Match 2: KOR : CZE - OMAR (EGY)

[#FIFAWorldCup2026]
🇰🇷 Corea del Sur vs Chequia 🇨🇿
A: Amin Mohamed 🇪🇬
A1: Mahmoud Abouelregal 🇪🇬
A2: Ahmed Hossam Taha 🇪🇬
4to: Juan Calderon 🇨🇷
5to: Juan Carlos Mora 🇨🇷
VAR: Mahmoud Ashour 🇪🇬
AVAR: Joe Dickerson 🇺🇸
SVAR: Marco Di Bello 🇮🇹 pic.twitter.com/DKqVwylyDb

— ArbitroInternacional (@ArbitroInteBlog) June 8, 2026

 

Little confused by this. He's a guy who wasn't even on the FIFA or CONCACAF radar 18 months ago and now he's at a World Cup and, at the moment, in pole position to have a whistle in 2030. That's quite a rise.

Also, AVAR isn't a big thing relatively speaking but if you're talking about getting a bunch of matches and being actively involved in a World Cup, way better to be involved in the first literal matchday than wait to get a call early in MD2. FIFA has shown they use their VMOs until they feel like they've screwed up. Dickerson has an opportunity to not screw up and get more games and more responsibility. I would imagine he's very excited about this appointment.

 

He's a backup assistant referee. FIFA has been assigning these at their tournaments for a long time now. Other competitions have followed suit.

In theory, the role is limited to being a reserve assistant in case one gets injured. In practice, he'll help with preparing substitutions, policing the technical areas if things get particularly heated (and likely policing one of the two technical areas during hydration breaks), and helping to facilitate any VAR reviews. In the event of some gross misconduct, his eyes and reporting would matter, but that type of thing would be exceedingly rare.

 

Bumping since this is down the board. Not too much so far.

 

As I write that, 12' is interesting to the extent the Korean attacker who headed the ball over the bar was getting hugged and had his jersey pulled as he did it. No real shout for a penalty, so I get it from a practical sense. But if you wanted an example of some pretty consequential where a VAR looks the other way and an indication that the bar for holding is going to be high (or possibly maddeningly inconsistent) that's a good first data point.

 

I thought 16' was the first foul of the match, but it appears I've missed one. Fast-paced stuff back and forth but still not much actionable to do from a referee standpoint.

 

I think that's just bad ARing.

 

Fascinating how easily that Czech player's jersey just ripped. It was definitely grabbed, but I can see how a foul wouldn't be initially called based on purely observing what happened. Didn't seem like it was enough to tear a jersey like that. Once you see it and insist on a kit change, though, you do look sort of foolish for not penalizing the action that caused it. One of those weird ones. Good thing it wasn't in the penalty area!

 

Get off our lawn!

 

What makes you say that?

I always struggle trying to assess matches like this, with referees I don't know well, when you get a 0-0 half time with zero cards, zero penalty appeals, and no real tough management opportunities. Like, sure, he did nothing wrong, I guess. But I didn't see a single thing that impressed me either. At the end of the day you've got to referee what is in front of you but at the same time I feel like truly world class referees sort of standout even when there's no reason to standout (and I'm saying something different than scenarios where referees make it about themselves).

I don't know. Honest question. That half ended and my thought was "meh, okay." So to see you write "solid, keep it up" makes me wonder if you saw something to justify that or you maybe just grade on a different curve than I do.