There’s two angles from behind the goal that show it perfectly. It could be given live I guess, but I think it would be a very soft foul. There’s not much of a push there, very minimal force (granted, one could argue not much force is needed to unfairly displace and aerial player); it looks notably worse on the “Game” camera than on the good angles. I think no foul is a good call.
#4 DR Congo on #20 Cameroon about 0:55 into this is something: https://www.plus.fifa.com/en/player...d02-40ec-af7e-2628735cd2dc&entryPoint=Default No one reacts. No one appealing for penalty. Everyone is comfortable getting on with it and more lamenting the miss than even raising the question of a foul. But if that's not a deliberate attempt to DOGSO, then I don't know what is. It happens half a second before he's about to get his shot off and he still gets a shot off, so the reality is that this ends up being a "welp, no one cares" moment and I think that means referees (and VARs) are right to stay silent in the current regime. But where's the line? By letter of law, this is absolutely a penalty and a red card. For a really interesting thought experiment, what happens with FVS here? If I'm a coach, I'm asking for the penalty and red. And then if I'm the referee, how do I go to the monitor and say "no?"
Isn't the next highlight (at 1:02) also a pretty clear penalty? Our angle isn't all that good, but Congo #4 has both hands into the Camaroon player trying to receive the serve and executes a reasonably good pointy-ball tackle. Fouled player does appeal, but bupkis.
That's the same play. And, yes, I think the angle at 1:02 is what shows how obvious of a foul it is. The initial broadcast angle is a little more dubious.
Got the time stamp screwed up. The next highlight that starts at 1:06. Edit: But Congo #4 is the miscreant in both cases.
No, you didn't get it wrong. I just presumed you meant that next frame! I think the one you're talking about is a bit more dubious? Seems like there's joint grappling initially, at least. Wouldn't be shocked if it's a clear penalty, but it doesn't stand out like the way the previous DOGSOy one did for me.
https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/46996754/nigeria-boss-dr-congo-loss-did-some-voodoo There's video circulating of him rushing the Congo DR bench right after the final kick (and of him engaging the bench verbally before that) so it's definitely something he was focused on in real-time. Fascinating.
DR Congo did vodoo, here the full video. We call it Prayer #SuperEagles pic.twitter.com/FSNAy4uI4m— 🆃🅷🅴 🅶🆁🅴🅰🆃🅴🆂🆃 (@Road_to_Congo) November 17, 2025
Ah, the video I saw didn't show the DR Congo personnel leaving the technical area. That does add a relevant LOTG angle to it all. Good to see the 4th does engage. Of course, as we see here (and accept universally), policing the boundaries of the technical areas is not something we really do during penalty shootouts anyway, so it gets a little tricky. Walking over the halfway line makes this easier.
39’ of IRQ-UAE, Araki misses a quite clear RC to Iraq coach for delaying the opponent’s restart, swatted the ball away to prevent a quick throw-in.
Because this is just about the only place where people will get this joke: I bet UAE will feel aggrieved if a big decision goes in favor of the Iraqis, I mean, the referee is literally Araki himself!
Incredible ending, 11 minutes into added time, penalty given to Iraq for handball, they're through to the playoffs.
So playoffs will be Iraq, New Caledonia, Bolivia, DR Congo and two CONCACAF teams TBD tonight. Top 2 teams based on the upcoming FIFA rankings get byes and it looks like CONCACAF could get both, though it's unlikely. These are subject to change slightly, but right now the qualified teams are: Iraq 57 Congo DR 60 Bolivia 76 New Caledonia 150 The potential CONCACAF participants are at: Panama 31 Costa Rica 45 Honduras 64 Jamaica 68 Curacao 82 Haiti 88 Suriname 126 Unless Panama and Costa Rica both go through to the playoffs, it appears Iraq will get a spot (unless, of course, Congo DR jumps them). New Caledonia and Bolivia will have to win two matches no matter what.
According to Jon Arnold, who I trust to have run the numbers, there's no way both Panama and Costa Rica can get through to the playoff together.
It’s not very complicated. Jamaica has 10 points, Curaçao has 11. No matter who finishes second in that group, there’s no way Costa Rica (6 points) can finish with more points than that team.
Do we know which PRO referees are assigned to the friendly matches in CONCACAF (or wherever) in this window? Where can we find these assignments?
There possibly were none. Fischer, Penso, Dickerson and Elfath all had full crews during the window and Dujic at the U17s. I believe Lauziere, Vazquez, Gonzales Jr. and maybe Rivas were all 4ths? Plus you're talking 10 ARs. There's not much personnel left for friendlies. There were a lot of friendly assignments in the October window because PRO guys weren't on the WCQs. I doubt there were any here. There was possibly one maximum, but I haven't heard about it.
Wonder how FIFA handles the intercontintental playoffs. All the top UEFA guys will be busy with the UEFA playoffs unless FIFA can pull one of them, but that sort of feels like a waste. Iraq and Congo DR seem almost certain to be seeded. So you could do something like call Faghani for the Congo DR match and then maybe Jayed or another CAF referee for the Iraq match? CONCACAF referees are now out, unless FIFA gambles and/or just doesn't care about neutrality for someone like an Elfath or Ramos (which I doubt). CONMEBOL official on the non-Bolivia match and then ??? on the one with Bolivia. I really don't think you're dragging in Marciniak for, say, Bolivia-New Caledonia. But there's also not an obvious answer either unless you double-dip in AFC or CAF.
Isn't it possible for both Concacaf nations to pair up in the semifinals? That would open up the possibility for a Concacaf referee to get in on one of the semifinal games. If not, if we have to double dip out of either Africa or Asia, I feel like Faghani, Ghorbal, and Beida is a list FIFA could be comfortable with. By the way, as a fan of the game, I really feel like the teams we got for this tournament were not the most exciting that they could have been. I expect we'll see some not-so-completive games. Iraq, DR Congo, and Jamaica are at the right level, and I expect the two qualifiers to come from this group. New Caledonia obvious is very bad, but we expected that. But Suriname is far below the quality we could've gotten out of that second Concacaf. And Bolivia is absolutely abysmal. Outside of La Paz, they have one WCQ win in the last three decades. Their FIFA ranking and their place in the standings are heavily inflated (or, uh, lightly inflated?) by the thin air of La Paz that provides an extreme home field advantage. Probably Jamaica vs Iraq/DRC is the only interesting match IMO. Maybe Bolivia will be better than I expect, but I think either Iraq or DRC would wipe the floor with them.
Also, I hear you on the likelihood of non-competitive games but I also think anything can happen in a one-off for World Cup participation in a neutral venue. New Caledonia should be fodder but stranger things have happened and that squad will be relentlessly preparing for its next match. You know how we get told/taught early to treat every game like it's that team's World Cup (even though said game is very much not anything like a World Cup and said players will never come close to that)? Well, this is that mantra come to reality. And I now kind of wonder about FIFA pulling either 1 UEFA referee who is completely safe (like a Turpin or Marciniak) just for the fun of it and to have a safe pair of hands in what, as you do rightly suggest, could be the one clearly competitive final (e.g., Jamaica v Iraq). Or maybe someone who has been borderline and their team is in the playoff, so options are a little more limited (e.g., Mariani). UEFA only needs 12 referees in the March window for the qualifiers and we've been discussing up to 17 or 18 somewhat realistic candidates. The more I think about it, the more it might make sense to send UEFA's #13--or #1--to Mexico for a one-week vacation and more FIFA face time. By the way, has anyone noticed the set up for the second match day of the UEFA playoffs? The two losing semifinalists will play each other in an international friendly. I get the impetus behind this (international teams losing out on an international matchday and the related finances otherwise) but c'mon, man. What a terrible idea. You spend four months waiting for the chance to advance to the World Cup, lose your match, and then have to face another loser 5 days later with quite literally nothing on the line other than the more esoteric concept of FIFA ranking relative to 2028 qualification. I only bring that up, because I wonder how referee assignments will work there. You need to hold an additional four referee crews to work friendlies that no one is going to want to play in.
I hate to come off as a Euro snob here and complain like Rino Gattuso, but it is kind of silly that a country like Italy can win 6 out of 8 qualifying matches and still not guarantee qualification. They probably win 7 out of 8 if they had a reasonable chance to overtake Norway on goal difference on the last match day. While you'll have Haiti, Curucao there and potentially New Caledonia, and Bolivia there. This isn't some defense of Italy or Italian football. It's dreadful and I secretly hope Italy doesn't make it again. Once the national anthem is done there isn't much to watch about Italy other than the goal keeper. However, they and other European teams essentially are allowed one, maybe two slips and they are in the trap door of playoffs or being knocked out. While other countries get multiple mulligans and still qualify easily at times. On the other hand you have South American teams who can lose like 6 games and still easily qualify. Brazil, this century, at times, has been absolutely awful in qualifying and never really not come close to not qualifying. Compare that to some European teams. Spain won every game and didn't clinch qualification until the last match day. The World Cup has never been only about getting the best 32 or 48 teams. It should be geographically distributed. However there is an element of geographic distribution turning some of the matches into a farce. Due to the size of the confederation and number of slots awarded to each confederation compared to number of teams in each confederation you're never going to have perfect equality in terms of forgiveness in qualifying amongst the confederations. When it was a 32 team World Cup, I think the balance was somewhat there. However the 48 team World Cup has completely skewed it now. You essentially can't miss the World Cup now if you have a pulse in CONCACAF and CONMEBOL while the margin of error is only marginally greater in UEFA and AFCconfederation. This is another reason why expanding it to 48 was a bad idea. God help us when we inevitably get to 64. End rant.
I agree with the "God help us when we inevitably get to 64." And I wish it wasn't at 48. But I don't buy-in to the European whinging unless it's couched as "hey, we deserve 3-4 more teams, all things being equal." Like, if the 16 playoff teams were playing off in March to get 8 additional UEFA teams instead of whittling it down to 4, that would be fine by me. A few more UEFA teams? Absolutely. But other than South America, where the limited number of teams and the perceived qualify versus the globe means you have to take a high percentage, I don't think anyone else has some magically easy path compared to the European heavy-hitters. Africa was brutal this time--I still sort of can't believe the format they went with. You talk about UEFA second place teams having it tough... some CAF second place teams didn't even make the playoffs. And away games in Africa can be a nightmare. Sure, few people in media we consume are losing sleep that Uganda and Burkina Faso didn't make the playoff or that Mali finished 3rd in its group, but all things being equal, if we're talking about what type of path the upper tier teams have, the African teams have it way worse than the European ones. There aren't any Gibraltars or Liechtensteins to beat up on in the group stage. I have more than a few quibbles with some of the neutral site chicanery in AFC, but that is also a pretty unforgiving process. Again, if you want to say AFC shouldn't have so many teams, fine. That's one debate. But once they have the allocation, it is what it is. There are teams that fell at the second round group stage in summer 2024 that can definitely compete with Iraq, who ended up the last team through the process. CONCACAF is trickier given the removal of the three big sides this time and will be interested to see where it lands for 2030. But, step back and look that three of the "other" five teams in the Octagonal for 2021 still didn't qualify this time and a fourth is in the playoff. Only Panama is through to the WC (and on the last matchday, after a "surprise" Suriname loss). Haiti, Curacao and maybe Suriname aren't going to the World Cup just because of expansion. They're going because they beat Costa Rica, Honduras and other teams that were regularly in the mix for qualification at 32. Again, "there are too many CONCACAF teams" is a fine argument. But it's just objectively true that the path for the teams in the discussion for qualification did not get easier despite that expansion. Otherwise, Costa Rica and Honduras would have been WC guarantees. Yeah, I don't know what you do about CONMEBOL. It sucks that a team with a losing record could get in, but at the same time I don't think you can look at the top 6 direct qualifiers and say they aren't deserving. South America is just an anomaly because of the overall historical quality and the fact that every nation is large (geographically) so you only have 10 teams. Barring the impossible merger with CONCACAF, that's never going to change. Long way of me saying: yes, 48 teams bad. But, no, Italy and other European teams whinging about second place doesn't resonate with me except for the narrower argument of "we should only have to win one more match, not two" (which, admittedly, would be a big substantive change--but no one is actually saying that).