Semi-Finals review

Of referees and other decision-makers

I could not remember his name but his manner was familiar. I had seen him reaching for his top pocket in many a Premiership match. Now he was sitting next to me at the Valley, making the occasional note in a discreet leather bound notecase whilst I flailed around, logging the game in an old exercise book. We were poles apart but we had the game in common so I took my chance. What did he think of the use of cameras to assist referees, I asked politely.

He is a tall gaunt man of forbidding aspect and, for a moment, I thought he was going to see red. He may have exchanged whistle for seat but a Premiership referee’s adjudicator is still a formidable presence.

“You know FIFA have absolutely ruled out anything except the possibility of whether the ball has crossed the line for a goal.” It was not a question. I muttered something about only using video replay to determine matters of fact not interpretation and expected to be ejected from the match for dissent. But it was he who did not return to his seat next to mine after the interval. Something I said?

Here’s something referee Graham Poll said in his World Cup column in the Daily Telegraph:

“Like it or not, the beautiful game is made up of mistakes as much as outstanding play. Bad tackles, ill-advised offside traps and incorrect decisions – they are all part and parcel of football.”

Another refereeing blunder, this time in the press not on the pitch. Soccer is a game of chance as well as skill - but only on the part of the players. The referee’s function is to regulate play according to the laws of the game; any error by the officials, therefore, is an aberration. That’s a fact. Mr Poll’s interpretation is illogical.

My purpose is not an attack on referees. On the contrary, considering the difficulty of the environment in which they operate, most officials perform surprisingly well most of the time. But since human faculties make them fallible, errors must occur. And since, sorry Mr Poll, any such error should be unacceptable, any credible means of reducing mistakes should be welcome. Multi-camera coverage can be such an aid. The key to its efficient usage is an official seated at a bank of screens and in radio connection with the man in the middle. His role as instant advisor would interrupt the continuity of play but rarely because the ball is usually dead seconds after a relevant incident occurs.

Consider this action from Tuesday’s semi-final between South Korea and Germany. Neuville makes tracks into the South Korean penalty area and plunges forward, claiming a penalty, as Kim-Tae Young slides in. A camera sees clearly that it’s a dive. In this instance the referee was also fortunate enough to see the incident clearly. But what if he hadn’t? He can’t be everywhere. Cameras can.

I’ll say it again. We’re talking about fact not interpretation. Facts like whether the ball was out of play when crossed for the disallowed Spanish golden “goal” in their quarter final against South Korea. The watching world knew the truth seconds later but by then Spain had been deprived of a place in the semi-finals. All the referee has to do to avail of such assistance is refrain from blowing his whistle until play is resolved, either by a goal being scored or missed.

With the Portuguese, Italians and Spaniards queuing up to claim that South Korea were only there by virtue of refereeing bias, FIFA played safe by recruiting the heavy brigade for the semis. The officials were unobtrusively efficient and there were, fortunately, no incidents visible on camera but outside their view.

The only refereeing decision to cause anguish was the caution awarded by Swiss ref Meier to Ballack for a professional foul that thwarted Chun-Soo Lee on the edge of the penalty area in that South Korea/Germany semi. When he saw the inevitable card it must have been a devastating moment for Germany’s midfielder since it ruled him out of a World Cup Final but, no Paul Gascoigne, he simply redoubled his efforts. Two minutes later he lost his marker as a rare mistake by Kim-Tae Young let Neuville in on the right. When the ball came across Ballack, who had run sixty yards, yelled Bierhoff out of the way. Keeper Woon-Jae Lee narrowed the angle and made a smart save from the first shot but Ballack retained perfect balance and switched feet to slide the rebound home. He had been the match winner against the USA too. Now he must watch the final from the bench.

A quarter of an hour remained for South Korea to save the game but they contrived only one chance during this period, Park screwing his shot hopelessly wide when well placed. In truth, the South Koreans seemed to run out of steam and self-belief after their perpetual motion of the earlier stages in the finals. Perhaps fatigue was a factor; the sustained accusations of a fix by their defeated European opponents may also have played a psychological part. On the pitch they missed the injured Choi who departed ten minutes after half time and were perhaps unwise to keep Ahn, a potential match-winner, on the bench until the 53rd minute.

Yet the co-hosts bossed the opening twenty minutes and came nearest to scoring in the first half, the impregnable Khan plunging full length to his left to palm away Lee-Chun Soo’s cross shot. Robbie Keane remains the only player to have beaten him during these finals.

As for Germany, they seem to be coming good at exactly the right time. The nation that only qualified by means of a play off victory over Ukraine and were trounced 5-1 on their own soil less that a year ago by England, are ultimately in the final. In the match against South Korea they showed immense discipline and organisation although how much of this assurance was due to the inability of the South Koreans, for once, to run the opposition off its feet is hard to judge. Against the unfashionable Americans in the quarter final, the Germans, Kahn apart, looked far from comfortable and were fortunate to win. How they will fare against Brazilian flair without Ballack, their outstanding on field player, is anyone’s guess. Certainly the five goals headed by Klose in the early stages flattered to deceive. He has not scored since the group stage and is clearly a support striker, not a man who will carry the brunt upfront.

If the first semi final was engrossing, the second tie between Brazil and Turkey was exhilarating. Like their ultimate opponents the Brazilians didn’t get to the finals easily, finishing behind Argentina and Ecuador and only ahead of Paraguay on goal difference in the top four qualifiers. In the process they lost to Argentina, Ecuador and, believe it or not, Bolivia.

In these finals, however, Brazil have provided wonderful entertainment. They know how to defend but prefer to attack since the technical expertise of their strikers has proved too much for even the most sophisticated defences. The tournament has been a particular success for Ronaldo, a triumph after the disaster of the last World Cup final where he was withdrawn prior to the match, after illness earlier in the day, then returned to the starting line up to give an anonymous performance. In the four intervening years he has hardly played because of injury so it’s good to see such a talented player take the world stage. He would need to be the best player in the competition to justify the worst haircut.

With the departure of Saudi Arabia, Japan and now South Korea, relief seemed on hand for western commentators' confusion over exotically similar appellations. But the Brazilians are doing their best. For the match with Turkey they replaced the suspended Ronaldinho – not to be confused with Ricardino or, of course, Ronaldo – with Edilson – no relation to Edmilson or even Denilson, who substituted for him during the match just to keep us on our toes.

Of course the Brazilians are experts at keeping their opponents on their heels, and well though Turkey played in a commendably open match, they were the supporting act and had reason to be grateful to their goalkeeper Rustu by the end of the ninety minutes. Not to be left out of the name game, the Turks have a tendency to put their players first names (politically incorrectly referred to as Christian names by the BBC’s jolly Mr Motson as well as RTÉ's Alkin Stephen) on the backs of their shirts. Just to give the mix a stir, Motson adds another layer of surrealism by calling the player labelled “Fatih” by his surname “Akyel” but sticking with “Ergun” for his team-mate, “Penbe”! Pay attention; this is bound to turn up in a cracker riddle next Christmas.

Although Rustu, whose hairstyle and eye makeup make him look like the unfortunate love child of David Seaman and Ozzy Osbourne, took the goalkeeping honours, it was Brazil’s Marcos who was first called upon, diving to his left to keep an excellent header from Alpay out of his bottom right corner. It was Rustu’s turn a moment later when he made a brilliant, if lucky, save from the incomparable Cafu after a magical passing movement had dissolved the cover in front of the Turkish keeper. Rustu did well to get to the Brazilian skipper’s shot at all but was relieved to see it bounce down and over the bar behind him.

Two minutes later Rustu was experiencing the same mix as Rivaldo’s fizzing drive bounced off him to the attending Ronaldo, whose instinctive response was to hit the ball against the keeper from point blank range. Ten minutes later Rustu was at it again, plunging bravely at Ronaldo’s feet. Turkey’s best efforts meanwhile saw Cafu sweeping up to deny Hakan Sukur, again mysteriously preferred to Ilhan Manziz. Then, after Basturk had been pulled back on the edge of the area, Emri, sorry Belozoglu, sent a free kick just over the bar with Marcos, who is danger of becoming the first reliable Brazilian goalkeeper ever, on careful watch.

But Brazil was back laying siege to the Turkish goal just before the interval with Rustu distinguishing himself with a double save at the feet of first Ronaldo and then Edilson after which he required attention for a head injury. Goodness knows what havoc this ceaseless activity was having on Rustu’s eye makeup which he wears, he says, to protect his eyes from glare. No doubt the interval gave him the opportunity for much needed running repairs. It came with a flurry of activity off the ball that caused one of the assistants to race on to the pitch and Mr Motson go into his best maiden aunt “my word!” mode. But the pushing and shoving seemed to be a lot of players preventing Ronaldo doing something silly and the referee hardly broke sweat. There was a certain frisson because in the group stage encounter with the same opponents Turkey had been the victim of some poor refereeing decisions and some blatant cheating by Rivaldo that left then on the wrong end of a 2-1 result after finishing with nine men.

Nevertheless, Brazil won this game too, shortly after the interval, with a bit of Ronaldo magic. The striker made inroads into the Turkish penalty area and unexpectedly toe-poked the ball to Rustu’s left. The surprised keeper was able to get a hand to it but only succeeded in deflecting the ball into the side netting inside his goal. It was a wonderful piece of invention, as unconventional as it was effective.

Manziz finally got on, but for Emre not Hakan Sukur, after 60 minutes and was just in time to see Ronaldo kebab the Turkish defence and set up Kleberson, who could only shoot at Rustu. The Brazilians decided to save more Ronaldo magic for the final, replacing him with Luizao after 67 minutes. Now it was Rivaldo’s turn to fillet two Turkish defenders with superb close control and set the substitute away on the right. But Luizao’s cross was over hit.

As Turkey pressed forward, alarming gaps appeared at the back. Luckily for them Luizao is no Ronaldo although Rustu had to race well out of his penalty area to beat him to the ball on one occasion. Then Cafu crossed from the right but Luizao bungled a bicycle kick in front of goal when it would have been easier to head the ball in. Turkey substituted Umit with Izzet, which was marginally easier to grasp than Brazil’s replacement of Edilson by Denilson for the last quarter of an hour.

Denilson, once the world’s most expensive player, is a world class version of the playground showoff who is never dispossessed and wouldn’t dream of passing to his own side either. Consequently he’s a useful man to have around when you want to run the clock down, which is precisely what he proceeded to do, at one stage being pursued to the corner flag by no less than four desperate Turks.

Ilhan was the liveliest Turkish attacker but his first touch was not in Denilson’s class and gave keeper Marcos the opportunity to snuff out one good opportunity at his feet. Next Marcos was airborne to tip the same player’s cross shot to safety. Denilson was still performing at the other end. This time he tried an extravagant lob, with colleagues unmarked alongside him.

After a miserable competition there was at long last an inspired moment from Turkey’s skipper Hakan Suker. Somehow, though closely marked, he managed to get in a hook shot from Sas’s dropping free-kick only to find Marcos equal to the task. The final attempts were left to Manziz, hitting one shot high and then heading over in added time after a mistake by Roberto Carlos had let Sas in down the right.

Turkey have now arrived as a force in world football but they were unable to beat the hoodoo of teams drawn against opponents who have already defeated them in the initial group stage. The last to succeed was Hungary in 1954. They had names to conjure with too. I remember the coaching staff at third division Crystal Palace struggling with “Hiddlygooti” and “Push-Karse” and Harry Johnston, the England centre half asking who he was supposed to mark because his centre forward opponent spent most of his time at the half way line despite participating in putting six goals past the England keeper. World football: nothing like it for throwing up new ideas. I must tell Matt Gregg about that eye makeup.

Meanwhile UEFA have announced they will experiment with two referees controlling a match, a move destined to double the confusion and opportunity for error. Fortunately, with the usual sense of urgency that comes from soccer administrators they say they will experiment with this system in youth matches “in five or ten years time”. By then I suspect time will have overtaken them. Enjoy the final.

Brian de Salvo