In Focus: Match 15 - Yugoslavia vs. Colombia, Luigi Agnolin

 He may not have refereed the final, but undoubtedly the best referee of the 1986 World Cup was Mr. Luigi Agnolin. Agnolin won the respect of the football world in Mexico, and though he had a semifinal amongst three insets, it was his outstanding performance in the Argentina vs. Uruguay match that so stood out. 

Fast-forward four years, and Agnolin was back on the World Cup stage - and widely perceived by the football public as the top candidate to ref the final on home soil. He would kick off, and as it turned out, end, his tournament with what was the key game in Group D, Yugoslavia against Colombia in Bologna. 

Refereeing Highlights

Preface

Remarkably, Luigi Agnolin very nearly wasn't selected for his home World Cup at all. His selection was the final result of a fraught battle, fought behind the corridors of power, between the names of himself, Tullio Lanese, and a third referee, Pietro D'Elia. 

From the outside, it was absolutely stunning that Agnolin wasn't a shoo-in to referee at Italia '90 after impressing so much in Mexico four years previous, especially in the ultra-challenging Argentina vs. Uruguay second round tie. Indeed, his Brazilian assessor, Abilio d'Almeida, gave the Italian the perfect ten out of ten mark, only the second such score in all World Cup history. Moreover, the FIFA politicians, whom's skin Agnolin had undoubtedly saved by coming through with flying colours in a game which he astoundingly prevented from turning ferrel, began to refer to the Italian simply as "Rambo". For what it is worth, from my perception also, I doubt I'll ever see a refereeing performance so good as that one. 

Perceived as making too political appointments at that World Cup (basically Bennaceur, but also some others, Márquez Ramírez's semi and some others such as Díaz and Bambridge more harshly), FIFA were very anxious to show that they had 'learnt' their lesson, and were given the perfect opportunity to in 1990. FIFA had stuck rigidly to one official per association for the best part of forty years, but had changed tack when they designated both Michel Vautrot and Joël Quiniou for Italia '90. A sensible decision, which went against what would otherwise be FIFA's instinct on such matters, and one that deserves praise. 

So, both the Italian football (FIGC) and refs (AIA) associations were fortunate that they were allowed to have two Italian referees at their home World Cup. Their favoured candidate on the road to the 1990 cycle for AIA and FIGC, in what was perceived as quite a surprise, came out as then-new international newbie Tullio Lanese. Hence, Lanese attended the Seoul Olympics, and the World Youth in 1989, and was listed as numero uno in the ceremonial (but telling) in the order of proposed international referees to FIFA.

Agnolin, typically outspoken, had made enemies in FIGC, and so they tried to prevent his candidacy to represent them at their home World Cup(!). Hence, Agnolin was only third in the list. Ordered at place number two, was long-time referee of international fixtures, Pietro D'Elia. A look at his World Cup qualifying appointments makes for very impressive reading (Belgium vs. Netherlands playoff, West Germany vs. Netherlands, and Northern Ireland vs. Republic of Ireland in Belfast). The reverse legs of these ties were handled by George Courtney, Erik Fredriksson and Michel Vautrot respectively.

I can confirm that D'Elia is quite justified in such company - he was a brilliantly natural referee with an excellent style (though he did rather bottle a clear SYC in the mentioned FRGNED tie), who maybe compensated for some small technical deficiencies with his great manner. Remarkably, D'Elia never attended a major tournament, not even a EURO (selecting him over Casarin would have been a nicer choice for 1988, maybe?). But he was slated to referee at his home World Cup in 1990, and almost definitely would have, were it not for an intervention of FIFA President João Havelange. 

As president, Havelange mostly left refereeing matters to his general secretary, Sepp Blatter (more on his involvement in this episode later), besides the appointments to finals and so on. But he decided this matter  was important enough for his intervention, so he reached a compromise with AIA, FIGC. They would get their first choice, Lanese, but denied their second, D'Elia, in compensation for Agnolin getting in. The associations accepted. I find their behaviour a bit irritating to be honest - though I don't want to write explicitly against Lanese, who already showed he was a good referee at this tournament. 

There is no doubt however that he certainly wasn't in the class of D'Elia or Agnolin. A relative youngster at 43, Lanese would have had time to build his palmares in the future, given that he was due as many as seven years remaining internationally referee at that time (this WC changed that status quo however). But contrary to common-sense, which would have been D'Elia (Italian pick) and Agnolin (FIFA pick), for whatever reason, the associations wanted to push through Lanese since at least 1988, and they did. So Pietro D'Elia, very unluckily, missed out not only a home World Cup, but on a major championship, period.

I guess it suited FIFA more as well (two different 'formats' of referee from Italy; D'Elia and Agnolin would have been both final candidates), but there was another factor at play too I think. All of the (five) remaining Italian FIFA referees would form a support squad of officials for the tournament. This meant standing as reserve official on games, and perhaps getting a turn at linesmen's duties (they all did). Having Luigi Agnolin, the most famous referee in the world (for instance, he even featured in the music video for the tournament's official song), in that role, would have made FIFA look quite ridiculous.

Pietro D'Elia was in the support squad therefore, and stood as linesmen in not only the one group stage match that each support official got, but also in a round of sixteen match, Czechoslovakia vs. Costa Rica. As for Lanese and Agnolin, they could turn their attention to their matches at the finals. 

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The respective 'routes' that Agnolin and Lanese took to getting selected bore out in their first designations. The latter got a pleasant appointment, sonorous but not so challenging, Brazil vs. Sweden, and in a classic UEFA-UEFA-AFC/CAF trio. He performed well in a normal difficulty game. Agnolin however, the wildcard imposed by the president who mostly left matters (such as group stage reffing appointments) alone, had his game with two assistants from Africa, Neji Jouini (Tunisian who was also on Lanese's game), and Jean-Fidèle Diramba from Gabon, who was making his tournament bow. 

So was Agnolin, but he got switched out of the first set of matches having been carelessly assigned as reserve referee for Uruguay's game. FIFA then gave him the task of reffing Yugoslavia vs. Colombia to start off, a game probably more important (and challenging, with those two sides), than it was sonorous. To complete the trio as completely and symmetrically Italo-African, was Pierluigi Pairetto, a young up-and-comer who like only D'Elia would work on a knockout stage assignment as support squad (lining Brazil vs. Argentina no less). Pairetto was the reserve referee (fourth official) for this game. 

The Big Decision

Nobody argued that Luigi Agnolin had a bad game - actually he refereed the game very well in my and more-or-less everyone else's opinion. But one incident was contested by various powers-that-be with great ferocity - was Faruk Hadžibegić's min.16 foul on Freddy Rincón a 'professional' (DOGSO) one? Agnolin decided that no (red) card was necessary; you can judge the situation for yourself [timestamp].

Even in a modern context, I think it is a highly interesting SPA vs. DOGSO question! I'd err, relatively strongly, on the side of DOGSO - Rincón's touch wide might make it look less like DOGSO, but he is surely going to be in one-on-one, only slightly wide. But not an intervention in case of yellow card I guess? The situation is equally interesting in the 1990 context - that Hadžibegić's tackle is very blatantly deliberate, is exactly what was on the 'professional foul' tin in terms of guidelines for the referees. David Pleat, then-manager of Leicester City, identified it as a clear red card according to the guidelines, as he saw them. 

Only, and only, in 1990, could you have a situation where simultaneously FIFA demanded a red card be given, as no card be a quite conceivable option too (or maybe not, our modern follow-through SFPs?). Indeed, Agnolin's decision was not to sanction, or even warn, Hadžibegić. For a generation of referees absolutely not trained to detect DOGSO-type offences (in all of our heads as we watch a one-on-one incident in our games, "if it's a foul, then DOGSO"), given that Rincón was running at least a bit wide, my feeling is that Agnolin deserved the benefit of the doubt with this scene, all things considered. 

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The referees assessor for this game, the tall and, by then, plump, Thomas Wharton from Scotland, gave Agnolin a high mark in the report; therefore not determining this sixteenth minute scene as a clear red. Actually, Wharton strongly praised Agnolin's performance - "excellent". The reports were the traditional route through which clear match errors or deficient performances, (-> rejections), are determined. But one person, more powerful than individual members of the referees committee, strongly disagreed with resume of "excellent": Sepp Blatter, then-General Secretary and referee supremo at FIFA. 

Blatter was absolutely furious with Agnolin, in what he considered a flagrant breach of the guidelines which he wanted to be implemented. Aforementioned Pleat guessed that Agnolin was trying to be "popular" in not showing the red card, and I guess this sort of idea is what irked Blatter so much. Blatter didn't personally get on with Agnolin, he thought that the Italian was a too arrogant man. Remember, it was Havelange who saved Agnolin's World Cup 1990 from happening at all; knowing the order of hierarchies, that means ipso facto, that Blatter must have been content with Agnolin being out of the list initially. 

I actually think the whole thing might have slightly got lost in translation, so to speak. Blatter saw the most popular and most visible referee of the day, 'blatantly ignoring his guidelines'; probably, the Swiss saw, in his eyes, a man who thought he was too 'big' for the guidelines. This enraged him. If Rincón had been running straight to goal, then I would quite agree with Blatter. But - the situation really isn't as clear as the Swiss saw it, I think. It is quite probable to me that Agnolin simply didn't perceive this situation as a professional foul, on the pitch, from his perception, given that Rincón was running wide. 

Upon realising that on Wharton's report, Agnolin wasn't going to be rejected in this game by the committee, Blatter showed himself to be the cunning politician par excellence. To quote the late Sir Geoffrey Howe - as captain of the cricket team, he broke his team's bats before the match. FIFA's General Secretary managed to undercut the referees committee with remarkable dexterity. He invited himself on ZDF television a couple of days circa Agnolin's game, in a segment where he talked through some refereeing clips from the games at the World Cup and the FIFA interpretations of them.

The sixteenth minute foul from Yugoslavia against Colombia came up. Blatter stated that he thought it was a clear red card, and, tying in another referee of a matchday two game to which we will come later, brilliantly delivered the line, "if it was up to me, these referees would take no further part in the World Cup". And neither did. I am quite sure that Blatter used Agnolin, whom he didn't like and thought was much too arrogant, as a useful martyr; 'we aren't scared of rejecting anyone who doesn't follow the guidelines'. 

With the Italian associations keeping quiet in order to save Lanese's World Cup, Blatter had used his carte blanche to lethal effect. 

Match

Largely, I saw the same performance as assessor Thomas Wharton - a very good one by Luigi Agnolin in a quite punchy game with a lot of foul infractions (≈ fifty whistled). Besides 16', the most important situation was a penalty correctly awarded to Yugoslavia for a blatant handling offence at 80' [timestamp]. The first half was rougher than the second, with the early stages of it being played quite nervously by both sets of teams; with West Germany clearly the strongest and the United Arab Emirates as the weakest respectively in Group D, both teams had rightly identified this as the section's key game. 

Agnolin had it all under control, and I'd highlight this verbal warning at 6' as an example of his excellent refereeing style [timestamp]. The only (86') caution was for playing after an offside whistle, and though he could have booked a couple more (+47', 78'), overall not too much to report here. As a general observation, while he was quite discretional and hardly liberal with the yellow card, the Italian definitely wasn't "lenient", at least we know it today. Agnolin's style certainly had not lost any of the elegance from 1986; it remained, and remains, a real pleasure to watch this man in action with the whistle. 

Linesmen

Very challenging games for Jean-Fidèle Diramba (first) and Neji Jouini (second) when they controlled the halves that Yugoslavia attacked into. 'Just' a CAF official he may be, amongst a squad with some specialists in there too, but Jouini is, without doubt, the best linesman at World Cup 1990 in my opinion - so far at least. The Tunisian faced around ten challenging scenes (crossovers) with the flag, and I believe that he solved all of them correctly. Pretty remarkable accuracy in the 1990-era, impressive.

Gabon's Jean-Fidèle Diramba had charge of near side, and was a bit less impressive; though, besides one quite blatant mistake (22'), Diramba was okay overall. That being said - I'm pretty sure he was incorrect to disallow a Yugoslavia goal just before halftime (the same scene as aforementioned +47', encroachment, handled in a nice way by Agnolin), even if nobody really cared at the time [timestamp].

Aftermath

FIFA had rejected one of their best referees after a debatable, clandestinely assigned, clear match error. While the principle that all referees should be treated the same when evaluating key scenes is, of course, a good one, I wonder if the reverse is what actually happened here. Agnolin was, I think, actually a victim of his high profile - the Italian associations didn't want him to be there in the first place, neither did FIFA given that he didn't really fit their new vision, and as a 'wildcard' referee with whom nobody knew what to do with, he was perfect for Blatter to make him a martyr. 

So, somewhat crazily, given his talents, FIFA had lacerated Agnolin out of the World Cup after just one match. This caused quite a stir in Italy, where Agnolin was widely popular, with indignation felt particularly in the small refereeing fraternity. To such extent that at Bologna's next match, Yugoslavia against the United Arab Emirates, one-hundred and fifty local grassroots refs displayed pro-Agnolin posters during the game. FIGC grovelingly apologised to FIFA, and stated that they had opened investigations against all the local officials in question. 

For Agnolin himself, this match was the last one that he ever refereed. Due to officiate for one more season (90-91) before falling foul of the age limit, he curtailed his twenty-nine year career early after World Cup 1990. So, his final whistle in this match was the final one he ever blew on the top stage. Even though it wasn't a bad performance, in many ways, it was a sad way to go for one of the best referees of all football history. Quite right to do so if you see 16' as a professional foul by the way, but FIFA rejecting the man who absolutely saved their skin in 1986 after one just incident is a remarkable turn of events. 

Balance

Luigi Agnolin's World Cup 1990 was over before it had really began - despite the performance as a whole being a good one (as said so by FIFA's ref assessor in the stands), the Italian's decision in one specific scene was unsatisfactory for the powers-that-be, and was enough to end his tournament. Faruk Hadžibegić's foul on Freddy Rincón is a tricky one to assess - SPA vs. DOGSO, professional foul or not - which puts the whole episode into murkier waters, than an open-and-shut case of a top referee deliberately ignoring the guidelines set to all the officials in 1990, as Sepp Blatter saw it.

Murky enough to give Agnolin, one of the world's leading referees who had otherwise had a strong performance, the benefit of the doubt? For Mr Blatter, it wasn't. The Italian was a problematic referee for FIFA to assign in 1990, and probably paid the price for that, martyred by Blatter on German television. A story with many Aesopian elements for all refereeing, and one with a sad, regrettable conclusion indeed - the end of not only a home World Cup, but a whole refereeing career, for the great Luigi Agnolin. 

Luigi Agnolin (ITA) Jean-Fidèle Diramba (GAB) Neji Jouini (TUN) Pierluigi Pairetto (ITA) Officials	Yugoslavia 1-0 Colombia Group Stage Thursday 14th June at 5pm (Bologna)
Stojković (86') - Delaying the Restart