Match 98 [QF] : ESP : BEL - OLIVER (ENG)

He’s just so smooth on these UEFA matches. The players all respect him, and Oliver will engage in a calm manner.

When we keep saying his games don’t have many flashpoints. At some point, the constant has to be the referee working the game.

 

Certainly high praise, as Kuipers is probably my favorite official since getting back into the game. Kuipers had such a wonderful feel for the international game, and he just looked like he was enjoying himself when he was on the field.

 

There have been some real doozies coming on this forum during the week. I guess that’s what happens when you have a World Cup.

Probably Arsenal fans. They still haven’t gotten over the time Oliver gave Martinelli back to back cautions several years ago.

 

There was a play a couple of years ago where Ted Unkel collided with a player. I want to say it was a Columbus game. I think it might’ve led to a goal, I forget. But anyways, I can’t find the article right now (Wayback Machine aficionado, @ManiacalClown, any help?), but PRO published something saying that Ted was in an optimal position and tough luck for the player, and that it was correct not to stop play.

This is preferable for me. I mean, Olmo had every opportunity to avoid Oliver here. This stuff sets a bad precedent. Maybe players should be aware of their surroundings too, the onus shouldn’t be entirely on the referee.

 

Oliver did a great job, but he clearly did not get the memo about letting things go and keeping YC’s in the pocket. Or Oliver just doesnt care, or a new memo has gone out.

 

Sure, it makes sense in this case. But it’s a slippery slope and I’d much rather we didn’t try going down it at all. Because where do you draw the line? Is every contact between a referee and a player an automatic stoppage? If so, are we disallowing goals for players bumping into the referee 15 yards from the ball? Are we stopping play when a desperate player runs into a referee to try to get play stopped? If not, how hard will the first referee who doesn’t stop play in a dubious gray area get criticized?

Once you open this Pandora’s box, it’s never getting closed. This policy is shortsighted.

 

YT timestamp 4:25

I still remember that play very well almost 4 years ago... alas. (Yes, the referee eventually subbed himself off)

 

There referee has his back to the player, the player sees the referee the whole time and runs directly into him. And the idea is we’re supposed to reward him for that by stopping the opponent’s promising attack? Which the player himself probably wouldn’t have been able to do in the best of conditions? It’s nonsense.

 

If that’s where you want to draw the line, whatever. But the bottom line is that’s not where the IFAB has drawn it. If that’s how they wanted these plays ti be called, they could have written that. But they haven’t done that. They drew the line at contact with the ball. They don’t, at least until they change the law, want to disallow those sorts of goals. Referees, or even confederations, shouldn’t get to just make up a new rule because they want such a rule to exist. Common sense has to be applied within the framework of the Laws of the Game. Making up a rule from scratch goes too far.

 

honestly you don't want "if a referee collides with a player he has to stop play" in the law, bucause that opens up all kinds of shenanigans. Better to keep it off the books, and let the refs do the whole Law 18 thing.

 

I never said ALL Arsenal fans thought that way. But it’s pretty undeniable when you look at various social media sites that a lot of Arsenal fans do not have a favorable opinion of Michael Oliver.

 

Tim Ford from MLS was the crisis situation with running into the ref that led to a second half stoppage time goal taking it from 1-0 to 2-0, the offside notwithstanding



I really thought that this would cause IFAB to add this to the next version for drop balls. They didn't. And it seems like UEFA/FIFA refs are now just doing this extrajudicially Now don't get me wrong, this is 10000% what should be done. But I mean technically this is a misapplication of the LOTG, unless these particular leagues/confederations have directives in writing that go to teams?

@MassachusettsRef you're saying that allowing a goal like that to happen could be a career killer. But what if FIFA had not given a directive to do it, it happens, and Oliver stops play outside the LOTG? Now he has taken a WC QF goal off the board by, seemingly, making up his own rule. How would that not also be a career killer, even if it's the "common sense" result? Obviously this is just a hypothetical, but it could theoretically happen to other rules that aren't 100% written down

 

I also just don’t think “fans and media will HATE you” is a good reason to do anything as a referee. I mean, if that’s what you’re afraid of, you’re in the wrong line of work.

I think the point of UEFA / FIFA increasingly getting used to writing their own rules before getting the IFAB’s approval is the more interesting case, from a philosophical standpoint of “What divine mandate forces UEFA or FIFA to follow the rules the IFAB writes instead of making up their own?”

 

Not to criticise this perfectly legitimate pov (I disagree personally but is all about opinions) but if the Infantino vandalism not only on football, but also on its rules has taught anything, it is - it is better to leave things at the discretion of officials rather than explicitly write them into the laws texts.

For example: top referees understood that accidental, SPA fouls that most people didn't really notice should not be yellow cards after an advantage was successfully applied, but cynical fouls which took out a key player from an attack should be. This principle was used by top-level referees perfectly for thirty or so years, but Infantino felt the need to codify this into the LotG and removed all discretion and feeling for the game from referees. There are numerous more examples of this which have slipped my mind. Quietly turning BLATANT corner kicks into goalkicks was another one - this made a lot of sense for the world's TOP VARs at TOP competitions in FIFA, but is pretty much vandalism for 90% of competitions, particularly in domestic play, where the VARs are not as skilled. And this isn't even to speak of grassroots, amateur, non-televised (non-VAR!) football which constitutes >99% of the game.

Infantino has turned 'the Laws of the Game' into 'manual for referees doing professional games on the tele' and, if I may use an Americanism, it sucks.

 

Is it overly critical to say the referee needs to keep track of Dani Olmo’s position on that Spain corner play?

 

The wisdom of ITOOTR being in the Laws is a fading memory . . .

 

IFAB can’t account for everything.

At some point, you have judgment calls Until players start wearing sensors on every part of their body to calculate the force at which a player challenges another player, the referee will have to decide.

When things seem to be all spelled out in the LOTG, we get absurdities like referees not stopping a game while a player is lying a crumpled heap, the team in possession has the ball at midfield and isn’t inclined to attack, and the team defending has backed off and is looking at the referee.

I wish I had saved a clip of every time that’s happened in the Cup. It’s absurd.

It’s spelled out in the Laws — to an extent. And referees are understandably loathe to act as physics diagnosing an injury from afar. But this is what happens when you strip away someone’s confidence that making a judgment call is OK.

Did Oliver do the right thing and get the desired outcome? Yes. So what’s the problem?

 

100% agree here. But how much are a lot of these absurd changes down to Infantino or are there actors involved in this?

I would imagine he has more pressing things to attend such as getting Trump to like him and know his first name than sitting around modifying the LOTG. Or maybe he truly doesn’t?

How much of this is down to actors such as Collina who I feel watches a game and sees something that “doesn’t seem fair” jots it down in his notebook and presents it at the next IFAB meeting?