UEFA Competitions 2023-2024 Referee Discussions [Rs]

It wasn’t really an experiment. UEFA adopted them as an integral part of the officiating team for all major/senior men’s competitions. They were at both EURO 12 and 16. And every UCL season from 09 through 17 +/- a year.

Oh and they spread to Brazil and elsewhere. FIFA resisting them for WC14 was actually pretty impressive in retrospect. It VAR wasn’t on the table for WC18 I’m sure you would have seen AARs by then.

 

He's not working Tuesday. I don't think he'll work Wednesday. He can't go in Group E or F. And he's not needed in Group G. The only match he could get is the big Porto-Shakhtar one and Shakhtar just had a Polish referee in MD5 (which isn't everything, but when you're talking about one big match and you can use any of your top guns... Marciniak just doesn't seem to fit there).

But, again, he's already worked MD2, 4 and 5. The top referees usually get 3 matches with the bigger names sometimes getting 4. And it's quite rare for anyone to work 4-5-6 (Marciniak, oddly enough, being one of the two exceptions last year). Marciniak not being on MD6 doesn't say anything because everything sort of looks like he was never supposed to be on MD6.

Marciniak isn't going to be thrown overboard for one penalty decision. The VAR in question was back in action that Thursday. Given the chaos that was handball around MD5, I think you're more likely to see an attempted recalibration heading into the KO stages than punishment against some of your top officials for confusion that UEFA has helped cause.

 

It is probably worth noting, however, that Espen Eskas has Manchester United v Bayern.

I know Man United are down right now, but they are still one of the biggest clubs in the world, at home, with a must-win match against Bayern and they get a relatively inexperienced Norwegian referee instead of a huge name (I mean, Orsato has the other game in this group!). Both weird AND a huge vote of confidence for Eskas, who I haven't seen yet. He is just coming back from doing the U17 WC Final.

 

Oh right!

Which would, of course, be a main reason why UEFA planned for him to have a big MD5 match.

 

Seems worth noting the following appointments for Wednesday:

Dortmund : PSG - NYBERG (SWE)
Newcastle : Milan - MAKKELIE (NED)
Porto : Shakhtar - KOVACS (ROU)

The Kovacs appointment is pretty massive and probably should be acknowledged insofar as a potential race for the Final goes.

Nyberg is quite interesting. It was already clear he supplanted Ekberg but this seems to confirm both that he's going to EURO 2024 and there are probably big plans for him this season in the club KO stages.

And Makkelie's appointment belies the argument that he's somehow been seriously sidelined as a top official. I suppose it's possible he's more of a Cakir at the moment, where he's a trusted/sacrificial lamb for the toughest matches. But that's still something.

 

Meanwhile, a pretty big "oops" in Porto: https://streamin.me/v/f416648b

 

One of the best parts about this… are we sure the goal scorer was onside? I assume his lead arm is not ahead of the ball. And I assume they checked. But it’s closer than “yeah this is obviously on because the flag was atrocious.”

I actually wonder how MLS would handle it given the subjectivity of offside review. If onfield decision is no goal… yeah the actual flag is clearly and obviously wrong. But what’s then the standard for assessing the second potential offside where a decision was never made. Does it default to onside or is offside still controlling? This seems like a very realistic scenario so hopefully PRO has instructions on this.

But to this particular play I’m not even sure what to believe or what happened. Did the AR completely lose his thought process and put the flag up even though he said delay? I guess that’s most likely? Or did Kovacs go rogue on his own and say it needed a delay? Or did the AR change his mind one way or the other during it all?

I do like how Kovacs gives the caution to the coach before the final adjudication.

Two other thoughts.

First, robot AR doesn’t get this wrong.

Second, Kovacs crew is probably out of a potential final after this right? There are very few mistakes a crew can make that creates VAR problems than the other way around. And they found one of them. With such fine margins for picking your final referees I’m not sure how this isn’t a massive strike against them given the match and the nature of the mistake.

 

Are you talking about the off-field issue for Marciniak last year or was there something onfield I’m forgetting?

Because, if it’s the off-field…

A) he was already the named final referee and
B) that’s different

This is one of those unacceptable mistakes by either an AR or referee. I mean Makkelie was held to account for performance in Sevilla v Juventus. This seems to be in that ballpark and it’s not like Kovacs was a clear top pick anyway. If merit matters, others are going to be ahead of him.

 

That’s definitely one way to look at it. But when a referee headed to the monitor the controlling decision would be “offside”. Just a different offside. And reviews are theoretically about whether a goal is valid—not individual offside decisions. So is the review about checking off all possible evidence to get back to good goal or is it about reversing the first incorrect decision and then restarting from the premise of good goal?

I think it’s tricky. I can see both arguments.

 

This is a good point.

The only counterpoint is that offside (in MLS) has a grey zone where VARs and referees are supposed to say "that's too close, call stands." So if the second offside decision fell firmly in that grey zone... I do (or did) think it's a tossup on whether or not "call stands" means "this incident was never called offside, so it's a goal" or "the onfield decision was no goal, so we're not messing with it." With all that said...

An MLS AVAR told me last night, in response to this question (and he saw the UCL incident) that his understanding of the protocol is that the Referee would simply make a decision on the second incident once at the monitor. Even if it's 51/49 in one direction. He supported that with the "everything is reviewable once you're at the monitor" mantra. Which I think is the most sensible approach.