36' Shaffelburg booked for entering without permission - He and the Canada technical staff insistent that he was given permission; Miscommunication or just gamesmanship? EDIT: I couldn't see
Now i remember this guy..unfortunately. It just seems like there is always things going on in his game that don't feel confidently handled. If that makes any sense.
Not sure either. Initially Venezuela took the free kick before the whistle, so Sampaio made them retake it. Maybe Shaffelburg was confused by the ref waving for the second attempt at the restart?
That was quite a collision right as Sampaio ran past the play; it looked worthy of a stoppage at some point.
Totally and completely on Sampaio. He wave for the Venezuelan's to take the kick and get on with it. Except it was from the exact same angle that Shaffelburg was positioned at. It looked, to a player waiting for a beckoning from the referee, exactly what it was supposed to look like. A stronger referee would have mea culpa'd that and explained things to the Venezuelans, who wanted a cheap yellow card. Instead, Sampaio gives the yellow. But hey, he probably got to blow his whistle 17 times stoppage to stoppage there, so all is good for him.
100% this is what happened. One might want to say Shaffelburg needs to know play has to restart first. But play did sort of restart AND we also want player's reacting to referee signals there. I'm really not even blaming Sampaio for making that signal as it probably was reflexive and then it's just a bad coincidence that Shaffelburg is an unintended target of it. But once people realize that Shaffelburg isn't just walking on to the field for no reason, Sampaio needs to exercise his judgment. It's not like Shaffelburg was trying to commit misconduct for some tactical reason. He just casually strolled back on during a stoppage because he thought the referee told him to do so.
One thing I have to say for Sampaio... he's on top of the play. But he's missing things left, right, and centre. And far too picky when he does call stuff.
I guess I've just conflated the good Argentinian refs of the past few cycles with CONMEBOL being good because the average ref in this tournament has been a dumpster fire.
The last CONMEBOL referee not from Argentina and not named Ricci who has been objectively good at a World Cup is... Larrionda? Valenzuela had a pretty okay tournament in Qatar but now we'll have to see if he can sustain that.
55' and the attempted "quick restart" looked comically stupid but they never gave us a good replay. Sampaio's inability to manage it other than being a traffic cop was evident, though.
And now the GK grabbing the ball from the Canadian player on the touchline for a throw-in... and no caution? This kind of stuff makes you just not enjoy the game.