Lee Jordan: peter mikkelsen Reza Pazirandeh: RE: peter mikkelsen Mike Hayford: RE: peter mikkelsen The best nuggets (politics aside).... "also, with regard to goals, the referees got the decision correct 96.xx % of the time." "Speaking of the Mali referee, at his debrief, where they got up and did a self analysis, referee agreed that he blew the call in the US game nullifying the goal. It turns out the referee saw a hold but immediately lost his concentration about who did the holding and called it against the wrong team!!" "Webb had said in his debrief that he just did not see the challenge that way from his angle (and thought De Jong in fact was trying to protect himself)....But he knew something bad had happened so he cautioned De Jong." "About handling, he said the referees were told that any handling in the PA should be treated as a cautionable offence unless of course if it was OGSO." "Someone asked about the reports that FIFA was telling referees to call the games differently after the first week of matches. He said that was a media fabrication." IMO the handling directive is ridiculous, but not terribly surprising. Handing in the penalty area is already a penalty. Why aren't all fouls in the penalty area mandatory cautions? In fact, why shouldn't we go a little bit further and declare that any foul anywhere on the field is a mandatory red card?
As someone who was at this meeting, I'll say that it was a very entertaining and interesting session. From a quick glance, the posting provide a pretty good summary of many of the key points, but any written summary does a disservice to someone like Peter, who is such a wonderful presenter. As for the 96+% figure, it's a pretty meaningless in my view. For example, goals were credited as "correct" calls in the tally even when they were obviously correct calls. I mean that's great that the ref team didn't wave off an obvious goal, but that's just padding the stats to include those. Also, and this came out more in a discussion afterward, but there was a bias for lack of a better word against labeling something as an incorrect call, in the sense that basically benefit of the doubt was given to the ref team. This was certainly the case with respect to anything that would be ITOOTR, but also appears to have play a role in close distinctions that might be made about offside position. It wasn't explained as such, but I was left with the impression that the determination was more along the lines of a clear and convincing standard for reversal based on video review. I've got no objection with that in terms of assessing the referees, but I believe it effectively means from a statistical standpoint that there were calls that would have been deemed "correct" no matter which way the ref team decided. This also obviously inflates the 96+% figure to give credit for these close calls even, in reality, they couldn't be missed. It would seem that the focus of the inquiry really should be on those close calls -- how did the ref teams do on those -- but what we're left with in reality is an acknowledgment that you've got a handful of calls that were blatantly enough wrong that they were counted as being missed for purposes of this particular analysis. Whether you believe that a handful of blatant errors in this number of games at this level is acceptable or not is a subjective one on which many would disagree, but the 96+% figure doesn't prove or disprove anything about it in my humble view.
And, in practice, the directive appeared to get applied to handling outside of the penalty area as well.
After reading the excerpts of Mikkelsen's talk, methinks, the fatal calls' percentage, that is the overall critical calls that should most definitely have been made seems just about right for the 142 goals given. What is glaring is that 1 of the 5 goal-decisions was made by the assisting official, and was incorrect, a very high 20% indeed. Was there clarification of the "3 goals incorrectly allowed?" Did this category by any chance have the ARG-NGA goal (the CK-set-play by Heinze header) officiated by Stark [GER] et al, or the ARG-MEX match officiated by Rossetti et al (goal by Tevez)? However, the penal foul incidents that should have been given as PKs but were not, are according to the Mikkelsen-report, 5 out of 60, and this is again an extremely significant 8.3%. Did anyone attending grill Mikkelsen about specific stats on (i) calls should not have been made but were, (ii) calls should have been made but were not, (iii) yards "stolen" on throw-ins in defensive, and offensive halves, (iv) average time spent on fk management (excepting the GER-ESP second half)?
Here is another write up on the event: http://www.proreferee.com/article/5531 You can spin the goal-line decisions issue any number of ways. 1 in 5 is 20% as you say and doesn't sound so great, but it was 4 for 4 with no errors until that one game. And, it's got to be pretty subjective in the first place as to how they got to 5 total (how close does it have to be to be a close call when it's in or when it's not in?). Statistically, 5 is not a large enough sample to draw any conclusions from, and one of Peter M's points was that you would go back to 1966 to find another like this in the World Cup (and also candidly acknowledging the goal that he did not award in 1996 euro match between Romania and Bulgaria). So, it was 20% in this last World Cup, but certainly nowhere near that figure overall. And, no, he wasn't grilled about any of these stats, and unfortunately he really had to race through them toward the end of the program as we had run long past the allotted time (due in large part to his frankness and his willingness to take all questions). The stats were also limited to what has been summarized, primarily focusing on the critical issues of goals (and penalty kicks), and not getting to some of other areas that you mention. As for the 5 missed calls, if I had to guess, Tevez's offside goal against Mexico and Fabiano's double-handling goal against Ivory Coast were two of the three incorrectly allowed goals, and then Lampard's shot over the line against Germany and Edu's nullified goal against Slovenia were the two incorrectly disallowed goals (I'm not 100% positive about Edu's goal, but it fits with his description of the referee's comments as he described them).
I'm sorry, but if that is really the way it happened, IMO that is horrible officiating. But god forbid you tell the teams about this point of emphasis. Yes it's in the laws, blah, blah blah. But if you've let teams around the world get away with it leading up to the world cup, what harm does it do to say "hey, we're going to call that handling in the box a bit tighter now". The way it's done every WC, it almost seems like officials are looking for "gotcha moments".
I really don't know whether to laugh or cry on this one. I've worked with and in developing countries for a long time, and I've heard just this excuse given in so many different ways and different situations - "I was doing my job very well and then, all of a sudden and for no reason, I did my job very poorly . . . but just for a moment." Folks-- this statement is another way of saying "I had already made up my mind what was going to happen on that play and, unfortunately, the facts don't support my pre-determined conclusion." Whether you think he just didn't want the USA to win or he was just trying to nullify a bad call on the foul that set up the free kick, we'll never know, but don't be taken in by what he said.
He was very clear that they did, and that he had been part of several of the meetings with different teams. He also had some fun describing the different ways that different teams acted during this session, as well as with some of the interaction that they had. He said during the session with Germany that they gave the yellow and red cards to Lahm and then showed a clip with a tackle, and asked him whether it was a card and which one. Lahm's repsonse: "Can I see that again?" You probably couldn't get a better answer from a referee's perspective of keep in mind, I don't get to see replays or even always get as good a view as there was on this video. And he had a computer disc that had a number of hot topics that they covered with each team, that had folders for different topics that video clips from real games and then an explanation of the proper call. And there was a folder for handling, so I don't think it was a "gotcha" in any sense of them not being warned, even if the point of emphasis may have been slightly different from what they were used to.
Does that mean the Heinze memo does not exist? For example as reported here: http://www.pointblanknews.com/Sports/os3522.html Date Published: 06/15/10 FIFA slams referee over Argentine goal...Says Obasi was fouled during build-up The referee in the Argentina versus Super Eagles match on Saturday has been severely criticized by Fifa’s referee’s committee for allowing the South Americans’ goal. The Fifa referee's committee criticised Wolfgang Stark’s decision not to give a foul for Walter Samuel’s obstruction in the build-up to the goal. Argentina missed several gilt-edged chances on their way to a 1-0 victory on Saturday; however, according to Fifa the one attack that did finish with the net bulging should have been disallowed by referee Wolfgang Stark. Ole reports that a Fifa post-match analysis ruled that there was a foul in the build-up to Gabriel Heinze’s stunning header, and that Stark should never have allowed the goal. The Fifa referees’ committee released their findings on Tuesday, as a guide for future judgments in this year’s tournament. And among other rulings, they made it clear to referees that they must watch for infractions at corners and free-kicks - specifically attacking players blocking markers, as happened on Saturday. As Juan Sebastian Veron’s cross floated over Walter, Samuel enveloped Chinedu Obasi and stopped him from moving, thereby giving Heinze all the space he needed to propel the ball home. Stark should have therefore penalised Samuel for obstruction and awarded a free-kick to the Super Eagles - a judgment that could have changed the course of the whole game for Argentina. Although the ruling comes too late for Nigeria, it has interesting implications for the rest of the tournament; a sign that Fifa will not tolerate the pushing, shoving and holding commonplace on both sides at dead-ball situations, and that in future such offences will be punished with either disallowed goals or penalties in the case of the defence committing an infraction. courtesy Kickoff /end of article (BTW, this is a perspective that Ed Bellion writing in Bob Evans' Blog strongly agreed with, at the time. http://fortheintegrityofsoccer.blogs.com/artandscienceofrefereeing/2010/06/argentina-v-mexico-eds-observations-comments.html )
It does seem pretty suspicious. For some reason, only OLE (a Spain web portal?) has access to this "release". If you were the FIFA Referee's Committee, would you take the liberty to describe Heinze' goal as "stunning"? Would you use the word "our"? How does one get ahold of one of these FIFA releases?
While the impeding infraction did take place, it is unlikely that the Nigerian defender could have gotten to a spot where he could have headed the ball away from Heinze. Nigeria gave up the goal when they failed to mark Heinze. The referee should have been able to detect the infraction even though it was on the other side of Samuel, or had input from the rest of his team. In a set piece situation like this, and the weeks of preparation that the ref teams apparently had, you'd think that all four officials are assigned to certain groups of players and are helping out with watching for mischief on the restart.