Thanks for posting these. Will use this thread as the general assignment announcement and discussion thread. There is a separate stickied thread at the top of the forum that will use as a locked reference of all appointments (at @Spaceball 's suggestion). It might be worth discussing that this is a pretty big appointment for Rizzoli. Massive, really. It was going to be a UEFA referee and wasn't going to be Webb. But there were several options and he's the guy who gets the nod. Not a bad assignment for Roldan, either. Doue's appointment, to me, confirms that he's held in lower regard--I don't think the expectation is that that will be a big game.
Before the assignment, how would you have ranked the candidates for ESP-NED? Rizzoli, Proenca, Cakir, and Eriksson in some order?
I predicted Eriksson awhile ago. I didn't think Proenca would touch it, just because of Spain/Portugal similarities/familiarities. Rizzoli was probably my second choice. I think those were the only real options. So I'd have said Eriksson then Rizzoli. Not sure if this plays any sort of role in how decisions get made, but Eriksson will be free to do almost any match all tournament--same can't be said necessarily for Rizzoli. So perhaps that's the kind of thing that's a "tiebreaker" in these sort of assignments.
Yeah I should have left out Proenca. So because Eriksson is "eligible" for more matches than Rizzoli (due to SWE not in the WC?) perhaps they decided to use Rizzoli here to keep Eriksson free as a kind of flex?
Not only Sweden is missing from the World Cup; also missing are other Scandinavian countries whose opponents might have concerns about a Swedish referee: Norway and Denmark (and, as always, Finland).
Is the Spain Netherlands game the biggest game in the group stage apart from the opening match? If a European referee gets the Final, then I think it's between Proenca and Rizzoli for that spot.
Not official: Uruguay vs. Costa Rica - BYRCH Columbia vs. Greece - GEIGER England vs. Italy - KUIPERS Ivory Coast vs. Japan - OSSES
Those are on fifa site - official http://resources.fifa.com/worldcup/matches/round=255931/match=300186471/index.html#overview#nosticky
I'd say that's a very good match for Geiger. UEFA/non-UEFA in a group that is one of the most wide open. Most importantly, he gets on the field early, which gives him a better chance of getting on the field soon again. Interesting that only reserves have been used as fourths thus far. Also interesting that Cote d'Ivoire/Japan has a non-UEFA referee (the second time already a non-UEFA is on a game with no UEFA teams). Maintaining continental neutrality might be tough if FIFA keeps this up... or, the UEFA referees just won't be worked as much, which would seem odd.
Bureau of Redundancy Department Division: http://footballrefereeing.blogspot.de/2014/06/world-cup-2014-referee-appointments_12.html?m=1
Interesting match for Geiger. FWIW, Angeles had Argentina vs. Greece in 1994. I suppose there may be a formula in use. A really great appointment would have been England vs. Italy. Maybe improbable, but Klein (Israel) was assigned to England vs. Brazil in 1970, mainly on the basis of his performance in the Olympics two years earlier! Everyone complained ("like sending a Boy Scout to Vietnam" was in one article) but he did very well, and was sent to two more WCs and another Olympics. PH
What are you talking about? You really think the referee committee was thinking "let's give Geiger a Greece match because an American refereed Greece in the 94 World Cup?" Why not give him Ecuador's first game as Brian Hall's first game at the '02 World Cup was between Ecuador and Italy? Geiger was never gonna get Italy vs. England. Then you are comparing Klein and Geiger because they did well in the Olympics. It's a different time and sport.
I find it amazing that two non-UEFA games have gone to non-UEFA refs. I wonder if this means FIFA are looking ahead to the 2nd round already and are planning to hold back some of their big UEFA guys from having 2 games, as they won't be able to come the final round of games at this rate.
It's even more interesting, as that's actually the 3rd game (Mexico-Cameroon; Chile-Australia; Ivory Coast-Japan) that has featured no UEFA countries but has not been given to a UEFA official.
Generalizing here but it seems that they tend to appoint the lower rated referees from the weaker countries to early first round matches between two teams who most likely won't make it out of the group. They save the stronger referees for the critical last match in the group stage which could decide who gets through. Obviously the knockout stages depends on which teams survive. PH
A ref from NED for ITA, and a ref from ITA from NED is also interesting--although likely unintended. By my count now, if confed neutrality is followed, there will be 3 UEFA refs that only work one first round game, and only 3 or 4 2nd round games that can have a UEFA ref. Wonder if they only give the perceived top 3 UEFA refs one game to save them for those 3 second round games, or if they try to give everyone 1 game and then go on merit from there. I tried keeping that logic going into the quarter-finals, but my head exploded.
So you're saying they put the best refs on the most important matches and the lesser refs on the least important? Pretty sure that's not going to be a contentions opinion.
The problem with that being that some of the top referees in the world from UEFA will be locked out as 13/16 of the last round of matches will be UEFA vs A N Other. The lesser experienced Asian and African officials will have to be involved.
Yes, but some of them may not be critical at that stage, with the weaker team already out for example. You have also overlooked the CONMEBOL and CONCACAF referees in this analysis, many of which are not inexperienced. PH