Meanwhile, I love the dissent card for making the TV signal on the penalty appeal. Immediate and forceful. Of course, Tim Howard says I've got everything backward...
So you'd need some major changes in the next 45 minutes to get around France v Argentina in the next round now. And if you adhere to confederational neutrality, it will be very interesting to see who lands there. If Penso is slated to be used, it looks like there or the Spain-Japan(?) match.
So the men's QF matchups are: Morocco : United States Japan : Spain Egypt : Paraguay France : Argentina Can't resist playing fantasy assignor so usual stipulation that I'll get this all wrong, but... If you presume Falcon and Abatti will both work, there is one semifinal that can have a CONMEBOL referee. So Abatti could wait for that given Argentina is still alive. That means Falcon would likely go on Japan : Spain (he already had US and after the Morocco match, that doesn't seem sensible anyway). If Penso is working, which I think she is, that means she gets France : Argentina (unless the likely attention on that match pushes Collina in a different direction but, if so, which direction? Fischer?). Would Nyberg slot in on the Morocco-United States game and get both teams again? Normally I'd say no, but given Eskas and Letexier are out, I'm not sure what the alternative is unless Abatti works there and isn't saved for a semifinal. That leaves Egypt-Paraguay. And I have no idea who that is. South America out, Africa out, no UEFA referees left, (probably?) Arabic AFC referees out, Kawana-Waugh maybe not good enough(?)... so CONCACAF here again? The restrictions on Letexier and Eskas make this way more challenging than it otherwise could have been. Taking it all in sum, I think my best guess right now is: France-Argentina - FISCHER Japan-Spain - FALCON Morocco-United States - NYBERG Egypt-Paraguay - PENSO
"Controversy" seems overblown given that from all reports there was no confusion from the teams that the game wasn't over.
Why, though? What did Nyberg do that negatively affected Morocco? Also the US was fine with him. Don't get me wrong, it gives me pause. But it can't be Falcon (obviously). CONCACAF referees and other UEFA referees are out. CAF referees are out. Frankly, the AFC referees aren't good enough. It seems like it must be Nyberg or Abatti, right? So I won't be shocked if it's Abatti but you also can save Abatti for.a semfinal, too, where he might be needed.
Also he oversaw a situation that took away a goal so Morocco would win. Don't see them having a problem with him.
Morocco (and Moroccan fans) were hugely unhappy with him up until the goal was taken away. They found him biased towards Argentina (one YC was for their GK coming out of the box to dissent after an Argentinian YC), and the lengthy stoppage time added fuel to the fire. You also saw the complaints on this forum! Granted, they were largely appeased once VAR intervened, but I doubt they would be happy to see him again. I haven't been following closely, but why are Eskas and Letexier out?
They both have women's matches today. Both would be well under 48 hours rest. I suppose any rule can be broken but that would be a pretty embarrassing standard to have to break.
And fair enough on all the stoppage time. I guess Abatti is a fine answer. I've actually wondered if Nyberg would get a women's KO match because all other UEFA and CONMEBOL male officials already crossed over. But zero UEFA referees on the QF does look a little odd.
The intersting thing on this, to me, is that I actually have doubts that it is a VAR red card if it's not given live. She's late, she's high and there's contact with the head. That said, the contact is not flush with the studs and, quite obviously, the Spaniard is ducking down some. I can imagine a VAR reasoning his way out of a clear red card here when you start weighing specific factors. Don't get me wrong, I think it's a great red card. And Eskas reacting immediately to have it is key. But the reason this is red, in my opinion, is Marta came in crazily here and had plenty of time to pull out and adjust, which she did not do. The only reason there wasn't a bad injury is because she ended up essentially going over the head. So the nature of the challenge is 100% SFP for me. But a lot of VARing (and refereeing, for that matter) of late is results-based. And the actual result here is not that bad given what was possible. So I just wonder how things would have gone if Eskas doesn't give this in real-time.
What is going on here? Clearly no offsides imho, this is a carnival. EDIT: Well that was a long trip to the right result. EDIT2: Recap. US scored a goal with a player not involved in an offsides position. Ref held up play for several minutes, then awarded a goal, then yellow carded the Australia coach, then spoke via a headset plugged into a cellphone to someone (presumably VAR people), then called for a VAR review, looked at it on tv for about 7 seconds, then made the VAR signal and pointed at the spot.
I think the only reason it's not offside is because the ball hits #15 Australia. Now, that's a pretty big reason. But it's one that probably goes under the radar for many (and apparently did for the VAR). If that ball doesn't touch #15 Australia, there is a very, very, very strong argument that the US player is interfering with the line of sight. In fact, I'm not sure how you'd be able to get around it. But given the ball is headed down into #15, the line of sight argument sort of goes away in my opinion. It's not so much a play v deflection question about resetting. It's just that it's clear the goalkeeper wasn't affected on a shot on goal as this never was a shot on goal. Honestly, though, this is a scenario I had never really envisaged before. There's a lot more going on here than meets the eye. All that said... the technical malfunctions did not help at all. Letexier tried initially in a very good way to get both coaches involved. But the stop/start nature and the initial reiteration of the goal because VAR was down didn't help, since that ended up getting reversed.
Definitely. It was clear Letexier had no direct communication with the VAR. He told the coaches that. He then went to someone near the fourth who was support staff and indicated it was a goal because VAR was down and there was no way to communicate (so you default to decision on the field). While he was explaining all that to the Australian captain, it seems a mobile connection was established so, given play hadn't restarted, he went back to that support staff and then to the monitor. The idea of having a mobile phone backup is actually standard protocol in MLS and, I presume, most domestic competitions. Interested to learn if it's a required fail-safe with FIFA, too, or if this was an ad hoc fix. The fact that Letexier (initially) so quickly said "can't talk to VAR, goal stands" was kind of surprising to me.
I'm not entirely neurotypical so maybe it's me but I don't understand this thinking at all. Yes, if it were a shot on goal she probably would have been interfering with the line of sight, but it wasn't, and nothing in the rules makes it matter whether it was an attempted shot on goal or not - there's no, for instance, rule about attempting to interfere with play, the way there is attempting to play the ball - and even then, Rule 11 only finds that illegal when it does impact an opposing player. The player in an offsides position *clearly* did not *actually* impact anyone, and putting aside hypothetical facts that changed that fact, I don't see how anyone thinks this was a close call. Indeed, I'm a little surprised there was a call to the monitor - presumably, that was just because of all the chaos.
Admittedly, this is just a weird set of circumstances. So my focus on #15 is a bit weird here, too, I know. Let me try to explain a little better. When the header happens, we don't know if it's a shot or pass, right? Now, you'd be correct in asserting that, per the Laws, that doesn't technically matter. But when dealing with line of sight issues for the goalkeeper, I think it implicitly does. I've never heard of a scenario where a goalkeeper's vision was obstructed on a pass; it's always about whether she could see a shot cleanly. You're right also to talk about impact but the reality is that instructions to officials have been more about factual matters that actually occur rather than impact. And if the ball passes completely behind an attacker in an offside position so that that the goalkeeper has no line of sight whatsoever, instruction has been to punish that as offside. It's pretty undeniable here that, after the header, there's a period where the attacker in an offside position is between the goalkeeper and the ball. So, yeah, the fundamentals here sort of point to offside even if you argue (probably correctly) that the player in the offside position likely didn't prevent the goalkeeper from playing the ball. But that's where I think #15 Australia comes into play. The fact that the ball hits her (or she plays the ball--however you want to phrase it) and that player-to-ball contact is on the left side of the attacker (so visible by the goalkeeper) means that none of this really mattered because the ball was always going to hit #15 and change direction no matter what the goalkeeper could see or could do. In my eyes, that's what Letexier can fall back on to make the offside position question irrelevant. Because then this turns into a situation where the ball is deflecting around on the back post and the goalkeeper has to adjust no matter what and it's not a shot on goal that the keeper couldn't see for a period; it's... something else. I get why someone could look at this and say "of course that's not offside, are you crazy?" But I maintain that this one was a weird one and very complicated. The reaction of the Aussie players, bench and the decision of the VAR himself speaks to that idea. No. That's because the VAR thought this was clearly offside. "Chaos" is not a reason to do an OFR.
So, I'm 0/4... (or 2/8 maybe, as I got two names correct, at least) France : Argentina - TANTASHEV (UZB) Egypt : Paraguay - NYBERG (SWE) Japan : Spain - BEIDA (MTN) Morocco : United States - FALCON (ARG) I'm glad Beida got a match. When I presumed Penso would work this round, I just wasn't sure where he would slot in. Falcon on Morocco seems completely unnecessary and a really bad idea, but what do I know? Nyberg lands where he can land once the other two matches are penciled in. And @Mikael_Referee , what do you think about Tantashev on that match? That could be an all-timer.
I’m not a paid up member of the Tantashev fan club but I’ve watched both his games in this tournament and thought he was pretty solid. Options for this game were pretty limited I guess for a number of reasons.
I'm sorry, this seems a tad myopic. You don't think Moroccans would immediately go to the fact that an Argentine referee screwed them over as revenge if they lose in any sort of controversial fashion? It's not just about a team's relationship with a given individual referee. It's also about the position that the referee is put in. Falcon is in a challenging one for this. Though, admittedly, he was also in such a position for his opening match with France.