General Discussion - ALL ASSIGNMENTS

I've heard it mentioned that the AVARs will be published next year so I think the union will win this fight.

 

Video Review Coordinator maybe? Commissioner?

 

Arguably, the second wasn't changed by VAR, but confirmed by VAR (at least according to the second referee briefing press conference), as the referee had seen the deliberate play by the defender.

 

Not a referee, assigned by the home club. As VAR/AVAR are looking through things they tell them which camera to bring up, pause, rewind, stop, change camera, etc.

 

I still say it’s a bummer about Geiger, because I think he got a raw deal with the hubbub around the Morocco-Portugal and England-Colombia games and the anti-American backlash that came with it.

I will continue to contend that Geiger’s ENG-COL game was not that different than Pitana’s France-Uruguay game. Pitana’s game was a bit smoother, but the Uruguayans weren’t quite as nasty as the Colombians. The backlash had more to do with the nationality of the referees than the actual issues on the field.

 

While I think there is some truth that a ref from the US (or other non-power country) has to be better to be seen as good, and as much as I like seeing Mark succeed, I don't quite agree.

It's always hard to compare games as the teams/players are different, and maybe Mark's was harder. But Pitana had more control than Mark did. And Mark had the head-to-chin incident--not just that the incident occurred, but that it occurred after too long of a delay in getting the FK taken.

So while I agree that Mark got overly beat up (though, of course, not by FIFA that kept him there), I don't agree that his game was as good as Pitana's.

 

Article on FOX TV terrible coverage of the WC.
Our hero Dr. Joe gets special mention in article and in comments!
I guess BS referee forum members are not the only ones with a poor opinion.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/jul/13/fox-sports-world-cup-coverage-soccer-criticism

PH

 

I get what you are saying, and in no way am I saying that Geiger’s performance was better. But looking at the games, two questions arise.

1) Was Pitana’s performance so much better than Geiger’s that he earned the whistle for the final while Geiger’s only assignment is VAR for the 3/4 game? Personally, I thought Ricci was better in his quarterfinal game.

2) Put Pitana on ENG-COL and Geiger on FRA-URU with the exact same things occurring. Does anyone think the level of criticism for Pitana is anywhere close to what Geiger received for that game?

I hate to bring geopolitics into this, but this was the first major international sports event since November 2016. I think this was the world’s chance to pile on America if the chance presented itself.

 

http://www.espn.com/soccer/fifa-wor...offside-goals-fifa-president-gianni-infantino

We all knew that this was coming. Praising the "success" of VAR. If anyone ever watched the great HBO show "The Wire" this is the equivalent of "juking the stats" as a crime reduction strategy. Turning a robbery into a larceny, breaking and entering into vandalism, etc.

My favorite of course is him saying how VAR has been a deterrent in the reduction of red cards for violent conduct.

"Everyone knows that, whatever you do, someone will see it... one of the 30-odd cameras will spot it and you will be sent off," the 48-year-old said.

Either those cameras didn't work that well or the VAR guys were asleep in Moscow, but violent conduct occurred multiple times in this World Cup.

He conveniently forgot to mention that FIFA basically scrapped VAR halfway through the competition.

 

Rules expert Joe Machnik proved, once again, that there are no words better calculated to induce sleep mid-match in a soccer-watching American than “Fifa match commissioner Dr Joe Machnik”.

Yowza.

 

May I suggest the mods close eithe

And you conveniently forget to mention that VAR corrected 16 match critical decisions in the tournament.

 

Yup, it seems that because of FOX "Dr. Joe" is now a laughing stock among general US soccer fans, not just with referees.

PH

 

Sometimes you take this fantasy referee assignor job too seriously

Could've been injury, sickness, family emergency, who knows!

 

A former national referee told me the other night that Colombians hold American soccer referees in very low esteem. He said that they think MLS is a vastly inferior league, and that their referees can not handle big games. I did not realize this, but it certainly explains why the Colombians seemed mad at Geiger so early in the match.

 

For a supposedly inferior league, a lot of young South Americans sure want to seem to play in MLS.

 

Inferior or not, if it pays or even better if it pays more than what you get at home you go there.

 

I would expect that this idea is coming from Valderrama, who never did like the refereeing when he played in MLS.
But of course he was here in the bad old days when there were lots of complaints and MLS referees were under the influence
of none other but "Dr. Joe" and before PRO took over. Things are not the same anymore.
Furthermore the Colombian referee was one of the worst referees at the WC and did not get a knockout match, so it is clear that overall the US referee was superior to the Colombian referee.
I know a lot of former National referees who hold the performance of the Colombians in very low esteem as well. And think that they are a vastly inferior football team. In fact they were quite pathetic!

PH

 

That game will have done little to disabuse them of that notion then.

As far as Geiger officiating after that game, I suspect that the 3+ minutes it took for England to take their penalty with nary a yellow card in sight for dissent pretty much ruled out further games for him as referee.

 

Colombians' opinion of the MLS and MLS officials will improve when playing in the MLS replaces playing in European leagues as the zenith of top Latin American players' careers.

 

I don't think he got heat because of his nationality. Iran is hardly a popular country. IMHO he's lack of bad-blood matches experience is what made people biased against him. A Canadina, Japanese would get the same treatment. He will learn from that match and will became a better ref for it.

I do not see this happening at all. Maybe MLS can became the best league in the Americas (which I doubt) but no one can top Europe - EUFA CL is the best comp there is in terms of quality of players and game. No one can change that. Just like not one can make a better basketball than NBA

 

Geiger's nationality was totally irrelevant to the criticism he received, at least from me. But I think his nationality was significant in how Colombia's players approached the game. They began with the assumption he was biased against them and favored England, pushed Geiger to prove them wrong, and to prove them wrong, Geiger basically closed his eyes on what the Colombian players were doing.

 

I dunno if your analysis is right, but in case it is the Columbians took the ref into their tactical approach of the match and it almost worked.