General Assignments Discussion

Sandra Serafini, Ph.D. in neuroscience.

PH

 

Apologies for taking us off-topic, but thanks to you and @Pierre Head for sharing all of this info.

The only high-level ref I know from further back is an impressive guy but not someone who pursued higher education.

 

The reaction to Barton's assignment online is pretty funny. Mostly people are just aghast at how such a loose cannon could get a SF, the guy loses control of every game, every game he's in there's chaos, etc. They seem to not understand that playing with all those psychopaths in CONCACAF who play filthy, your games are almost destined to go somewhat out of control, lots of cards will be shown, there will be confrontations and you can't catch everything. That also carried over to any CONMEBOL teams he does.

Sure he has a chance to lose control, but I think that officiating two of the top teams in the world that are also UEFA, things will be much more likely to not need his over the top theatrics. He isn't like Lahoz who had this over-the-top personality in every game he did because it's just who he was as a person, Barton can absolutely keep it calm, he just goes a little crazy when the game gets heated with dirty play and dark arts.

I wouldn't be surprised if it goes as smoothly as it does when one of the top UEFA refs does a UEFA game. I would have liked to see him on Argentina-England just because it has a much higher likelihood of needing his officiating style and seeing him deal with the Argentina BS would have been worth it, but I know that was very likely not going to happen.

 

FIFA and referees on here like Barton way more than the average team or fan. In the HBO documentary on the U.S. team, it shows Berhalter telling the team they drew a bad referee in Barton but have to make the best of it.

 

Most of the reaction I’ve seen has been conspiracy theorists mistaking either the Salvadoran flags, or the Nicaraguan flag, or both, for the Argentinian one.

 

The last time Mexico didn't have a referee in the knockout stage was in 1982, when the "knockout stage" consisted only of the semifinals, third-place match, and final. In between: Márquez Ramírez, Codesal, Brizio Carter, Ramos Rizo, Archundia, Rodriguez, and Ramos.

In a year as co-hosts, with the expanded knockout stage starting from Round of 32, and with someone so experienced. Who would have thought.

 

It can't have been his group stage performance that sunk Ramos unless he missed something that none of us remember.

Is it possible his CWC performance last summer sunk him and he was doomed from the beginning?

Genuinely, one of the more stunning cuts that I can remember at a World Cup.

 

You're cherry picking and being selective. You can easily make the argument in the opposite direction that it's better to not be highly educated.

There were and are a lot of referees that aren't highly educated.

Jair Marrufo, I believe, never had a real job outside of refereeing.

I know Armando Villarreal never held a job outside of being a professional referee and I don't think has a college degree.

Chris Penso was a police officer.

Mark Geiger was a high school math teacher.

Howard Webb was a cop. Mark Clattenburg was I don't know, but does he sound and act well educated?

In fact I think all the top English referees were not part of the Ivory Tower academia circle. In fact most would be considered blue collar.

Graham Poll, Oliver, Anthony Taylor, Mike Dean, Keith Hackett, etc. all wouldn't be considered college educated by our standards.

With professional referees becoming full time younger and younger and the pay getting more lucrative, the trend is that more and more will be like Villarreal or Oliver who never do anything but referee as a profession.

Also, the demands and time commitments of pro referees are making it impossible to do anything else outside of refereeing.

 

Given how extensive the posters here analyze everything, that seems unlikely!

Also seems unlikely that last year's CWC performance has that much influence on this year's WC decisions. Maybe Collina and co. were just not that impressed with his group stage performances, and the decisions are more merit-based than we thought (or than they used to be)?

In any case, just imagine how he must feel seeing Barton get an SF.

 

Just hit me, didn’t Brazil make a big stink around Ramos? Powerful enough to get Claus a game (two in the end!), were they powerful enough to just have Ramos’ tournament completely ended?

 

look, that miss was symptomatic of Pensos problem. it’s just not acceptable call to miss. I’d also point out that prior to that I think Dickerson had what, like three VAR’s? I could be wrong, but I don’t think he’s had one since. so ya, he gets kept around… I don’t know what the group dynamic in the VAR room is like, but maybe he’s just really good at managing it, and understands the tech and team communication very well. Or maybe it’s a simple as they need to keep the two Americans around. But he hasn’t done a VAR since that missed foul that I can recall. I don’t wanna blame him for the call either, because we don’t know what the communication was. Maybe Peso said, “I saw it, and it’s not a foul. “ not a lot the VAR can do about that

 

High school math teachers usually have master's degrees. In college, they're generally expected to take levels of math that go beyond what's taught in high school.

The police officers I've known have college degrees, but that's not always the case.

 

I tell my friends when he is always inevitably assigned to USA-Mexico that this is the best we have in CONCACAF who can do the match. It wasn't until reading these forums that I realized he's actually quite good; and also reffing USA-Mexico in a match that matters is really, really, hard even compared to the other derbies in the world.

 

Is this sort of announcement typical? Seems like an unusual way of telling the public who made the grade and who didn't.

 

I'm talking about "highly educated" which is usually masters degree or higher. The original post mentioned masters degree or higher not just bachelor's degrees.

 

They did indeed make a big stink.

 

Which is another data point to show that the “average fan”, coaches, and players really have zero clue what goes into being a good official (and this isn’t just confined to soccer).

 

I don't think there's actually an announcement on these that are put out by FIFA, that I can remember anyway. Just comes through the grapevine

 

It's AI slop.

 

Fifa Twitter

 

Have they put something out about the cuts? I haven't seen it

 

Well... maybe that's what it was for Ramos, then

 

Nobody mentioned Christina Unkel being an attorney?
Amanda Ross was/is a college professor and, I believe, has a PhD.