Tag Archives: bundesliga

Bundesliga match situation: what would you decide?

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Very interesting game situation in this German Bundesliga game. First watch the video from the match between Hertha BSC and 1. FC Nürnberg with referee Michael Weiner. Then answer yourself the following questions. What would you decide: Goal? Yellow or red card? Or would you whistle for offside?

Below the video you’ll find the official statement from the German Football Associations DFB.

A short summary of the situation: Referee Michael Weiner whistles for denying obvious goalscoring opportunity (dogso) because a player (number 31, Nürnberg) uses his hand to prevent the ball from crossing the goal line. After the whistle a player (number 20, Hertha) scores. Shortly after that Weiner went to his assistant referee Norbert Grudzinski and they discussed the situation. According to the linesman a player (number 20, Hertha) in offside position and the Nürnberg goalie had contact. The AR’s interpretation: the number 20 of Hertha was involved in active play. Weiner recalls his initial decision and let play restart with an indirect free kick for offside.

“That interpretation was not correct”, says German FA in a statement on their website. “There’s no duelling for the ball taking place. No player was able to intervene in the game situation with the number 31 of Nürnberg”. That was the situation of the player who handled the ball on the goal line.

DFB added: “Also the contact between the goalie and the number 20 of Nürnberg was nu duel for the ball and both couldn’t interfere with play nor did the Nürnberg player make an offence. When the number 31 of Nürnberg had not handled the ball, it would have been a legitimate goal.”

And why is it not a goal? The player who scored was “gaining an advantage by being in offside position”, say the Laws Of The Game. It means “he was playing a ball that rebounds, is deflected or is played to him from a deliberate save by an opponent having been in an offside position”.

referee Weiner discusses with his assistant referee.

Bundesliga game situation: referee Weiner discusses with his assistant referee.

Conclusion: the referee should whistle for denying an obvious goalscoring opportunity, give the player who handles the ball a red card and restart play with a penalty kick.

Here is no duel take place at the ball. No player has the option to intervene in the game situation with the No. 31 / N. The contact between the TW / N and the No. 20 / H does not constitute a duel for the ball because they can not intervene in the game situation and a foul No. 20 / H also is not available. If N. 31 / N would not have blocked the ball with his hands and the ball would have gone directly into the goal, the results would have been obtained correctly. ”

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Fair Play hero Hunt rejects penalty

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Fair Play hero Aaron Hunt was the talk of the Bundesliga last weekend. He tripped in the opponent’s penalty area, the referee whistles for a foul, but he rejects the penalty.

“I told him that I’d actually contrived it slightly. I did look for the contact, but then I noticed that their defender pulled out of the challenge”, Aaron Hunt told on the Bundesliga website. “I fought with my conscience for a moment, but I don’t want to win that way. I must admit I looked up at the clock a lot more often than usual in those final ten minutes.”

The Bundesliga YouTube channel also wrote statement about it: “This is real sportsmanship! Aaron Hunt admits that he in fact shouldn’t be awarded a penalty in Bremen’s six-pointer with Nuremberg. Hiroshi Kiyotake also proves to be a firm believer in fair play. Two great role models show that fair play is important, even in the relegation battle. A big ‘thumbs up’ from us, Aaron and Hiroshi!”

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Sejad Salihović scores and gets red card

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A suprising thing this weekend while checking the scores of international competitions via a mobile phone. The football app says: Sejad Salihović scores and gets red card – both in the same minute. Later that night I watched the highlights of German top league and I saw that Sejad Salihović converted a penalty kick and while celebrating he hits an opponent right in the face, right in front of the referee who was just planning to stand in between the players of both teams. He had to go to the dressing room. Good call from the referee, who was close by.

Check a video about the incident below.

Also in that match: a player points a finger to his head making clear to the referee he is stupid. I don’t think a Dutch referee would send a player away for that, but German referees are unrelenting when players act like that. Straight red card. Would you’ve done that too?

Also found that incident on video. Check it out:

Last weekend’s round in the Bundesliga had a negative record: 8 direct red cards.

German record: red card in 87 seconds

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Red after just 87 seconds. It happened to Youssef Mohamad from 1. FC Köln at the opening day of the German Bundesliga against Kaiserslautern. No one got a red one faster in the German top league than the Lebanese player.

Referee Felix Brych spoke to weekly magazine Der Spiegel: “When I whistle for a foul, I can’t do anything else. The rules give no opportunity for a different interpretation.”

Good piece of refereeing, but it’s not a record Mohamad will be proud of. The German elite group referee added: “After two minutes – that is hard.”:

I never had to give a red card so fast. Whom of you did?

German refs want chip in ball, no extra assistants

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The German refereeing remains very critically about the experiment with extra assistants who watch the goal line. They made a statement after a national referee meeting that they prefer a chip in the ball.

Herbert Fandel in an advert asking for more referees. Advert by German FA (DFB).

“A condition is, however, that such a system works one hundred percent correct”, said Herbert Fandel, the new chairman of the German Referee Committee, after the meeting. UEFA recently announced that they will use extra assistants in next season’s Champions League.

The referee boss criticized the hard tackles during the World Cup in South Africa. “Especially the slide tackle with the soles towards the enemy, which we have seen more frequent in the World Cup, will be penalized in a consistant way.”

Are the German refs ready for next season? Fandel: “The mood among our referees is first class, everyone is looking forward to the new season. And all are very well prepared ”

Fandel stressed that the German refs need to remain themselves, as we all are unique in our refereeing style. “There is no template for our referees, each one has its own way of officiating, everyone must remain authentic.” But he expects his refereeing team to be self-assured. “Referees are leaders. It can not be that someone wants to demonstrate authority with [giving] cards. Personality is crucial.”

‘Hardest match ever’ for Austrian referee Harkam

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4 penalties, 2 red cards, five goals and crowds on the field. And that in just one half. The soccer season in Austria has already begun. “It was my hardest match ever and I think nobody will ever have this again”, says the referee Alexander Harkam.

Alexander Harkam

Alexander Harkam in action. Photo provided by referee

In preparation before this season the Dutch Referee blog interviewed the Austrian referee. Read the first part and second part of that interview.

The video of the extraordinary match between Wiener Neustadt en Lask Linz in the Austrian Bundesliga is published by tv channel Laola 1. When you see the highlights you see that the referee made very good calls even though the number of penalty kicks, red cards and goals sounds weird for a national top league match.

Harkam’s observer gave him a B1 as mark for the match. B stands for middle hard match, which gives Austrian refs one point bonus at their mark; c (hard) is two points extra. One is the highest mark on a scale of 1 to 5. Does anyone know how refs in other countries are judges? Please let me know.