The biggest difference between the European Championship and the World Cup is the lack of pressure to send messages. Every world cup FIFA comes up with some new thing that they get all the referees to focus on, with the players experiencing the new standards for the first time in the World Cup. This process GUARANTEES refereeing controversies. EUFA on the other hand, does nothing, and instructs the referees to referee like it is the Champions League (which also tends to have very few refereeing controversies when compared to the World Cup). While obviously a different sport, when the NHL really changed the standard for hooking, holding and intereference penalties, it took the players an entire season (if not longer) to grasp the new standard. FIFA expects the players to grasp a new standard after 3 practices, and the results are predictable (as is the scapegoat, the referees).
[quote="CanadaFTW, post: 25884047, member: 106636"]The biggest difference between the European Championship and the World Cup is the lack of pressure to send messages. Every world cup FIFA comes up with some new thing that they get all the referees to focus on, with the players experiencing the new standards for the first time in the World Cup. This process GUARANTEES refereeing controversies. EUFA on the other hand, does nothing, and instructs the referees to referee like it is the Champions League (which also tends to have very few refereeing controversies when compared to the World Cup). While obviously a different sport, when the NHL really changed the standard for hooking, holding and intereference penalties, it took the players an entire season (if not longer) to grasp the new standard. FIFA expects the players to grasp a new standard after 3 practices, and the results are predictable (as is the scapegoat, the referees).[/quote] Well that's not really true See: Webb, Holding in the penalty area on set pieces, Euro 2008
All joking aside, he would have had a big problem if Spain scored immediately off of that. Yes, I know the referee is part of the field. But a ball hitting the referee is a lot different than the referee charging a player. By the book, of course play should have continued and that's what Proenca did. But I wonder if justice would dictate that the fallen Irish player might have possibly suffered a head injury, and play should have been stopped immediately to check on him (of course, I thought about that maybe 10 seconds after it happened, so by no means am I saying that I would have come up with it on the spot).
I would've played the ball out to my right so the Irish player could run onto it. I think I've done it once in Indoor cause you just can't avoid anything.
My main criticism of Proenca in this match was his positioning and movement. He often overran the play, which led to several instances where he got in the way of the players, including the situation where he knocked over the Irish player. Knowing that Spain plays a possession style with many short passes should inform the referee's position; in today's game, I felt Proenca tended to be too close to play and often occupied passing lanes. However, his fitness was beyond question. Hopefully this is something that he will correct in the future, because his match control was very good, despite a few minor errors.
I think the one of the big reasons that there have been no real controversies, is, as pointed out by others, that these refs see these players all the time and these players see each other all the time. How many bad tackles and cynical fouls have we seen in this tournament and the players have gone up and helped each other up? You don't see that as often in the World Cup? Players in the Euros know each other better. They play against each other every week and the referees know these players really well. The style of refereeing is relatively the same now throughout Europe because all of these referees do the Champions League and these players all play in the Champions League. These are basically refereed like Champions League games. You won't have that in the World Cup as much. Also, what seperates the Euros from the World Cup is all the teams are relatively decent so they all will play football and go out and try and win the game. Very few teams try and defend for 90 minutes.