General Discussion - ALL ASSIGNMENTS

Just dawned on me that I forgot to start a thread like this. And, without it, conversations are going to be everywhere. So this thread is to generally discuss assignments. Predictions, announcement or changes, thoughts, analysis of the assignments, rumors, etc., etc. Hopefully this keeps that sort of discussion centralized and focused and allows the match threads to be about the matches!

So, fire away!

My first thought is that FIFA has come out with the big guns and--as expected--referees intimately familiar with VAR. The opener, Portugal-Spain and even Uruguay-Egypt were always going to have some big name referees. But FIFA has gone with three referees who also have loads of VAR experience. The next batch or two of assignments is where things have to start to get interesting.

 

I think the opportunity to "veto" is almost non-existent in the group stage. It's more of a (late) knockout round thing. Regardless, there's no real need to put him on the Nigeria match so I doubt it will be done.

On the other point about him working as a whistle soon, If Geiger is a VAR on Friday or Saturday, he could be waiting a little bit for a whistle assignment because there won't be quick turnaround in situations like that since an official needs to focus on one match at a time. We need to see the totality of these assignments for Friday to get a better handle of what's going on, but it seems like FIFA wants experienced VARs early, so you could see Geiger on one of the Group B games.

 

Well, there aren't that many matches to go around. We're at 35 referees, nominally. It seems pretty certain anywhere from 5 to 9 of those referees will only be fourth officials, but we're still in the high 20s range which means some referees will only get one group stage match.

And, it should be noted, that's not necessarily a terrible thing. Collina himself, for example, did one group stage match in 2002. Then he got a relatively benign R16 match before being set aside for the Final.

We're going to be trying to read a lot into things at the end of the group stage on the referees who only get 1 match. But hopefully it will be clear; some will be the lower-strength referees who get their "one and done," while others will have only received one match to keep them clean and ready for the knockout stage.

 

This article names the fourth officials and reserve assistants. But, for reasons that are not entirely clear, the VAR assignments are not going to come at the same time as the on-field appointments. Quite strange, to say the least:

http://punchng.com/world-cup-fifa-picks-referees-for-friday-matches/

 

100% correct. Though the definition of "quality" can vary as the tournament unfolds. The marquee big-name matches aren't necessarily the highest quality ones. For example, if Switzerland v Costa Rica determines who finishes second in that group, then it's a pretty big match from a refereeing perspective.

Geiger is already in the mix for a late round knockout match. There are a few referees--like Kuipers, Cakir, Geiger and Irmatov--who have the luxury (or burden) of only being able to play themselves out of the latter knockout stages, rather than play themselves in. Performance will always matter most, but those four referees and maybe a couple others have a tiebreaker in their corner because of their World Cup experience, lack of a national team present, and--for Kuipers and Geiger--familiarity with VAR. Rocchi also likely falls into this category, despite not being at 2014.

Rocchi has that match, but still. In the case of that particular match, I think FIFA wanted a top UEFA referee who has VAR experience. The need for VAR to go well the first few matches cannot be overstated. So this was always Rocchi, Kuipers or Brych in my book.

 

Saturday's referee assignments are confirmed.

Cunha for France-Australia and Gassama for Peru-Denmark, which is actually a huge match and one where I expected someone like Irmatov, so that does sort of confirm Gassama is in pole position coming from Africa.

In Group D, it's Ricci for Croatia-Nigeria and Marciniak for Argentina-Iceland, so confederational neutrality is out the window pretty quickly, which is both smart and makes predicting assignments a lot tougher.

 

I think you're probably reading too much into it regarding the "veto" angle. Think about it the other way. If Busacca and company already know Argentina has little-to-no problem with (certain*) European referees, they are more comfortable making the appointment.

*I say "certain" because remember that Eriksson was one of the guys they didn't want, on top of not necessarily wanting a non-UEFA official

 

Interesting that despite FIFA saying AVAR1 functions as the "deputy" and AVAR2 is the dedicated assistant, the way they published the assignments for match 1 (which they finally did this morning) are reversed right now:

https://www.fifa.com/worldcup/matches/match/300331503/#match-info

Practically it doesn't matter at all, but it is interesting that FIFA has confusion on even naming these roles. It really shows that this is still experimental.

 

Trusting @ArbitroInteBlog on Twitter, mostly. Sometimes a domestic FA is announcing the appointment beforehand and there is a second source to help support his confirmation.

It's pretty amazing how poor FIFA is at this right now. It's something they've done well in the past. And it's something UEFA handles with ease.