Should have been a red card in my opinion. Bad miss for Geiger, BUT in my opinion only he has been one the best referees we have seen at the world cup. Definitely deserving of a semi or final match.
There certainly is holding on every corner or set piece in the attacking third. That said, it happens because referees fail to sanction fouls in the penalty area. Secondly and more importantly in this instance the corner kick is aimed specifically at the Nigerian being held (bear hugged) by Patrice Evra. It's not some attacker who isn't actively involved in the play.
As a neutral, I see this Evra situation as particularly unfortunate because it wasn't a case where both teams were doing it. Nigeria was doing little or no holding on these plays and then ended up allowing the gamewinner on a corner kick. Even so, I'm surprised at the negative tone of some of the discussion here. For comparison, the BBC announcers felt that Geiger did well (min 86 "he's had a good game"). One thing that struck me was how strong his running was in the closing minutes of the match. He looked ready to go 120.
Marks conditioning is second to none. He is always next to or close to play. There were a couple of counters in yesterday's game were as the ball goes out for a corner or a goal kick he is at the top of the penalty area. It would be interesting to see him go up against Irmatov in the beep test.
Wow. Having watched the match on the DVR after first reading all 200+ comments, I was expecting to see that the referee s@#$ the bed completely. Nothing could be further from the truth. Massref, Lucky and srsmith made really good posts already and I just want to echo what they said. Look at the big picture, people. The referee did well. With all the negative comments, I don't know if you folks are just being overly critical of one of our own, or if you don't know what the he$& you're talking about. The ARs were bang on. The referee was in complete control of this match. Things that weren't cautioned, were done so on purpose. The referee saw the whole Giroud elbow and handled it. He saw the bear hug and didn't award a PK. Nobody on the field appealed for it. NOBODY. The announcers didn't even think it was worth mentioning. Was it ugly? Yes it was. But you had a short, slight attacker facing away from goal with a defender in good position and the ball floating square across the goal area. The attacker was not going to score by knocking the ball off the back of his head. I kept looking for the perceived bias in France's favor and all the evidence of overly physical, borderline dirty play. I didn't find any of either and honestly don't know what some of you were looking at. Nigeria were awarded more free kicks in the attacking third than France, by my estimation. Very unlucky for the Nigeria player who was injured on the bad tackle. Certainly could have been red. Absolutely does not look red at full speed. Yes, parse it on slow mo and/or punish based on the resulting injury if that's your thing, and yes red makes complete sense. The same Nigeria player was guilty of committing, not receiving, one of the worst fouls in the 1st half. And he wasn't booked for it. I didn't see him being targeted at all by the French players. Not one person mentioned that the referee did not appear to be giving any card at all and quickly and wisely appeared to change his mind based on something he saw AFTER the challenge - either the writhing pain on the attacker's face or the look of remorse on the fouler's face. Look at the referee's body language and eyes during the challenge. He didn't think it was much at all until AFTER the foul occurred. The referee wasn't out to lunch, he didn't lose the plot, he didn't miss stuff off the ball, he didn't miss clear yellow card tackles, he didn't look nervous, his ARs didn't let him down with poor offside decisions. There were no mass confrontations, no shenanigans, no dust-ups, no simulation. The referee saw everything and sold every decision - not all of them correct - with world-class salesmanship. His body language, mannerisms, facial expressions were perfect. He covered the field effortlessly. His foul recognition and foul selection were spot-on. Time and again, I found myself agreeing with his decisions - both fouls and particularly some of the no-calls. The referee, along with the help of the players who deserve credit for such an honest and earnest display, produced an attractive football match. It was entertaining to watch. He made it look easy. No small feat for a knockout round match at the World Cup. He handled the match like a boss. I'm one who is more than willing to criticize a referee when I feel he's had a bad performance. This was not a bad performance.
Not always going to get every call correct, however, this is definitely a performance to be used as example on how to do things right.
I did not think this was a good performance by Geiger. AR's were spot on though! I think you can get away with the no-call on Evra, but if he blows the whistle there I'm guessing he receives plenty of support as well. Same goes for the Giroud elbow to Mikel's face. As someone else pointed out earlier, how is that nothing when Pepe simply putting his head to Mueller's is a send off? And the tackle in 54' minute has to be red for me too, which seems to be the consensus here anyways. I don't think this performance will mar him at all in the long term with FIFA, as he's been awesome to this point. But unfortunately, I will be surprised if this isn't the last time we'll see the Americans/Canadian in the tournament. Hope I'm wrong! If so, face elbowing, ankle stomping and bear hugging on corners will all be allowed in my matches...
I think the Missed Red was the Big screw up.(Worse tackle than most of the other red's given this Tourney.) All other instances were could have gone either way calls. Have to say French have been getting bit of luck in decisions this tournament so far.
Good analysis, IMHO. I particularly agree with your comments about the bad tackle being red when viewed in slo mo, but not red when viewed at full speed. The game is played at full speed and viewed by the ref -- just once, mind you -- at full speed.
I was only able to watch the first half, and I think that went really well. The bear hug was the only thing I saw that could really be construed as controversial. I expected to read or watch something talking up controversy based on what I read here, but there hasn't been any. I watched the second half later and I thought it went really well. Again, the ankle tackle did look awful on video, but that was really it. Given the way I've seen Mark referee, and what I have seen from this world cup, the referees must have been instructed to manage things out. You can go all the way back to the Ghana v US to see that. I think the fate of the US team and the suitability of different matchups will have a bigger impact on Mark than a couple of incidents in this match. Of course if this was Irmatov, he'd be in line for the final on the back of that performance!
For those that want the hold on the CK called, flash back to last WC and Coulimby calling it on the US! All hell broke lose on here about "happens on every corner" etc etc etc Unless it's clear that held player was going to have a clear shot at the ball, no call will come. Should this change? My opinion, yes, but the world cup is NOT the place to change culture.
Yes, much cleaner method - everyone can see, no hunting in the grass, no landing on edges, no flipping from palm to back of hand, etc. I have been using that method for several years. Did you see the ref in the US v Germany match that used a similar technique but instead of catching it between his hands, actually caught it on his open palm, and it did not even bounce?
The more I've thought about it, the more I'm fully on-board with this assessment of his chances going forward. Anyone who has seen the FIFA Futuro instruction clips knows that one of the reddest of red cards was a tackle Nishimura gave only yellow on in his first game of WC10. He got multiple additional games, including Brazil v Netherlands and 4th on the Final (not to mention the Opener this year). Irmatov, among other misses, failed to sanction a blatant, blatant SFP in the Olympics. He still went to Confed Cup and this World Cup. If FIFA likes your overall match management and you avoid a huge controversial incident, you seem to be in pretty good shape--whether you referee well (Nishimura before this tournament) or not (for my taste and others, Irmatov). Rizzoli, with his miss of Costa's headbutt, might be another example--particularly if he gets a QF. Even if FIFA says this is bright red (and I'm not sure how certain that is... on the 1-12 Futuro scale, I think this is at a 10--not 11 or 12), I can't see it being a major factor affecting future assignments. I won't run through everything again like I did in the Assignments thread, but I think the USMNT and other factors have more of a negative impact on Geiger's chances than his performance in this game. We focus so much on individual controversial incidents, we sometimes miss the bigger picture, I think. Geiger managed a great game, had impeccable help from the line, and produced an event with a couple misses. No major flare-ups, no errors of commission and nothing close to a "oh, he's done" sort of incident. I suspect you'll see him as a 4th on a QF, particularly if the US doesn't advance. Then it's really all a bit of a lottery, with team advancement, politics and the performance of other referees playing a far more critical role than his performance in this match.
Now this raises an interesting question. Will any round of 16 referees receive a quarter final assignment?
For what it is worth, kicker (the German soccer bible) rated Geiger a 2,5, which is good+.* The comments were that he did a lot of running, but at times was a bit lenient and there was a delay in acknowledging his AR's (but he was right on all of them). * The rating system is 1 (best) through 6 (worst). The "average" score is a 3,5. Of the six Round of 16 games played so far, his score was 3rd best: both Webb and Kuipers were rated 1,5; Ricci had a 3; Prozenca (sp?) a 4 and the Australian ref a 4,5.
I wouldn't be surprised at all to see him as a 4th on another game (though even Nishimura was used as a 4th after his error). I just doubt that he'll get another whistle, which I guess isn't saying all that much considering there are only 7 matches left. As I said, I don't think it was a great match for him, but def a great learning experience. At the same time he was able to get the experience without it being marish either. There's no question Nigeria felt hard done by given that all of the big incidents seemed to go France's way. Still, given his overall performance and the fact that he is eligible to be back for 2018 I think FIFA will want to give him some more experience. One thing I'm a bit surprised about on this board is the lack of concern over the Giroud elbow...why does that seem to be considered "trifling"? An off the ball elbow to the face is generally considered VC. And here it is barely discussed. I'm shocked Mikel didn't make more of it at the time, and it seems like a mistake that he didn't overreact, though he did call for a RC after the match apparently.
I think the Giroud thing wasn't a big deal because he managed it out and everyone accepted the decision. After the fact Mikel complained, but that's as much about the end result as it is the incident. I look at what happened to Pepe and, if I'm honest, it was harsh especially compared to the Muntari and Jones incident that resulted in nothing. A red card there would have been awful IMO.
Er, what? Is there a legitimate question in there? Please don't play the Webster game with me on this one. You know full well those words have specific meaning in the LOTG.
Picky, picky -- you want a discussion of referee decisions to be based on the LOTG? How silly. For those not actually familiar with how the terms are defined, IFAB's Interpretations and Guidelines set out the official definitions fo careless, reckless, and excessive force: Careless, reckless, using excessive force “Careless” means that the player has shown a lack of attention or consideration when making a challenge or that he acted without precaution. • No further disciplinary sanction is needed if a foul is judged to be careless “Reckless” means that the player has acted with complete disregard to the danger to, or consequences for, his opponent. • A player who plays in a reckless manner must be cautioned “Using excessive force” means that the player has far exceeded the necessary use of force and is in danger of injuring his opponent. • A player who uses excessive force must be sent off
If it was Messi or Neymar who had their foot broken by the French with only a yellow, you can guarantee they would mention Geiger, and the whole world would be talking about it. But hey it's only Onazi, and it's only Nigeria, and France were supposed to win anyways, so of course nobody is talking about it. Worst officiated match of the tourney. Or to put it another way, the match whose outcome that was the most determined by the ref. the ironic thing is that I think Geiger wanted to not influence the match by not making controversial calls bit he ended up influencing it by NOT MAKING THE CALLS.
We agree about the overall performance. Flare-ups? Yes. A few questionable decisions? Sure. Did Mark and team perform at a level that warrants another game? Absolutely. http://www.soccerrefereeusa.com/ind...for-geiger-crew,-3rd-time’s-a-charm…-or-is-it
he reffed the game, the way most of us would have. the elbow thing looked bad, until you saw the angle that mark had. His AR was right there too, and would have definitely given him input whethere it is yellow, red or AC. the yellow/orange card to mathoudi- unfortunately the nigerian player rolled his ankle as a result of the collision, making it look worse, and obviously the pain worse. Did not warrant a red. ARs were awesome. if not a centre, probably a 4th official in a semi. Would de bleckere, rosetti, bartres, or stark done it differently- probably not. Well done Mark, you did us proud