WC Officiating

[db44]

A constant note through all coverage, including our threads here, has been about the jobs the refs have been doing... I for one think it's been pretty pathetic, although in only a handful of cases do I think it really has affected the outcomes of game (and no, I don't think the U.S. was robbed of anything because of the officiating... Even if the team feels otherwise).

So? Comments?

[muffins]

Yeah, on average I'd say it hasn't been great. As I said in the other thread, I don't like to criticise referees too much because they do a hard job with no replays. They have to go on what they see the first time. When I watch it, I sometimes think how I would referee some of the games and what my initial reactions are to incidents can be quite different to what I think after I've seen a replay. However, tonight's referee for the Portugal v Holland game really was bad. I really wish Collina was still reffing! Up until the infamous 3 yellow cards incident, I thought Graham Poll was doing a good job and me and my dad were saying that if England didn't get to the final then he might be in with a chance of refereeing it. We obviously jinxed him haha! He looked good in comparison to tonight's referee though!

[db44]

Collina was awesome... Stupid age rules.

The one real suspect call to me I think it was in the last Switzerland game. The assistant had the flag up for offsides, kept it up, but the ref allowed the goal to stand.

[muffins]

I saw that and thought what a bad decision. But then in the analysis in the highlights programme showed that the ball came off a player from the other team so it was not actually offside.