management" isn't fair play at all, it's just slightly organized chaos. Hopefully that's coming to an end, although bad ideas tend to last a long time. Finally, I didn't see it but I assume the handling call was missed. Will that hurt him in future assignments? It doesn't seem to be emphasized or even mentioned by most media outlets. We are talking about how excellent he did in the CL Final (and I think he did very well also), however one of the goals there was offside and that doesn't seem to have been a problem. In any case, I was just curious. Obviously, time will tell. He really does seem to have a presence and a respect that not many others do.
No it won't hurt him because he got lucky that the call didn't lead to a goal (the resulting FK hit the crossbar) and it wasn't a PK, if either of those had gone differently then that situation likely would have been a huge talking point after the final. Of course that incident also produced a caution that was, IMO at least, unnecessary. Even if we ignore the "it didn't hit the french player" part I have doubts about the calling handling at all, yes the hand/arm was outside the body but it wasn't in some unexpected place as with the German PKs. And even if you call the handling I don't see where he comes up with the caution for it, that felt very harsh.
If memory serves, and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, it would have been shot on target without the handling, no? So same logic as the caution for Schweinsteiger. I do think handling was the correct call (just against the wrong player). The arms were sticking out enough where I think it needed to be called.
For a more detailed series of articles on this concept and its problems see the blog written by ex-FIFA referee, National Instructor/Assessor Bob Evans, also a previous National Director of Instruction. He campaigned against it for years especially as it was being practiced in the MLS in the 2000s, and was marginalized by the US Soccer referee hierarchy for his efforts. Bob passed away in March of this year, and it is a shame that he did not live to see his ideas being verified. http://fortheintegrityofsoccer.blogs.com PH
Evans also wrote an excellent book with Ed Bellion, The Art of Refereeing -- a great read for anyone who takes this seriously. (A prior version was titled For the Good of the Game.)
He was a typical English Referee. They liked hard Football but the Foul from Payet... For this Portugal must had an freekick. I think that was not the only fault in ths game. Many People had see in the TV that Éder played with his Hands, not Koscielny. Laurent get also the yellow Card.
This Payet/Ronaldo thing is so boring. Nobody gave the tackle a second thought until it was clear Ronaldo got injured as a result of it. Sometimes, shit happens. The comparisons to Zuniga/Neymar doing the rounds are nothing short of laughable.
I have to disagree with you, I cringed (I actually swore as I thought I'd loose fantasy points ) and thought that Clatts would put his foot down and set the bar and hand out a deserved caution. And the commentators where equally surprised that he let it go.