I came here thinking it was worth some discussion among the learned. But apparently not. I guess going for and getting the ball does matter sometimes. As for the time of the match, why would it matter here? Italy would only have to kill off a few minutes to take it to PKs.
I’m not certain there is a lot to talk about. If you think he went in studs up and endangered the opponent, it is red. If you think he was merely reckless and the studs came up only because of contact with the ball, it’s yellow. Neither choice is ever going to be reversed by VAR as clear and obvious error as both positions can be credibly defended under the LOTG.
Overall, a very well officiated Euro. All involved can hold their head up high. One can hope to see the same in WC 2022, but I've watched all of them since 1982, and hold little hope for that.
Yellow card is the only possible decision for UEFA in the scene where Jorginho was cautioned (clip), by the way. The most dangerous contact which the Italy player made was on the ball, before coming down onto Grealish's leg with medium intensity. They internally threw out a comparable RC given in the Bosnia-Herzegovina vs. Greece qualifier in March 2019 (where the intense contact was with the ball). Such fouls are clearly only reckless for them. By the way, to me it anyway it is pretttyyyy obvious that VAR basically took the yellow card decision themselves, though Kuipers perceived the danger of the challenge, I don't think he really caught what happened. In general, very good performance by Björn Kuipers! He should really be proud of a top class performance in the final, and a masterful career as a whole. Well done!
Wait, what? You're saying that you believe that Kuipers and the VAR ignored protocol and the VAR recommended a yellow?
I get that UEFA wants a yellow there, but I just think they are totally wrong there in their thinking. I know I'm dieing alone on this hill, but that's a red and it should have been sent down. The more I watch that the more I see it as a garbage and dirty play. Why would you go studs over the ball on a play like that where your opponent is performing a slide tackle? You should be either trying to nick the ball ahead of Graelish or flick it over? Why try and trap it with your studs like that? If Graelish wasn't performing a slide tackle and was going in standing up and Jorginho smashed his ankle instead of his thig, everyone would say easy red card. Look at Chiellini's reaction on the play. He knew it should be a red card. That's why he was in Kuipers' face more than anyone else. If that happened to Chiellini he would be showing to Kuipers' the cleat mark on his thigh. Jorginho knew it was a red card as well. Why do you think he stayed down after the tackle? He wasn't injured. He knew what he did. Again, only referee nerds care, but it is troubling that UEFA, an ex-pro in Twellman, and an ex-elite referee (Clattenburg) don't seem to think there was anything wrong with that tackle.
I think this is a simple question of what is versus what should be. @Mikael_Referee nails what instruction from UEFA has recently been. Having so much contact flush on the ball is what gets Jorginho off the hook. The subsequent contact, after his foot slides off the ball, is seen as less objectionable (and I suppose somehow less dangerous?!) than if the studs landed directly on the opponent. I don't think you are alone in thinking that shouldn't be the case, but it's been undeniable of late that it is. So where I'd disagree with you is the statement that "it should have been sent down." Kuipers called that how he's been instructed after looking right at it. Dankert isn't going to then determine Kuiper's decision is somehow a clear and obvious error. You're asking for something that defies logic. Again, you're not alone. This type of challenge (both when coming in and down with studs and when tackling and having the foot slide up) used to be a much more common red card because everyone who mattered understood that the nature of the challenge could result in this sort of awful foul contact even if the initial contact was flush on the ball. Basically, people understood physics and that a lot of force from the sole of the foot on a moving sphere had a high degree of likelihood of causing the foot to move off the ball and into nearby space (the opponent's body/leg) so players needed to be held accountable. But that's not how we're operating today at this level. Maybe--maybe--in a less important game or a match with a lopsided scoreline you'd get a top level referee to be a little more draconian on a challenge like that. But right now in UEFA it's a pipedream for any match of importance. So any expectation for a VAR send down there is misplaced.
Not sure how to respond to this as it has little to do with the content of my post and even less to do with reality.
In a forum where everyone accepts the use of still frames -> Jorginho escapes with a yellow card after this challenge on Jack Grealish https://t.co/vENEmjc0s8#ITAENG #Euro2020 pic.twitter.com/KraHVPOEIe— Mail Sport (@MailSport) July 11, 2021 How is "stomp" less to do "with reality" as opposed to quibbling whether Jorginho "went in with studs showing", which conjures up the image of a sliding tackle by Jorginho? Perhaps I stumbled onto a section of BigSoccer where an obscure dialect of English is spoken.
If you want to get really disillusioned with it then you can download UEFA's latest Referee Assistance Program and see how they want referees to assess tackles and challenges in black and white (link). To be honest, I genuinely don't recognise refereeing anymore from yesteryear looking at those assessments.
I thought he refereed the game like it's American football. In American football, you can't kick people and you can't trip people. He called all those fouls. In American football, it's part of the game to push people with your arms. He didn't call any fouls for use of arms except for the horse collar...which is a penalty in American football. Everyone here loved his game, and you guys are the experts. But I was very disenchanted with how much arm contact he allowed beaten defenders deploy. Why do players dive? Because too many referees allow defenders to get away with non-soccer plays like arm bars and grabbing unless the attacker hits the ground.
Still not a stomp regardless of your still. He came over the ball and his studs hit the player. It’s red or yellow depending upon how you look at it. But it was never a stomp.
There was no red card missed in this game in my opinion. Awesome final and a decently reffed game especially for a major final.
I would just point out that you are talking about two different things. Especially at the elite, senior, international level, there is an amount of contact that is expected and allowed, which is not itself more than...contact. Holding, pushing, and impeding are themselves actions which are (or are not) judged to have happened by the referee(s), and at the elite,senior, international level the bars for all these are much higher than what you would see locally or with youth. The Laws are clear in what they say if not always clear in what they mean. Pushing is disallowed but not every push is a Push. I hope that helps in terms of how to think about this.
Regardless of how I feel about Jorginho's tackle, overall it was a fine and expected performance by Kuipers. Overall, it was a very well officiated tournament. There were exceptions (see Brych), but, overall, these guys showed why they are such elite referees and why the UEFA referee program is so strong. You pretty much could have put almost any of the officials invited to this tournament on the game yesterday and they would have delivered a fine performance. We've now had two major international tournaments completed with the use of VAR (world cup in Russia and this). That's about 114 matches with VAR and we didn't have one red card given for violent conduct on the field or via VAR. We also didn't get one red card given via OFR for SFP in either tournament. I know in Russia we had one or two OFRs for VC/SFP (Portugal vs. Iran and I think Serbia vs. Costa Rica) and the referees produced yellow both times. Was there one OFR for SFP or VC at this tournament? I don't think there was. Now to be fair in this tournament, other than the bite in the Germany vs. France game and maybe yesterday's tackle, I genuinely can't recall one tackle or incident where I thought it needed to be sent down or given. Yesterday's tackle doesn't even qualify as it's not wrong per UEFA instructions. The player's behavior has been excellent in this tournament, but it still is just shocking how we haven't had one players sent off via VAR for SFP or VC in a major tournament.
Agreed to an extent. I think insofar as calling the fouls and having the same or similar line of intervention on misconduct, sure. And that's a testament to Rosetti and his UEFA team. But I don't think we should underestimate how good Kuipers is--and a few others who truly make up the upper echelon are--for occasions like this. Through some combination of raw management talent, experience and reputation, they can handle matches like this in a way that others can't. For all my criticism of Brych in Belgium-Italy, it's why if push ever came to shove I would still want Brych on a Final like this before a well-performing referee like Karasev or Siebert. Two things. First, the Sweden SFP card was given via VAR. But second, I think you need to focus on the player behavior and the refereeing, though, right? One of your other points over the years has been the lack of SFP cards in UEFA elite competitions, particularly in knockout stages. On top of the one to Sweden, there were three other SFP red cards given--all probably harsher than the punishment line for past tournaments (and definitely harsher than WC18). So you have referees giving more red cards and you (us, really!) unable to come up with any missed red cards via VAR except for maybe the Rudiger bite. That's remarkable. I'm sure at the end of WC18 we had a list of 6-10 plausibly "missed" red cards. What I'm saying is you can't analyze VAR at this tournament the way we could at WC18 and lump the two together. At WC18, stuff got missed. You're seeing WC18 all over again--likely on steroids--in the Gold Cup. Here in UEFA, the lack of intervention on red cards is because all of them got called except two... one of them was immediately corrected and the other (the bite) got ignored and everyone who matters seemed fine with it. So unless the Rudiger bite is a black mark on the tournament that can't be forgotten, you have to say VAR worked great at this tournament for misconduct. Whether that's because player behavior is just better, the officiating itself is just better, or the everyone just got really lucky is up to individual interpretation.