Those post tournament yellow cards are really going to show Uruguay! I can't help but shake my head. So much of this was predictable.
Disgraceful from Uruguay and disgraceful from the referees. Stand up for yourselves. Could riddance to Uruguay. Couldn't have happened to a more deserving team.
Is it safe to say that some online video will pop up soon, showing them doing something worse in the hallway?
If that doesn't sum up everything right there I don't know what does. You have Seibert holding up the yellow cards for red card offenses after a team has been eliminated. Just show the red cards and let them have the suspensions for upcoming qualifiers.
The well eventually had to run dry for Germany. They went from Merk to Fandel to Stark to Brych over a span of what 25+ years of elite officiating (Fandel wasn't elite, but he somehow convinced UEFA to give him a CL Final and Euro 2008 invite and took advantage of the vacuum after Merk's retirement). This was bad, especially when compared to watching Brych.
For those of us who missed this game, can anyone give a quick summary? It seems like a lot of chaos so I’ll probably end up watching the whole thing later but I’d like to know what to see
I was waiting for him to pull out red there. He didn't, panicked, and ran away. I do wonder what Uruguay's players would have done if he had started handing out reds there, though.
I've been critical of the penalty decision, and I don't think Siebert has the management skills for this sort of game, but the Uruguay reaction has nothing to do with Siebert's skills. It's all about the penalty decision. You could be the best referee in the World on that field and, assuming he made the same call as Siebert, the players would've chased him down the tunnel as well. So with regards to whether or not this assignment was a bridge too far for Siebert, I don't think the scenes at the end are evidence of that. I don't think it was realistic to expect any ref to start going gung-ho with the cards there at a World Cup, as much as I'd love to see that in my wildest fantasies. Any referee at this level is just going to try to get out of there instead of showing a bunch of mostly consequence-free cards just to make a point (unfortunately).
But, would you (or the best referee in the world, rather) have made the same call as Siebert? You gave a relatively soft penalty for Ghana using VAR after annulling a very close offside (that latter part isn't your fault, but it's part of the perceived reality). You then get invited to give a penalty to Uruguay on a pretty substantial physical foul and you look for an out on the technicality of the ball being nicked. And in the overall context, you know the world expects a penalty here. There hasn't been a single OFR rejected all tournament. Now, that's not to say a bad recommendation shouldn't be rejected. But was this it? Was this the hill to die on? Sorry, but Siebert made his bed here. You don't give the penalty because you're afraid of the consequences if you don't. But understanding the overall context, atmospherics and sense of justice here would steer you away from any inclination to deny this OFR. Siebert went looking for something that he didn't have to find and it resulted in the wrong decision and led to all the stuff at the end that he wasn't equipped to handle. I've got very little sympathy.
It's about having some pride and self-respect and standing up for yourself and standing up for your profession/referee trade. It's about having courage and self-respect to not allow someone to walk all over you and run away. Just gutless in a tournament full of professional referees not willing to do the right thing sometimes.
Every Grassroots ref in the world is let down by a referee getting shoved at the World Cup and only yellow cards being shown.
If this is as bad as you’re describing it: 1) What should Uruguay’s penalty be? I’d say at least a 3 point penalty to start the 2026 qualifiers. 2) Is there a current referee who would have had a prayer of managing that?
If they went any further ban them for half a year or a year from club football. And call the cops on them.