Group Stage (1/3 - Matches 1-12)
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| Kurt Röthlisberger following play as Czechoslovakia tackled the United States on the third day of competition |
Firstly, FIFA split the referees into two pools for the group stage, whom would handle games in the six Northernmost (Bologna, Genoa, Milan, Turin, Udine, Verona) and the six more Southernly (Bari, Cagliari, Florence, Naples, Rome, Palermo) venues respectively. The referees were divided as follows:
Northern Group
Agnolin, Courtney, Diramba, Jouini, Jácome, Kirschen, Kohl, Lanese, Listkiewicz, Loustau, Maciel, Mandi, Mauro, Mikkelsen, Snoddy, Spirin, Takada, Vautrot; (+ Magni, Pairetto)
Southern Group
Al-Sharif, Cardellino, Codesal, Fredriksson, Hansal, Lorenc, Pérez Hoyos, Petrović, Quiniou, Ramiz Wright, Röthlisberger, Schmidhuber, Silva (H.), Silva Valente, Smith, Soriano Aladrén, Ulloa Morera, Van Langenhove; (+ D’Elia, Lo Bello, Longhi)
The referee designations for the first round of group fixtures at World Cup 1990. Michel Vautrot was selected for the curtain raiser, while Italy's opener was with Brazil's Ramiz Wright. FIFA made the appointments for these matches in one block, released on Tuesday 5th June (all times local, CEST).
1 Argentina vs. Cameroon (Fri 8June 1800, Milan) ||
Michel Vautrot – Vincent Mauro, Michał Listkiewicz
Reserve Referee: Neji Jouini (TUN)
(FRA, USA, POL)
2 Soviet Union vs. Romania (Sat 9June 1700, Bari) ||
Juan Daniel Cardellino – Emilio Soriano Aladrén, Hernán Silva
Reserve: Carlo Longhi (ITA)
(URU, ESP, CHI)
3 United Arab Emirates vs. Colombia (Sat 9June 1700, Bologna) ||
George Courtney – Alan Snoddy, Shizuo Takada
Reserve: Pierluigi Pairetto (ITA)
(ENG, NIR, JPN)
4 Italy vs. Austria (Sat 9June 2100, Rome) ||
José Ramiz Wright – Armando Pérez Hoyos, Carlos Silva Valente
Reserve: Berny Ulloa Morera (CRC)
(BRA, COL, POR)
5 United States vs. Czechoslovakia (Sun 10June 1700, Florence) ||
Kurt Röthlisberger – Aron Schmidhuber, Marcel Van Langenhove
Reserve: Mohamed Hansal (ALG)
(SUI, FRG, BEL)
6 Brazil vs. Sweden (Sun 10June 2100, Turin) ||
Tullio Lanese – Neji Jouini, Michel Vautrot
Reserve: Pierluigi Magni (ITA)
(ITA, TUN, FRA)
7 West Germany vs. Yugoslavia (Sun 10June 2100, Milan) ||
Peter Mikkelsen – Michał Listkiewicz, Jassim Mandi
Reserve: Pierluigi Pairetto (ITA)
(DEN, POL, BHR)
8 Costa Rica vs. Scotland (Mon 11June 1700, Genoa) ||
Juan Carlos Loustau – Elías Jácome, Carlos Maciel
Reserve: Vincent Mauro (USA)
(ARG, ECU, PAR)
9 England vs. Republic of Ireland (Mon 11June 2100, Cagliari) ||
Aron Schmidhuber – Erik Fredriksson, Kurt Röthlisberger
Reserve: Pietro D'Elia (ITA)
(FRG, SWE, SUI)
10 Belgium vs. Korea Republic (Tues 12June 1700, Verona) ||
Vincent Mauro – George Courtney, Alan Snoddy
Reserve: Pierluigi Magni (ITA)
(USA, ENG, NIR)
11 Netherlands vs. Egypt (Tues 12June 2100, Palermo) ||
Emilio Soriano Aladrén – Edgardo Codesal, Juan Daniel Cardellino
Reserve: Carlo Longhi (ITA)
(ESP, MEX, URU)
12 Uruguay vs. Spain (Weds 13June 1700, Udine) ||
Helmut Kohl – Aleksej Spirin, Siegfried Kirschen
Reserve: Shizuo Takada (JPN)
(AUT, URS, GDR)
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[Changes from original appointments:
United States vs. Czechoslovakia
Rosario Lo Bello (ITA) as reserve referee -> Mohamed Hansal (ALG)
Costa Rica vs. Scotland
Kurt Röthlisberger (SUI) as linesman 2 -> Carlos Maciel (PAR)
Netherlands vs. Egypt
Carlos Maciel (PAR) as linesman 1 -> Edgardo Codesal (MEX)
Tullio Lanese (ITA) as linesman 2 -> Juan Daniel Cardellino (URU)
Uruguay vs. Spain
Luigi Agnolin (ITA) as reserve referee -> Shizuo Takada (JPN)]
Match 1 - Argentina vs. Cameroon, Michel Vautrot
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A nice quiet one to get us started then... :D
Full report can be accessed from the link below:
https://wc90ref.blogspot.com/p/in-focus-match-1-argentina-vs-cameroon.html
Match 2 - Soviet Union vs. Romania, Juan Daniel Cardellino
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What a disastrous start for the refereeing at this World Cup. For all the words of Sepp Blatter about avoiding the mistakes of at Mexico '86, the officials managed to garner a significant negative media echo only in the first two days - and not unfairly so. While Michel Vautrot faced a very challenging game and assessing all of it is a nuanced task, the Hispanic trio led by Uruguayan Cardellino made a cast iron mistake in this tie. The decision to award Romania a penalty for a handling offence by the Soviet Union's no.3 Vagiz Khidiyatullin, which was yards outside the box, was simply a very poor call.
Video clip: https://vk.com/video400374426_456239273?t=14m27s
It was a decision made by officials who were many yards back and probably unsighted respectively. Referee Juan Daniel Cardellino, despite presenting a more-or-less decent athletic profile on an optical level, quite markedly lacked a dynamic sprint and was stuck basically in the centre of the field of play for the whole match. Naturally, he was completely caught out by this quick counter-attack, and probably decided to award Romania a penalty from as many as forty or fifty yards away.
But what of the zone's lineman, Emilio Soriano Aladrén from Spain? Maybe he was a passive team member who saw it all clearly, but to me it seems much more plausible that the Spaniard was simply unlucky. At the moment of the handling, look at where Marius Lacatus is - exactly in the eyeline of this handling offence if Soriano is exactly as far behind play as you could guess he would be, ie., still reasonably close, at least as one could expect not-Usain Bolt to be. Hence, completely blindsided, Cardellino has to take the decision on his own - and gets it quite terribly wrong.
Another interesting element to this call is that if it was assessed clearly by the officials, I think that Khidiyatullin, already booked in the first half, actually gets shown the second yellow card. In Cardellino's panic, the nature of the offence gets completely lost: it is a clear lack of respect handling which deserves a yellow card! So maybe the Soviet Union in some ways can only complain so much.
Señor Cardellino's lack of pace was always going to cost him at this World Cup, but actually that's quite a shame, because in general this referee had a cool and nice style which I liked a lot. Very relaxed and pleasant demeanour, and despite being stuck in the middle of the pitch, closely assessing each single incident, and keeping the game flowing with a number of really good play on calls, at the start of the game at least. Like Vautrot, Uruguay's ref started very well, including drawing the yellow card to Khidiyatullin (11') for the game's first caution at a perfect moment.
DeleteA shade after the half-hour mark, the game began to get a bit rough with some sliding tackle fouls. Unlike Luigi Agnolin in a comparable Eastern clash at the last WC (USSR vs. Hungary), who was brilliantly proactive in consistently warning players who transgressed, Cardellino didn't really do anything in terms of management to act against this foul play. Instead, he seemed to dip further in the background (his style was great, but the game now needed the opposite, even subtly so!), resulting finally in a chaotic and avoidable 'wall DtR' booking at the end of the 1H.
After the penalty was scored to put Romania two goals in front, the game was basically dead and so anything the referee did mattered not, but his technical accuracy decreased a bit more, and the final impression wasn't really positive, even ignoring the penalty. Juan Daniel Cardellino had a very likeable, partly brilliant, style (maybe we can compare to Díaz Vega, but less pedantic, favouring football with his foul detection) but being stuck so rigidly in the centre of the pitch not only shot himself in the foot in the penalty scene, but finally in the game as a whole.
Besides the penalty scene, first linesman Soriano Aladrén didn't help his team leader reach the right decision in an actually crucial scene in the first half, but this time he was directly responsible - his offside call at 20' was definitely wrong and might have denied the Soviet Union a penalty kick (06:15). Besides that, he was quiet. Hernán Silva from Chile ran the other line, and besides another penalty appeal he basically had to adjudicate on with Cardellino again badly caught (11:35), was also pretty quiet.
Match 3 - United Arab Emirates vs. Colombia, George Courtney
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G. Courtney was said to not have been particularly enamoured by his appointment what was not exactly the most sonorous tie going, but the Englishman's date with one of the group stage's most exotic matches can easily be explained - FIFA didn't want to f--- around in the competition's first few days. All four of the referees on the first two days of competition sported vast international experience throughout the whole of the 1980s; with the Bambridge gamble having not come off in Mexico, FIFA's understanding of the recency principle meant they did not want a repeat four years later.
Courtney certainly kept up his end of the bargain, with a rock solid performance here. A much more uncoordinated piece of football compared to the other two matches so far, with the English referee excelling in tactical approach: always keeping the match on the tight leash it required, brilliantly detecting all deliberate charging offences which were particularly 'dangerous' for him, and working diligently in prevention (his voice was picked up by the mics in Bologna; the nuances of hilariously native lines such as "careful lads" might have been lost on these players, but they got the message).
The hardest minutes were the first five, with both sets of players very anxious, but an early caution helped draw a line under that fractiousness, with Courtney leading the game to a good conclusion. To be honest - for the man who absolutely showed to be the master of this way of refereeing at the last World Cup, though this match was no walk in the park, this was no real test. The relevant incidents:
1' - potential caution to Arnoldo Iguarán, challenge (02:25)
5' - caution given to Eissa Meer, tackle (04:20)
Goal: 0-1
58' - caution given to Yousuf Hussain, spa challenge (15:30)
70' - caution given to Ibrahim Meer, spa holding (18:15) *
Goal: 0-2
88' - potential second YC incidents, management (23:40)
[70' is a very relevant call after Vautrot's straight red card the day before; the confirmation for the watching world that the professional foul guidelines are de facto proto-DOGSO, and not putting 'cynicalness' as the key determiner for a player to be ejected]
As Courtney, both his linesmen returned from the last World Cup. Alan Snoddy ran the line four times in that tournament, including on the host's quarterfinal, and he got his key call right on this afternoon - crossover onside for the opening goal (13:05). However, the Northern Irish official convinced less in the rest of the game (15', 49', 80').
English-speaking Takada's presence in this trio was coherent with FIFA's very visible policy to craft language-friendly trios in the opening round of group stage matches; the Japanese official impressed with the flag in Mexico, and while he was quieter than Snoddy, he did nothing to dislodge that impression in Bologna, though most of his flags were impossible to assess from the television footage.
Match 4 - Italy vs. Austria, José Ramiz Wright
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Having had to wait patiently behind the other members of Brazil's golden generation - Cézar Coelho in 1982, who got the final, and Arppi Filho in 1986, who got the final - Jose Roberto Ramiz Wright would finally get the chance to ref on the biggest stage when he was nominated as Brazilian representative for the Italian World Cup in 1990. A long time coming for him, with Ramiz Wright having been on FIFA's radar since a World Youth Championship eleven years previous (he reffed the final, Diego Maradona scored), and boasting three Copa Libertadores finals under his belt too in an impressive resume.
Maybe the spine-tinglingly patriotic atmosphere at the Stadio Olimpico was worth the wait - Ramiz Wright was immediately appointed for the Italian opener against Austria in Rome. The match saw the visitors choose to sit back and play the European Cup away-from-home role, which if not for the late intervention of substitute Toto Schillaci, might well have yielded them a point. The upshot was that the game was probably more challenging as an occasion to handle than the football that was in front of the referee, which was no problem for the Brazilian official.
With his very sovereign and assured style, Ramiz Wright ensured a good performance overall. I'd highlight three incidents most worth talking about (timestamps: 03:10 | 08:15 | 17:15):
6' - quite correct early caution to Andreas Herzog; the booking procedure was textbook, RW completely took charge of the situation there
30' - brutal, modern SFP challenge by Peter Artner, not even given as a foul by the referee.. in 1990, I guess a yellow, and not more, was in order there
64' - yes he pulls his leg off the ground on purpose in order to be hit, and yes he only wants to win a penalty, but Roberto Donadoni was simply too clever for the defender here who wiped him out; Italy should have been awarded a spot-kick
Would be interested in others thoughts here, especially re. 64'?
To conclude: amongst the referees quartet on this match were two officials who received rather exaggerated appointments as linesman at the last World Cup. Indeed, Carlos Silva Valente was nominated as second linesman for this match, with his last WC finals inset on the line having not been a rip-roaring success. This time, much better from the Portuguese ref - in a very challenging 1H (≈ 10 scenes), I never noted a clear mistake by him. Besides a rather weird, 'club lino'-esque, team member scene in the sixty-sixth minute (18:40), wholly convincing impression from Silva Valente.
The much weaker performance with the flag was reserved instead for Colombian Armando Pérez Hoyos, whose presence in Italy, on his own merits too I'm sure, owed to the resignation of WC86's Jesús Díaz from refereeing completely in late 1989. This was the first of many times that Pérez Hoyos would run the line at this WC, but he certainly didn't make the best start - doubtful decisions (20', 48', 53', 75'), and he was even overruled by his referee on a simple offside judgement at the end of the game (88' / 23:25). I think R. Wright was right to waive Pérez's flag down; the attacker looked clearly onside to me.
Match 5 - United States vs. Czechoslovakia, Kurt Röthlisberger
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A day of great pride for American soccer - after forty years, the US Men's National Team would again take part in the World Cup finals competition. They marked their return with a goal too, a nice finish by Paul Caligiuri; though in conceding five and being comprehensively beaten by a very tidy Czechoslovakia side, the United States were left with no illusions by the end of the ninety minutes. For the referee too - it was surely also a proud day for Switzerland's Kurt Röthlisberger, who six goals, two penalties and a red card later, could take heart from what was a good performance on his World Cup finals debut.
Management:
Röthlisberger absolutely nailed tactical approach in this one - from the first whistle, it was obvious that he was absolutely determined to not let this match get away from him, and it was only thanks to his repeated and well-judged preventative action that this spiky game didn't end in many confrontations, brutal tackles and so on. He was very receptive to problematic foul duel scenes, and used yellow cards as a tool to effectively draw the line when required.
KMIs:
Both penalties were rightly awarded IMO (08:40 and 23:40). Eric Wynalda's expulsion is surely the harshest RC for violent conduct in the history of the World Cup! (17:00). Unfortunately, FIFA/RAI had a 'Televisa' moment so the best quality we can muster is an old VHS recording from the time. Sepp Blatter assessed the red card as wrong and stated that "a yellow was sufficient" - moreover, I think modern referees would be expected to solve this scene with only a verbal warning!
I guess the key to grasping how Wynalda was sent off in a scene where not one player, even the pushed Czechoslovakian, reacted to it, is remembering it was only the linesman's information that he was sent off on. In some kind of way, the push was obviously deliberate and I think the USA player was trying to p*ss off his opponent rather than fighting to win the ball, so I can understand how the linesman, West Germany's Schmidhuber, informed his team leader as he did. Worth watching for yourself!
Style:
I must say, I do find all Kurt Röthlisberger matches so interesting. He is such a unique format of referee and leadership figure on the FoP, probably only comparable to the mid-2000s top Russian official Valentin Ivanov. His lack of body tension in all gestures/mimics, and hence, deficiency in taking the initiative and natural authority, was very well compensated for in this match by a very apt (and well-executed!) tactical approach.
Teammates:
Good performances by aforementioned Schmidhuber (some good onsides too) and Marcel Van Langenhove. Algeria's Mohamed Hansal was the reserve referee, though Italian support squad Rosario Lo Bello was originally appointed and replaced; Italy were also in the group, a conflict of interests. Nobody got that memo at the last World Cup in 1986, that's for sure!(!!)
Balance:
Kurt Röthlisberger displayed a good to very good performance in a tricky game. I can quite easily get past seeing the RC call as a real problem (the States were dead and buried anyway; it actually helped calm the match down to be honest), awarded two correct penalty kicks, and on a tactical approach level, Röthlisberger was great. The Swiss official deserved the chance for FIFA to test him in a higher risk second appointment, which is exactly what they did.
Match 6 - Brazil vs. Sweden, Tullio Lanese
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Deliberately listed in place no.1 when AIA/FIGC formally sent their list of FIFA referees off, Tullio Lanese entered a home World Cup as the more favoured of the two Italian referees at the tournament (reasons for which will be explained later). As such, Lanese got quite a nice first appointment, sent to Turin, where Brazil would play their first match of the tournament against Sweden. A nice appointment, and a pleasant match to referee too - both teams were simply focused on playing football.
In a match which challenged the referee rather little in terms of player management, Lanese delivered an efficient performance. There were four tackles by Brazil players which were rather crude, and only on one occasion did the Italian ref not caution the offender; the earliest of the four, he was right to get his notebook out for the other three (02:10, 06:10, 11:45, 19:15). The other booking was slightly rigorous, dissent by the action of throwing the ball away (17:50). Besides that, not very much to report.
Full expected level, second inset should follow for Tullio Lanese. Michel Vautrot's second appointment after 'that' opening game was a shade over 48hrs later, as second linesman in this match. The Frenchman was more able with the whistle than the flag, making three relatively clear and quite important crossover mistakes at the start of the second half; no disaster though overall. By contrast, the Tunisian Jouini who patrolled the near side fared strongly. Besides one scene where he was mistaken in flagging (17'), Jouini was always correct in his on-offside judgements, most impressively for the game's opening goal (06:45).
Match 7 - West Germany vs. Yugoslavia, Peter Mikkelsen
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The last World Cup where the schedule wasn't one-game-after-another, and two genuinely very big games (non-MD3) were played simultaneously to each other - Brazil's opener at the Delle Alpi kicked off exactly concurrently to this European heavyweight clash in Milan. While the Brazilian tie was arguably the more glamorous - indeed it was the match that British television chose to show live of the two -without doubt, FR Germany against Yugoslavia was the more sonorous match. Actually, besides England vs. 'Holland', I'd say it was, probably, the match of the whole group stage?
If so, it lived up to the billing without doubt. All the more reason then that FIFA's appointment of rookie Danish referee Peter Mikkelsen, only thirty years old at the time, was a very courageous one. The old system of selecting referees for FIFA tournaments, much more heavily reliant on political recommendations, had deep, deep flaws. But - the fast-tracking of highly able officials like the Dane who had caught the eye (at eg. a youth WC) was certainly a positive for the global showpiece. Having not only taken PM in the first place, but to put chips down on him for FRGYUG was brave. It proved to be inspired!
Mikkelsen announced himself as a top player who had arrived on the world stage, with a very accomplished performance in the big match. The Danish ref confidently dealt with players whom's star was significantly larger than his, from the first whistle, and managed to quite brilliantly tread the line between assuring a sound level of control over the players and making the match as exciting as possible. Without doubt, this was the best piece of football played at Italia '90 so far (and up there for the whole tournament, to be honest!); for that, the Dane can take a sizeable slice of credit.
Strong throughout, Mikkelsen 'won' the game in the first ten minutes; specifically, over the course of four incidents which all happened on the far side of the pitch (sequential, from KO (00:40)):
- 25secs: quickly on the scene after a sliding tackle foul by Uwe Bein (FRG no.15)
- 2mins: very clear warning to Dragan Stojković (YUG no.10) after a heavy treading foul
- 4m 50s: instantly facing down Faruk Hadžibegić (YUG no.5) after a charging foul from behind
- 6m 45s: correct caution to Andreas Brehme (FRG no.3) after his reckless tackle on Zoran Vulić;
(7' was the only time that Mikkelsen needed to issue a card for the whole match).
He managed to keep that^ refereeing up for the rest of the match (I'd highlight remarkable mgmt technique at 15:15 too). Really elegant officiating which was a pleasure to watch - one could even go so far as to call it Agnolinian; very strong impression from the Danish referee. A breakthrough night for Peter Mikkelsen; FIFA had it confirmed for them, they now had a new star in their midst.
Michał Listkiewicz was the only man appointed as linesman twice in the first set of appointments, ie, FIFA trusted his ability enough to work on the premise that the opener would have gone well for him. It did, and so did this game, a weird boundary call under-his-nose aside. Jassim Mandi from Bahrain was the other flagsman, completing the iconic UEFA-UEFA-CAF/AFC trio for this era. Mandi played a very good onside at 76', and two earlier more questionable decisions were quite tight crossovers; I had a positive impression of this official. Both were treated as specialists linesmen by FIFA for the rest of the WC.
Looking forward to your analysis of GER-NED 🤦🏻
Delete:)
DeleteBtw here is some data which brilliantly shows how remarkable Mikkelsen's feat was; here are the ages, at their respective kick offs, of the twelve referees who handled the first group stage games.
Vautrot: 44
Cardellino: 48
Courtney: 49
R. Wright: 45
Röthlisberger: 39
Lanese: 43
Mikkelsen: 30 (!!)
Loustau: 42
Schmidhuber: 43
Mauro: 47
Soriano A.: 44
Kohl: 47
Match 8 - Costa Rica vs. Scotland, Juan Carlos Loustau
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Costa Rica's one-nothing upset of Scotland constituted what was a pretty academic start to Juan C. Loustau's World Cup, who was the first Argentine that FIFA probably considered in their internal running for a WC final since Coerezza in the 1970s. There were a very limited number of foul duels which Señor Loustau had to lend his judgement to on this warm Genoese afternoon (only fifteen whistled in the whole game is a remarkable statistic); on a Word Cup level, this was rather a reffing cakewalk.
Some notes:
• The most interesting scene was definitely a penalty appeal by Scotland with eight minutes to go (13:10). Nowadays, this would be a crystal clear pk to be given + VAR intervention! Despite the close distance, with arms even flagrantly enlarging the defender's body surface before blocking the cross make the handling offence very clear. The close distance counted for much more 30yrs ago, and I'm sure play on was the accepted call. I wonder how "penalty given" would have gone down.
What is most interesting though - positioning. JC Loustau found himself in, what I would call, as having a "a zero angle", ie. he was looking at the play from the wrong direction to even properly assess the incident. He also looked more focused on a previous, more minor, appeal which he waved off with clear gestures. The positioning from corners and zero angle point would become very relevant a few days later, ending one referee's tournament altogether and a repeat offender escaping again...
• While standing behind the goalline at corners was an automatism for the referee of the day, Loustau's positioning more generally stuck out. He moved much more readily into the diagonal channel, sometimes completely ignoring the diagonal control path, ie. looking at the ball from exactly the same view as his linesman. With both teams building forward, he decided to position himself ahead of the play moving forward (à la WC 2014). The result was this languid referee getting in the way quite often, and this chaotic positioning led to a more chaotic foul recognition than was necessary in such an easy game.
• Loustau was the first referee of the tournament not to issue a yellow card in his game (reaching match 8/52 for this milestone of sorts). Besides a reckless tackle from behind at 61' which should have resulted in a caution issued, the players never really gave the Argentine ref a chance to book them. There was an LoR holding offence which FIFA had asked the refs to crack down on, but given advantage was (successfully) played, a yellow had become essentially superfluous (04:20; 10:50).
• With the team leader being a Spanish speaker only, FIFA designated three Spanish-speaking teammates for JC Loustau (they would rotate exactly this trio for him in all but one of the six slots in his next two games). Though originally, it seems that Kurt Röthlisberger was down to work as linesman no.2 here, on the same day he'd be in Sardinia for ENGIRL. FIFA were quite cavalier about appointing officials on consecutive days and presumably lost themselves here; a small reshuffle took place, Röthlisberger stayed on ENGIRL and Carlos Maciel from Paraguay stood in his stead.
Maciel was quieter than Elías Jácome Guerrero, who became the first referee from his country (Ecuador) to ever stand in a World Cup finals fixture. Nice achievement! Jácome G. performed well, responding strongly to crossover scenes in his zone. That being said - I wonder according to the letter of the offside laws of the day, should Costa Rica's goal actually have stood? Juan Cayasso, who ultimately scored the goal, would be the player under scrutiny, from the previous pass (09:05).
Match 9 - England vs. Republic of Ireland, Aron Schmidhuber
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The 'British Isles derby' was played exactly how one would have expected it - cagey as an opening group game, with extremely direct tactics by both teams, and even the island weather played it's part; blustery, and in the second half, sheeting rain. FIFA appointed to a quartet of top UEFA officials for this game.
And rather smartly in my opinion, selected a (West) German, Aron Schmidhuber, to referee it. The thesis of his style great movement + arousing the respect of the players (height + assured manner), and those aptitudes were more than enough to see him through managing the British confrontation.
--
We can take a look at the most interesting incidents (4', 11', 38', 59', 76'):
01:30 • Jumping well in after a standing foul from behind by Paul Gascoigne, good
- (England 1-0 Eire, goal) -
04:10 • Nowadays, I think that Des Walker's late sliding tackle on Ray Houghton would have been given as a clear penalty! To be fair, back then the idea is basically the same as today (not all after-the-ball-kicked contacts are fouls; a careless vs. reckless question), but naturally much more forgiving. Walker's foul is definitely careless for 1990, trying to block the ball and then trying to pull out, so I guess play on is the expected call. Can ask the same question as CRCSCO - I wonder the reaction would have been if a (credible!) penalty call was made?
06:55 • A bizarre freekick given, penalising Peter Shilton for handling having been alleged to run the ball out of his penalty area. We have to rely on Brian Moore (RIP) and Ron Atkinson's description of the teamwork between Schmidhuber and his Swiss linesman Kurt Röthlisberger in order to reach the final call.
10:10 • Weirdly, nobody seemed to care, but England should definitely have been awarded a penalty. Chris Waddle was way too clever for Kevin Moran, whom he teased into a careless trip inside the penalty area. While it was on Schmidhuber's blind side, he should still have been able to correctly perceived the situation to give a penalty. It would have been very gutsily-flagged by Röthlisberger if he waved for pk - he'd have been right to do so - but weirdly, considering the vicinities, this was the ref's call to make IMO.
- (England 1-1 Eire, goal) -
12:20 • The only caution of the game, presumably for aggressive behaviour. More of a control + perception decision, with the hierarchy being that way round.
Finally, we can report a good performance by both linesmen, Röthlisberger on the far-side, and Erik Fredriksson on the near, the Swede returning to the World Cup having run Arppi Filho's line in the 1986 final. Both 'assistant referees' indicated a number of offsides, but very few were really crucial scenes, and were mostly impossible to assess from the television footage. Röthlisberger had some fairly important scenes at the start of the second half, which all seemed to have yielded okay/good offside decisions.
Match 10 - Belgium vs. Korea Republic, Vincent Mauro
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The two key questions regarding the refereeing of this match before kick-off:
• Would Korea reprise their tactics of 1986 (many hard fouls + threatening to beat even strong teams)
&
• Would the American referee, Vincent Mauro, be able to handle it with his officiating
The answers respectively were, yes, though significantly more tamed, and, of referee Mauro, a rather emphatic no. This performance was kind of the complete reverse of South Korea's last World Cup match against Italy, handled by another US referee, David Socha. Whereas Socha had an excellent approach to keeping the game (rather more challenging than this one, which Belgium won 2-0) under control, he faced bad luck and misjudged some key incidents, and was ultimately rejected by FIFA for his showing.
Contrarily, Vincent Mauro displayed a more-or-less totally inexistent disciplinary control, and was very fortunate that the game, organically, did not explode into great tension, loss of match control, etcetera. They relented for whatever reason in the 2H, but in the first, the Korea team rather brutally tackled Belgium players repeatedly, with the American official taking next-to-no action every time. In addition, he made a few glaring errors in foul recognition, much too basic for a World Cup finals niveau.
What can we praise Mauro for then: firstly, he detected the tactical value of (finally) booking a Korea player, Choi Soon-ho, and did so at 39'; he also gave a nice verbal warning, re. potential SYC, at 80' to the same player. And, perhaps this was crucial to ensuring the game didn't turn into a nightmare - the American was always enthusiastic in following play, remarkably so actually, and with a smile almost perpetually on his face, it was very visible he was enjoying himself out there, which was nice to see!
One of the big negatives of the kind of standardisation which FIFA tried at this World Cup (also Germany 2006), is that it - quite ironically - significantly skewers making rational judgements about who is a good referee. Satisfying rather narrow demands of the kind of referees FIFA wanted (eg. respective estimations of Maidin, Ivanov) was enough, and the fact that they weren't actually much good was bypassed in the process. Mauro rather benefitted from that to appear in 1990, in my opinion.
Somewhat mercifully, being brutally honest, this was Mauro's last appearance as referee in the tournament (BONUS - KMI incident at 01:30). The linesmen, Brits deliberately appointed for lingual cohesion (Courtney (ENG) and Snoddy (NIR)), faced quite an easy-going game, and both performed well.
Match 11 - Netherlands vs. Egypt, Emilio Soriano Aladrén
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How life can turn on such disparate moments - the mix-up in appointing Kurt Röthlisberger to run the line for two games on the same day led to Carlos Maciel replacing him and coming off this game, replaced by Edgardo Codesal (line 1); FIFA, now getting the zealous to craft lingually uniform trios, then decided to take Tullio Lanese out of Soriano Aladrén's crack team, and instead place in Juan Daniel Cardellino (line 2), whom was already down to work with the Spaniard, though with the roles reversed, in the early Soviet Union vs. Romania game. All these changes were made before any games were played at Italia 1990.
Soriano Aladrén (linesman for that match) and Cardellino (referee) had therefore already been implicated in one glaring mistake together at the tournament - the penalty awarded to Romania in match two - before they took charge of this game in Sicily. For Netherlands against Egypt, where the roles were reversed (the Spaniard in the middle), both officials were again responsible for exactly the same mistake: awarding a penalty for an offence that occurred outside the penalty area. The late (82') award allowed Egypt score an equaliser, and was a key mistake for determining the whole outcome of Group F.
Video clip:
https://vk.com/video400374426_456239283?t=11m31s
The two errors which condemned the Uruguayo-Spainish duo, though of the same outcome, were quite different in nature. This mistake was much more understandable than the Soviet Union vs. Romania fiasco on a continuum, with two players moving dynamically towards the penalty area. Whereas Soriano Aladrén was almost certainly unsighted in Bari, this was rather his call to make - or at least certainly deciding that an offence had taken place, which it definitely had.
Referee Soriano was instant in his penalty award, and without being prejudiced after the opener, the portion of the scene where Cardellino is on-camera doesn't fill me with confidence that his attempts to make up the ground in order to be in a good position were anything other than in vain. If the Uruguayan had managed to get the Spanish ref to change his mind (by discreetly not running to the goal line, but remaining on his-left of the penalty area, outside it?), I'm pretty sure it would have saved his WC too.
By the way, isn't this a paramount example of a professional foul (-> red card)? Well, it is definitely a paramount example of DOGSO, but the fact that the holding is relatively light and not flagrant, that a penalty was awarded anyway, probably is enough to save him. Not one(!) person at FIFA made that same observation though! The whole notion of this guideline is rather arbitrary, and yet each time I believe you can understand the thesis of how some fouls are "professional" (-> RC) in 1990, and some aren't.
Being co-authors of the same mistake twice was always likely to condemn our Uruguayo-Spanish duo, and indeed besides one more linesman showing for Cardellino aside (which had actually been released before kickoff in NEDEGY), their WC careers on the field were over.
DeleteThat is unfortunate for them, as besides this one incident, both Soriano Aladrén and Cardellino would have achieved passing grades for their respective performances; both unchallenged over the piece. Especially the Uruguayan - besides the penalty, he literally had nought to do on a decision-making level; I didn't note him even making one on-offside call in the whole match.
Some note-worthy stuff for Soriano: quite a few penalty area incidents in the 1H (the one after kick-off, at 3', on the HL most interesting), quite formidable reactions against Egypt DtR in the 2H, and two cautions in two 2H minutes, both for reckless tackles. But for his clear match error, this was a solid performance which would have earned a second appointment.
Stylistically, Soriano reminded me of a Velasco-type referee - not in being ultra-lenient (in Brazil) or demotivated, but a rather solid format of official, succeeding by arousing an assured-enough and competent impression, but not really displaying much charisma, and hinting at some small deficiencies in other areas.
A Spanish referee who deserved his place at the elite, though not the élite, and despite notching up very good appointments over his career, perhaps not the man for the most challenging counters all the same. However, a second match, a more difficult one, would have been nice to potentially substantiate these impressions! Though not to be.
The other Uruguayan linesman, naturalised Mexican Edgardo Codesal, escaped from the debris of that far-side incident rather Ulloa Morera (vis-à-vis Diego's 1986 handling) style. This, like his last WC appointment, was as a replacement (that time for J. L. Martínez, despite being support squad), and Codesal did well; one of the most convincing linesmen so far in 1990, nice job.
Match 12 - Uruguay vs. Spain, Helmut Kohl
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Uruguay's matches at the last World Cup, the most recent in the living memory of most as they prepared to take part in Italia '90, were quite a saga of their own - with their extreme brutal and uncompromising attitude, they tested both their opponents and their officials quite to the limit in all four matches that they played in Mexico. Opponents for their 1990 opener were Spain who were no shrinking violets themselves, and generally pretty tricky to officiate. Fireworks seemed in store at Udine's Friuli.
FIFA appointed Helmut Kohl as referee, what looked a very sound appointment on paper and, in practice, proved to be an inspired one. The namesaked Austrian had just come off refereeing the European Cup final, a normal-difficulty game which he officiated well and without problems (besides losing his pen in the 2H and trying, and failing, to quick grab one off his linesmen! :D). Kohl's no-nonsense, top-down authority style of controlling his matches seemed well suited to an encounter between these two sides.
Uruguay were nothing on the 1986 side, by the way. But still rough they were, and having successfully solved a very fractious start by both teams, Helmut Kohl realised a very strong performance. The match's key incident was a penalty awarded to Uruguay at 72' (HL: 18:15), for a goalkeeper-esque save on the line, denying Spain what was otherwise a certain goal. Nobody had thought to extend "professional fouls" to handlings too, so the already-cautioned offender got off completely scot-free.
Actually, not one Uruguay player asked for a sanction either, only appealing that the ball had already crossed (it hadn't). Nor did it for the penalty kick, blazed over the bar in a game that finished scoreless; both sets of players were booed off by the locals at fulltime, unimpressed with the defensive-minded spectacle which both teams had played out. Referee Helmut Kohl was probably the best man on the park, and he perfectly executed the FIFA brief in appointing him.
With his very clear warnings in the early stages, and consistent use of sanctions throughout (reckless; LoR hands; reckless; player altercation, the lattermost being a bit questionable), Kohl managed to extinguish the tension from this match almost entirely before the half-hour mark. In changing the appointment system from the previous WCs (doing it in blocks), FIFA allowed themselves to more closely pair matches with the referee's styles, and this was certainly a success story here. Kohl was very good!
Kohl was leader of a Central-Eastern European reffing trio, with officials from the Soviet Union (Aleksej Spirin) and East Germany (Siegfried Kirschen) joining him on the line. Spirin had one of the weakest linesman's performances so far, with three quite blatantly wrongly assessed crossovers all in the first twenty minutes; still short of "failing the test" though I think. GDR's Kirschen was better, though facing easier scenes than Spirin over the piece.
Finally - an ode to 1986, Luigi Agnolin, the Italian referee of Uruguay's noted second round clash against eventual-champions Argentina in that tournament, was initially appointed as reserve referee for this match. An unintentional ode apparently. Agnolin was a man whom FIFA found it tricky to find places for at this World Cup and chose to kick him off as fourth man in Udine. Uruguay were quite happy with his performance back then, but lost, so he was substituted nonetheless - Japan's Takada took his place.