Golden medal for the referees at the World Cup
Unlike goalies and the Jabulani ball, the referees are going unnoticed at the World Cup.
Written by Valdir Bicudo, a befriended Brazilian journalist and referee commentator at Parana Online. It’s his round-up after the first round at this World Cup.
In an interview with Fifa spokesman Nicolaz Maingot last Tuesday, when he traveled between Pretoria and Johannesburg, told that the performance of referees and assistants in the early matches of World Cup in South Africa were highly impressive.
According to Maingot, Fifa, the entity that handles the football on the planet, has done efforts as never showed before to improve arbitration at the World Cup. For example the implementation of fixed arbitration trios from the same country, who are talking the same language and, thus, decreasing misconceptions within the field.
Fifa is proud because there are no problems with the performance of the officials, said the spokesman, especially because no one’s talking about the officials and everything is going smoothly.
Unlike the goalkeepers, who are failing in some games, and the Jabulani (the name of the ball in the World Cup, vb), which is said to have severe restrictions. But until the present moment the referees are accepted, despite they’ve already given four red cards, which means a average of 0.4 cards per game.
Noting the majority of matches this World Cup Soccer, I found that a several factors were essential for the optimal development of the referees. Their self-control reaches perfection and that helps a lot with making decisions on the field in the different situations during the matches.
I have noticed that both referees and assistants are keeping a grip on themselves. Not that long ago I noticed a relentless attitude when they officiated in Fifa competitions. This change is the work of Werner Helsen, a professor at the University Louvre (Belgium) who trained the referees from Fifa and Uefa.
In the case of assistants, who are delegated the very difficult task to mark the obstruction, I must say they make good calls. In addition to that, I’d like to stress that the teamwork, the positioning of the assistants and the integration among the members of the refereeing team is very good. These results are even more promising for the second stage of the world, with a marked increase in the quality of refereeing ..
What also should be noted is the magnificent work done by the Spanish professor Jose Maria Garcia Aranda, who’s responsible for technical preparation of the arbitration, and furthermore for his influence in displaying representative trio’s in a competition with the magnitude of a World Cup.
PS: Ravshan Irmatov (Fifa-Uzbekistan) and Carlos Eugenio Simon (Fifa-Brazil) showed, until the beginning of the second inning, the best performance in decision-making in the field of play. The hit rate of both exceeded 93% in the games that they worked.
This guest blog is translated from Portugese. Mistranslations are my bad, but you can find the original text on Bicudo’s blog. I’m very happy we could exchange copy for our blogs. If you have a good idea for a guest blog, you are more than welcome.
6 Comments
Merty
The REFS were doing a great job (except possibly the straight red card to Cahill the Australian). OVerall they have been great. That was my biggest concern of this World Cup after the horrible refs and possibly pay-offs that ahve been reported after World Cup 2002.
Now you have a HORRIBLE display of yellow cards by Spanish Referee in the Serbia/Germany game. It was POOR.
Even worse was the goal that was disallowed by Komen Coulibaly of Mali. FIFA has a history of their refs from small nations being susceptible to bribes, and I think we will learn in the future that he deposited some Slovenian Tolars.
http://blog.ericmerten.com/2010/06/18/komen-coulibaly/
dutchreferee
Undiano gave a lot of cards. But are not all referees giving too many cards? Some players get booked for minor offences. Baldassi was very good today with his cards. Easy match for him.
Did not see the complete US match, because I was travelling at that moment.
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Arjan
Reading up on the last 3 posts. Haven’t seen too many (not that I know that much about football) strange decissions in the Dutch matches, although I think we got away easy a couple of times in the match against Denmark.
dutchreferee
Yeah, De Jong had fouled one of the Danish players. If the ref had given a straight card, the Dutch shouldn’t complain. He got no card actually.
@ Merty, I’ve seen some of the match now. Coulibaly was (very) mild after the offence in the first minute. No card, but could have been red!
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