Quarterfinals
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| Referee Urs Meier and linesman Rudolf Käppeli watch on during the penalty competition of the Portugal - England tie |
Between the group stage and the knockout rounds, UEFA reduced their roster of referees as the tournament progressed to the later stages. Wheras in the three other sixteen team EUROs organised by UEFA in this way (2000, 2008 and 2012) only four referees were out. For Portugal 2004 however, only half of the selected trios were kept on, with six ref teams on the way home.
All trios are noted as by their head referee:
Retained:
Pierluigi Collina (ITA)
Anders Frisk (SWE)
Valentin Ivanov (RUS)
Urs Meier (SUI)
Markus Merk (GER)
Ľuboš Micheľ (SVK)
Cut:
Lucílio Batista (POR)
Terje Hauge (NOR)
Manuel Mejuto González (ESP)
Kim Milton Nielsen (DEN)
Michael Riley (ENG)
Gilles Veissière (FRA)
From the twenty-two remaining officials, UEFA determined who would handle the quarterfinal games. The appointments for the latter quarterfinals were made on Thursday 24th June. The crews controlling the earlier two ties, those involving the hosts and holders respectively, were known the previous day.
Quarterfinal 1
Thurs 24th June 19:45 (Lisbon - d.Luz)
25 - Portugal vs. England
Referees: Urs Meier, Francesco Buragina, Rudolf Käppeli (Swiss)
Fourth Official: Alain Hamer (LUX)
Referees: Urs Meier, Francesco Buragina, Rudolf Käppeli (Swiss)
Fourth Official: Alain Hamer (LUX)
UEFA Referee Assessor: Nikolaj Levnikov (RUS)
Quarterfinal 2
Fri 25th June 19:45 (Lisbon - Alvalade)
26 - France vs. Greece
Referees: Anders Frisk, Kenneth Petersson, Peter Ekström (Swedish)
26 - France vs. Greece
Referees: Anders Frisk, Kenneth Petersson, Peter Ekström (Swedish)
Fourth Official: Stuart Dougal (SCO)
UEFA Referee Assessor: Vítor Melo Pereira (POR)
Quarterfinal 3
Sat 26th June 19:45 (Faro/Loulé)
27 - Sweden vs. Netherlands
Referees: Ľuboš Micheľ, Igor Šramka, Martin Balko (Slovakian)
Fourth Official: Markus Merk (GER)
27 - Sweden vs. Netherlands
Referees: Ľuboš Micheľ, Igor Šramka, Martin Balko (Slovakian)
Fourth Official: Markus Merk (GER)
UEFA Referee Assessor: Michel Vautrot (FRA)
Quarterfinal 4
Sun 27th June 19:45 (Porto - Dragão)
28 - Czech Republic vs. Denmark
Referees: Valentin Ivanov, Juryj Dupanaŭ, Vladimir Enjutin (RUS, BLR, RUS)
28 - Czech Republic vs. Denmark
Referees: Valentin Ivanov, Juryj Dupanaŭ, Vladimir Enjutin (RUS, BLR, RUS)
Fourth Official: Urs Meier (SUI)
UEFA Referee Assessor: Pierluigi Pairetto (ITA)
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Match 25:
ReplyDeletePortugal
vs.
England
(*2-2 aet)
Ref: Urs Meier.
After a dramatic quarterfinal where they went behind after just a few minutes, pulled it back with regulation time fast running out, scored a brilliant goal in extra time only this time to be pegged back themselves - hosts Portugal progressed to the semifinals of EURO 2004 after a hugely dramatic evening in Lisbon, defeating England in a penalty shoot-out to advance to the last four.
DeleteThe phrase 'becoming public enemy number one' can, in most usages, be considered rather exaggerated and cliché. Actually not concerning the referee of this game: Switzerland's Urs Meier. Meier drew English vituperation for disallowing what would have been a late Sol Campbell winner (minute ninety), penalising an adjacent incident involving Campbell's teammate John Terry and goalkeeper Ricardo.
UEFA came out in support of the decision some days later, but it is fair to say that the English media did not - even British Prime Minister Tony Blair said that Meier had got it wrong, and the tabloids were particularly vociferous in their criticism of the Swiss official, in a very personal campaign against the ref.
Did Urs Meier get the big call right, and how was his performance in the rest of EURO 2004's best game are amongst the questions will that we will address in this 'In Focus' piece.
Click here (right-click open in new tab) to read the report.
Match 26:
ReplyDeleteFrance
vs.
Greece
(0-1)
Ref: Anders Frisk.
40/1 outsiders to win EURO 2004 even having reached the quarterfinals, ‘Hellas’ would upset the odds again, this time having beaten France in the quarterfinals after a dogged defensive performance - and in the end, Otto Rehhegel’s side did deserve their victory. If I may say so, UEFA observer Vítor Melo Pereira could have done with a little less chatting to Michel Platini beside him, and a little more note taking on the performance - the match was probably a bit harder than it looked for untrained eyes. Watching the game back with the benefit of the future UEFA president not sitting adjacent to me, a review of the performance:
Delete🟢
What Anders Frisk did brilliantly in this game was ‘feel’ which offences required a yellow card on a ‘game management’ level. The Swede booked four players in this game, but only the last booking at the end was an ‘unambigously mandatory’ one - the others were all in a greyer zone, but Frisk perfectly read the yellows for Karagounis (6’), Zidane (44’) and Zagorakis (50’). This showed great football understanding!
❓
Should Makélélé (12:15) and Zagorakis (14:34) have been sent off? I think you can find arguments against in both cases, but it should be noted that completely playing on in the first incident, not even detecting a foul in a case of de jure SFP, was actually quite poor.
🟠
If Frisk was challenged in game one on a disciplinary level, game two on a personality level, then this match was difficult in the ‘foul recognition’ aspect. Greece players marked their opponents very tightly, and France responded with a fair amount of ‘crafty’ play themselves. On the highest level, the ref didn’t actually succeeding in consistently assessing these ‘duels’ in the best way. However, Frisk still obtained an at least decent level of accuracy in the final analysis.
🚩
Again good performances by both Swedish linesmen. Peter Ekström was right not to award Greece a goal when they appealed for one early in the match (4:04).
—> Overall, it was a good job by the officials from Sweden headed by Anders Frisk (ref’s mark should be in the 8,3 region), and the third game running where they assured a sound performance. They would have to wait for the next evening’s quarterfinal to find out whether they could continue in the EURO or not.
Match 27:
ReplyDeleteSweden
vs.
Netherlands
(0-0* aet)
Ref: Ľuboš Micheľ.
At the end of a searingly hot day in the Algarve, Sweden and the Netherlands played out a scoreless draw in the third EURO 2004 quarterfinal, won by the Dutch in a penalty competition after Zlatan Ibrahimović, Phillip Cocu and finally Olof Mellburg missed in the shoot-out. For a nil-nil, the game was decent, if not awe-inspiring: and that probably goes for the performance of referee Luboš Michel’ too, officiating his third match of the tournament.
DeleteThe topic ‘managing restarts’ was not the strongest element of this performance, and one can wonder how well he neccessarily managed to ‘connect’ when verbally admonishing players - however, Michel’ jumped in well on more than one occasion early on to (successfully!) calm players down, and generally displayed a satisfying level of refereeing overall. Five players were shown the yellow card over 120mins.
Some individual scenes to focus on:
02:19 - two warnings, first to östlund for fouling, and then to davids for dissent; michel’ rather inflamed the volatile dutchman with his finger-to-lips gesture, but in the end the slovak managed to assert his authority (enough) here
06:09 - opening caution for the match, frank de boer for reckless; actually, yellow isn’t enough, a ‘classic’ sfp (lunging tackle with open studs crash into opponent’s shin), de boer should have been expelled by the official, and not substituted minutes later for injuries sustained by the foul… in the specific situation, believe you can understand how this red card wasn’t detected though
10:39 - accidental kicking by van nistelrooij or sth more?
13:03 - correct booking for simulation by ibrahimović, his intention was clearly to try and trick michel’ into giving him a penalty by ‘creating’ a collision with stam; the commentators were more keen for ‘diving’ to be punished in an incident earlier in the game (08:55), more influenced by who it involved, but the slovak was right in both episodes with his call…
19:24 - robben appeals for a penalty after a challenge by linderoth; approaching the borderline, but my feeling is that the dutchman lent over and played for it, so playing on is the better decision
21:48 - goal disallowed for offside by martin balko with ten minutes of extra time left; while we might have doubts looking back (or might not!), i can report that uefa assessed the decision as correct, van nistelrooij to be offside
24:00 - penalty appeal for handball in the very last minutes of extra time, from which michel’s decision was defensive freekick (“pushing”, as per his gesture + lip reading)
Match 28:
ReplyDeleteCzech Republic
vs.
Denmark
(3-0)
Ref: Valentin Ivanov.
That the Czech Republic and Denmark finished as the two teams with the least number of cautions in the group stage, nor the relative tepidness of their EURO quarterfinal in Porto (won by the Czechs three-nothing having been scoreless at HT), could prevent this game from becoming quite tetchy - that meant referee Valentin Ivanov was kept on his toes and was not given an easy ride in this match, even if the level of difficulty was still far from very challenging. By cautioning at the right moments, the Russian ref managed to keep a lid on precedings, even if tensions threatened to slightly boil over at one or the other moment.
DeleteThe timing of the goals, all for the Czech Republic and all early in the second half, was one reason for everything calming down, but Ivanov can take his due too.
Disciplinary record:
01:36 — 🟨 to 🇨🇿 for foul challenge (10’)
07:14 — 🟨 to 🇨🇿 for foul tackle (45’)
10:02 — 🟨 to 🇩🇰 for tactical foul (51’)
12:13 — 🟨 to 🇩🇰 for tactical foul (56’)
13:48 — 🟨 to 🇨🇿 for foul challenge (61’)
16:48 — 🟨 to 🇩🇰 for foul challenge (77’)
Russian referee did well: he read the game appropriately, adopted a strict(er) line, carded out the most egregious offences, pulling aside players when necessary to issue them with a yellow card. On some level, one must say there were actually odes to Nuremberg for Ivanov as the game hotted up early in the second half, but full control was definitely maintained in the end.
What was considered the most controversial decision of the match was the 2H booking for Pavel Nedvěd, judged as de facto non-existent by the football world back then, so much so that the Czech association tried to put some pressure on UEFA to ‘delete’ the offence and leave their star player ‘safe’ from being carded out of the final. Actually, Ivanov was 100% right to caution Nedvěd, deliberate trip, ensuring that Gronkjaer fell in a heavy manner, while he had the ball and was trying to build an attack. Gronkjaer however was very fortunate that no official had any chance to see his clear hair pull on Nedvěd…
Actually, the Czech Republic could be glad that Ivanov didn’t show their top player a red card - I suspect replays at 18:43 would show his foul was reckless, and hence possible to show a second yellow card. Ivanov did give a final warning to already-cautioned Poulsen (13:07), which was actually a wise ‘middle ground’ for a foul in the middle of careless and reckless. The quarterfinals marked the end for the two lesser experienced refs of UEFA’s ‘top six’ of EURO 2004 (Ivanov and Luboš Michel’), and both can reflect on not perfect, but certainly very satisfying tournaments overall. A small lapse in concentration brings the Belarusian linesman Dupanau down here, but only by -0,1 in the UEFA scale, otherwise easy game for both him and Enjutin this time.
(talking of the UEFA system, an interesting final point: used very differently and more more ‘arbitrarily’ in 2004, Ivanov revealed the grades he was given for his three games in Portugal in an interview shortly after the tournament,
8,8 in ENGSUI (obs: marko)
8,2 in ITABUL (obs: bjørnestad)
8,6 in this game (obs: pairetto))
Excellent analysis mikael when will you analysis semi finals matches ?
ReplyDeleteThx! :)
DeleteAbout SFs, probably:
PORNED - Tuesday
GRECZE - Friday
In your opinion Mikael did German referee dr markus merk deserve euro 2004 final or not ?
ReplyDeleteI knew that in this tournament german volker roth uefa and fifa referees committee member supported him strongly
ReplyDeleteMy opinion is that Merk's appointment to the final was fair enough - I liked his style at this tournament, and he did well in his two games (more so FRAENG then DENSWE, but expected level in both undoubtedly). All of the three penalties he awarded were correct, though the first was a professional foul by Silvestre which should have been a RC. Given that Meier had flown home and Frisk already had it in 2000, then the only rival of the German for the big game was Collina.
ReplyDeleteDid the Italian really show such spectacular refereeing (in this tournament) to deserve the EURO final after already the WC final... not really, to be honest.
So:
Did Markus Merk have a pretty (even, very) benign 'route' in terms of appointments, given that his two group stage matches were more sonorous than difficult per se, and especially that he got the final directly, not after a QF?
Yes!
But would he have been 'my' choice sitting in the committee meeting on Monday 28th June?
Also yes.
Why not collina ?
DeleteHe left some doubts in his harder GS game imo (PORGRE).
DeleteGood morning mikael you will continue today
ReplyDelete