France vs South Africa 15:00 BST / 16:00 CET
Mexico vs Uruguay 15:00 BST / 16:00 CET
Greece vs Argentina 19:30 BST / 20:30 CET
Nigeria vs South Korea 19:30 BST / 20:30 CET
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Simon great bog. Being a professional journalist what’s your view on the refs so far. I think they have been very average and card happy. They have missed plenty of clear penalties and given some awful decisions regarding red cards and just shown again a lack of consistency.
ReplyDeleteWell said Michael, someone else I noticed asked a similar question.
ReplyDeleteSimon, if in the unlikely event South Africa beat France 2-0 and Uruguay manage to muster the botheredness to beat Mexico 3-0, both RSA and Mexico will have the same points, same GD and same goals scored. Who would progress? It won't happen, but I just wondered if you knew the protocol.
ReplyDeleteIn that case, Foz, FIFA would draw lots. It sounds a bit rudimentary but those are the rules. (See "2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa regulations" Article 39, no. 5)
ReplyDeleteIt's half time as I write this and that incredible eventuality could still occur if Uruguay score two more and South Africa hold the 2-0 over France.
With regards refereeing, at 3.94 per game (after the second round of group fixtures), the average number of yellow cards shown this year is below the mean figure of the last two World Cups: Germany 2006 - 5.39 and South Korea/Japan 2002 - 4.44.
ReplyDeleteAt the moment the red card average is in between at 0.31 per match: Germany 2006 - 0.44 and South Korea/Japan 2002 - 0.28.
If you were watching the Chile vs Switzerland match on Monday, Michael, I understand why you were under that impression. Khalil Al Ghamdi showed 9 yellows and 1 red, and a lot of them looked unnecessary.
I have also noticed a telling reluctance to award penalties. In 32 matches so far we have only seen seven spot kicks, which is way below average.
I think the refs have probably been warned about diving. We all know as well that scrums in the area during set plays seldom result in penalties.
I don't think we should read too much into it to be honest. I wrote earlier in another comment section about the argument for (but mainly against) video refereeing. Human error, though, invariably leads to unpredictability.