Group Stage (Matches 9-16)
 |
| Lucílio Batista's second appointment of the competition took him to the remarkable Munciple Stadium in Braga |
Matchday two at EURO 2004. The four remaining officials crews intiated their tournaments, while four more trios were operating on their second assignments. The first four appointments were released as part of the 10th June package, while the latter appointments were determined on Thursday 17th June.
Group A [GRE 3 - ESP 3 - POR 0 - RUS 0]
Group C [SWE 3 - DEN 1 - ITA 1 - BUL 0]
Group D [CZE 3 - GER 1 - NED 1 - LVA 0]
Group A [GRE 3 - ESP 3 - POR 0 - RUS 0]
Weds 16th June 17:00 (Porto - Bessa)
9 - Greece vs. Spain
Referees: Ľuboš Micheľ, Igor Šramka, Martin Balko (Slovakian)
Fourth Official: Stuart Dougal (SCO)
UEFA Referee Assessor: Michel Vautrot (FRA)
Weds 16th June 19:45 (Lisbon - d.Luz)
10 - Russia vs. Portugal
Referees: Terje Hauge, Steinar Holvik, Ole Hermann Borgan (Norwegian)
Fourth Official: Frank De Bleeckere (BEL)
UEFA Referee Assessor: Vladimir Šajn (SVN)
Group B [FRA 3 - CRO 1 - SUI 1 - ENG 0]
Thurs 17th June 17:00 (Coimbra)
11 - England vs. Switzerland
Referees: Valentin Ivanov, Juryj Dupanaŭ, Vladimir Enjutin (RUS, BLR, RUS)
Referees: Valentin Ivanov, Juryj Dupanaŭ, Vladimir Enjutin (RUS, BLR, RUS)
Fourth Official: Kýros Vassáras (GRE)
UEFA Referee Assessor: Jozef Marko (SVK)
Thurs 17th June 19:45 (Leiria)
12 - Croatia vs. France
Referees: Kim Milton Nielsen, Jens Larsen, Jørgen Jepsen (Danish)
Fourth Official: Anders Frisk (SWE)
UEFA Referee Assessor: Vítor Melo Pereira (POR)
Group C [SWE 3 - DEN 1 - ITA 1 - BUL 0]
Fri 18th June 17:00 (Braga)
13 - Bulgaria vs. Denmark
Referees: Lucílio Batista, Paulo Januário, José Cardinal (Portuguese)
Fourth Official: Gilles Veissière (FRA)
UEFA Referee Assessor: Reidar Bjørnestad (NOR)
Fri 18th June 19:45 (Porto - Dragão)
14 - Italy vs. Sweden
Referees: Urs Meier, Francesco Buragina, Rudolf Käppeli (Swiss)
Referees: Urs Meier, Francesco Buragina, Rudolf Käppeli (Swiss)
Fourth Official: Markus Merk (GER)
UEFA Referee Assessor: Michel Vautrot (FRA)
Group D [CZE 3 - GER 1 - NED 1 - LVA 0]
Sat 19th June 17:00 (Porto - Bessa)
15 - Latvia vs. Germany
Referees: Michael Riley, Philip Sharp, Glenn Turner (English)
Referees: Michael Riley, Philip Sharp, Glenn Turner (English)
Fourth Official: Alain Hamer (LUX)
UEFA Referee Assessor: Pierluigi Pairetto (ITA)
Sat 19th June 19:45 (Aveiro)
16 - Netherlands vs. Czech Republic
Referees: Manuel Mejuto González, Óscar Martínez Samaniego, Rafael Guerrero Alonso (Spanish)
Referees: Manuel Mejuto González, Óscar Martínez Samaniego, Rafael Guerrero Alonso (Spanish)
Fourth Official: Pierluigi Collina (ITA)
UEFA Referee Assessor: Nikolaj Levnikov (RUS)
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Match 9:
ReplyDeleteGreece
vs.
Spain
(1-1)
Ref: Ľuboš Micheľ.
Not in 2000 ('only' reserve referee at EURO), probably not in 2002 (rather outmatched by an extremely agricultural WC Paraguay vs. SA), maybe not even by 2003 (experienced a tough Porto vs. Celtic final with 'mixed' reviews), but at EURO 2004, the time of UEFA long-term project Luboš Michel' had arrived. In the idylically set (Boavista's tight atmospheric ground in beautiful sunshine with great fans) Greece against Spain tie, the Slovakian ref commanded a strong performance with his characteristic style.
DeleteMichel' cautioned seven players in a passionate but never ill-spirited match, but by far the best decision in the disciplinary control aspect was actually a booking not given by him, five minutes into the game. Theodoros Zagorakis clumsily took down Vicente Rodríguez with a sliding tackle: a ’70 vs. 30’ yellow card, we could say. Michel’ read the situation brilliantly, saving the ‘ammunition’ of the opening yellow, instead issuing Zagorakis with ‘only’ a firm warning. The ‘reward’ came less than two minutes later, an ’85 vs. 15’ foul by Kostas Katsouranis duly saw him in the Slovakian’s notebook.
All other six cautions were justified, the final sanction came in a situation where Michel’ ought to have instead played an advantage, denying Spain a very promising crossing position. Greece having successfully ‘suffocated’ the game into a one-all draw in the 2H, a slightly less-focused final fifteen-ish minutes was visible from the Slovakian. But besides this scene, nothing especially egregious occurred from an assessor’s perspective. Though, it should be mentioned that Spain might have been awarded a penalty kick for grappling in the box at the very end of the game (+91'). As in GERNED, there was more than one incidence of shirt tugging in this match, but just like Frisk, Michel’ always allowed play to continue in these instances.
Balance: Convincing job by the Slovakian crew, 8,5-style performance by referee Luboš Michel’, and linesmen Šramka and Balko alike were not especially challenged. Of the first nine games, I would say Michel’s joined four others as trios giving decidedly positive impressions moving forward in the tournament.
BONUS:
DeleteA funny moment captured in the stands, 'another' Greece vs. Spain, with a famous referee! :)
https://twitter.com/MikaelReferee/status/1641035538063917063
Match 10:
ReplyDeleteRussia
vs.
Portugal
(0-2)
Ref: Terje Hauge.
(1/2)
DeleteThe earlier draw in Group A between the Greeks/Spanish meant that a loser of Russia vs. Portugal would be the first side dumped out of EURO 2004. The hosts then obliged to eliminate the anemic though hard-working Russians by two goals to nothing, with scores early in the first and late in the second halves respectively. Russia’s challenge was modest, so not the pressure-cooker game for Norwegian referee Terje Hauge - though their modesty also owed to playing the latter forty-five with ten men, goalkeeper Ovchinnikov having been controversially dismissed by Hauge on the premise of handball outside his penalty box.
A decision sparking much debate, but there is a significant amount of other stuff regarding the Norwegian ref’s performance to get our teeth into as well.
WAS THE REFEREE CORRECT TO DISMISS THE RUSSIAN KEEPER?
Hmmmm. UEFA explicitly supported him in the press conference held by Volker Roth and Kenneth Ridden the morning after the morning after the game. And in their shoes, I would also have done exactly the same. But with the benefit of four full HD replay angles, my honest answer to whether Ovhcinnikov actually touched the ball with his arm would be “ambivalent”.
I wouldn’t censure Hauge for his call though, this was a nightmare incident for any referee to face and probably all eleven other officials would have reached the same conclusion too. The amalgamation of 1) the unexpected poor back pass leading to the ref being miles off the play, and, 2) the ‘optical illusion’ that Ovchinnikov executed a blatant ‘crafty’ handling to stop Pauleta getting the ball, was incredibly unfortunate here.
In not processing those two factors, the media actually got the ‘wrong end of the stick’ when analysing this call, though most outlets still talked of ‘grey areas’ too.
Terje Hauge should be supported for his red card (DOGSO) decision.
(video is from 9:36 on the highlights player above :))
(2/2)
DeleteWERE THERE OTHER KEY CALLS IN THE MATCH?
Yes. Most notably, Portugal ought to have been awarded a second half penalty kick.
15:04 - At least he wasn’t cautioned for diving, but Luis Figo definitely ‘won’ a careless trip from Aleksej Bugaev inside the Russia penalty area and was told to get up. Figo goes past the defender before being ‘contacted’ by him, and even a step-on-foot exists. The presence of the other defender (Sennikov) obscures the offence. According to the big-picture self-preservation school, Hauge’s play on was very ‘sensible’ too - though I doubt he managed to assess the scene in (this) much depth.
17:28 - After a brave run into the Portugal penalty area, Vladimir Bystrov and covering Nuno Valente went tumbling down together, referee Hauge on hand to determine no offence was committed (without clear gestures, though). Bystrov was a tad unlucky as Valente quite clearly body checked him to prevent him from getting past. Having been impeded, Bystrov then generates a contact with Valente’s legs in order to bring both falling down.
20:00 - An even more blatant case of a body-checking defender to prevent an attacker getting goal side occurred five minutes later, serial EURO 2004 offender Aleksej Smertin stopping (serial EURO 2004 offender) Deco from having a one-on-one chance. A professional, last man foul by (already cautioned!!) Smertin, but in playing on, Hauge didn’t sanction him. Smertin did it quite ‘cleverly’ perhaps but the nature of his offence was very clear in reality.
Earlier in the game, both Smertin (40’, 56’, 64’) and then Deco (85’) featured on ‘SYC watch’. Finally, the last caution of the game, Alenichev’s, could have been a red card too.
REST OF THE GAME?
In the ‘managing the game’ aspect, Terje Hauge’s performance was adequate, but not much beyond that. In his favour, we can say that the Norwegian always tried to keep a ‘helicopter pilot’ grip on the game, and avoided the choatic sort of appearance given by eg. Veissière. But in reality, this was the only big skill (together with a base level of firmness) that Hauge brought to the table in Russia vs. Portugal - being able to keep the overview in such a way is great, but then it can only bring you so far if not accompanied by other skills.
The commentator was wrong to describe Hauge as “very strict”, but “severe” would have been a quite appropriate description - the Norwegian never varied his discreet manner (for borderline offences), but then ‘surprisingly’ showed three cautions in the first twenty-five minutes, not communicating anything to the offending players in any of those scenes. Nobody protested in this game when borderline offences happened (besides at 69’, which automatically triggered a pro forma warning…) - but that didn’t mean that the players didn’t get the measure of Hauge’s approach, as Deco showed in his caution sequence and the following incident at 85’. The rather 'benign' approach of the players dissipated from 80mins on.
The reckless foul unpunished followed by very poor control of stealing meters at the resulting freekick in the ninetieth minute gave sth of an appropriate measure for this (managing the game) performance: passing the test, but leaving experienced observers a bit unconvinced.
Match 11:
ReplyDeleteEngland
vs.
Switzerland
(3-0)
Ref: Valentin Ivanov.
Wayne Rooney became (for four days at least :)) the youngest ever goalscorer at the EURO finals, helping England to gain a three-nothing victory over a competent Swiss side in Coimbra. Rooney was the first of three players cautioned by the Russian referee Valentin Ivanov on the day, but by far the most significant decision ref Ivanov took in the normal-difficulty game was to caution Bernt Haas for a second time, giving the West Brom fullback his marching orders.
Delete1st YC - 09:50
2nd YC - 11:15
The game swung on that moment, with Switzerland playing well until that point (60min), but having committed two reckless tackles, Haas was gone. Rightly so. With his quirky style, Ivanov did a good job overall in one of the more ‘officiatingly-nondescript’ matches of EURO 2004 so far - English commentators easily pick on referees’ manners who ‘stand out’ and don’t necessarily arouse the highest amount of ‘trust’ (in modern times, this is very visible in eg. Vinčić matches), but Ivanov always made ‘clever’ decisions, even if his movement/communication/technical accuracy wasn’t (always) at the very top.
I liked this performance. Surely more than Owen Hargreaves did, bearing the 87’ challenge in mind though… the other moments of ‘contention’ were penalties not given for penalty area grappling, but all well within limits for the time. Both the Belarusian (Dupanau) and Russian (Enjutin) linesmen presented as good/solid assistant referees. Overall, though cognisant of a relatively low difficulty grade, a tick next to this crew for their handling of England vs. Switzerland.
Match 12:
ReplyDeleteCroatia
vs.
France
(2-2)
Ref: Kim Milton Nielsen.
Great game! Croatia stormed back from a goal down early in the second half to stun the French, take a point, and set up an exciting final day in Group B, with two de facto 'playoff matches' to decide the qualification. The refereeing trio who had controlled the CL Final between Monaco and Porto a shade over three weeks prior (well, an easy-going game to ref, quite tough for the linesmen though who weren't faultless) were in charge; the final of the twelve ref teams to intiate their EURO 2004.
DeleteFour key questions to assess Kim Milton Nielsen’s officiating in Croatia vs. France.
04:12 - was the freekick leading to the 0-1 justified?
08:45 - was the penalty given to Croatia at the start of the 2H (scored, 1-1) too soft?
13:27 - was Trezeguet’s equalising goal (2-2) legal, despite handling?
16:50 - was Leko fortunate not be sent off with ten mins left?
As an overall judgement, on the whole performance as well as those four scenes, unfortunately Nielsen made a few too many mistakes on the night. Which was a real pity, actually, as I found his whole style of officiating this game quite excellent. Okay, you can point to a missed card here-and-there, but the way he managed to combine his phlegmatic and distant manner with imposing authority on the pitch was genuinely a pleasure to watch.
Besides Nielsen self-reporting that they were “very happy with his performance” a few days after the game, I don’t have any info about how his KMI calls / whole performance was recieved by Roth-Ridden-et al; it would be interesting to know. UEFA really managed to prevent anything being leaked at this EURO!
Quite interesting about the linesmen in this game - Jens Larsen ran the line for Anders Frisk in the final of the last EURO, but I must say the experienced Danish official (who garnered much attention at WC2002) actually was the worst assistant of the twenty-four so far, too many basic mistakes leaves him as the only AR ‘rejected’ from the first half of group matches. Far-sided Jørgen Jepsen meanwhile, besides one scene at the very start of the second half where being Usain Bolt would have aided him, left a strong impression with the flag.
Match 13:
ReplyDeleteBulgaria
vs.
Denmark
(0-2)
Ref: Lucílio Batista.
Having issued eight yellow cards and sent a player off in the nil-all draw between Switzerland and Croatia, the referee representing the home nation was back - the first official to take charge of his second EURO 2004 game, perhaps a more apt reading of UEFA's assignment for match 13 would be that handling Bulgaria vs. Denmark made Lucílio Batista the first ref to handle his last game at the tournament, having then made the requisite two GS matches. Batista didn't convince in game one and despite showing exactly the same number of (S)YCs this time, made an even bigger mess here; the worst performance of the tournament so far.
DeleteProbably, the Portuguese official was saved from even worse grade by a tepid 2H display by Bulgaria (whose players had physically fought each other in the days after their five-nothing reverse against Sweden). Two sequences which display Batista's wide deficiencies in this match:
>> 00:55 - "the early exchanges were spiteful and never fully controlled by referee Lucilio Batista", a report on Bulgaria 0-2 Denmark from the time (justifiably) reads.
>> 18:33 - Having passed up numerous opportunities to caution for reckless play/tackles in the first half, Bulgaria's frustration at a pending elimination and Batista's failure to take control of the players actions told as the 2H wore on. Wild tackles at 77' and 80' drew cautions but everything exploded on a sequence at 82' - Batista was completely wrong to call play on after Niclas Jensen took out Zdravko Lazarov in a potential DOGSO scenario. Lazarov had cleverly played the ball too far in order to draw tackling-Jensen's offence, but the foul was clear. That would argue in favour of only a Jensen caution, but it would have mattered not - already booked in the first half, the Danish defender should 100% have walked. Crucial mistake. The choatic following period where Marian Hristov (only cautioned for a clear 'tackle-as-an-attack') was a much better red card option than Stilian Petrov (relatively 'light' dissent, on a YC, a fact which Mr Batista had forgotten...) didn't cover the Portuguese in much glory, either.
His facial expressions were really quite memorable indeed, but one must be honest and say that Lucílio Cardoso Cortez Batista of Portugal was probably the worst of the twelve EURO referees. His linesmen (good Paulo Januário, a youngster at 32yo and whistleblower in the late 2000s match fixing scandal, who quit apparently unsatisfied with the (lack of) backing from the association; and José Cardinal, who attended WC2010 at Olegário Benquerenca’s side) were not enough to save him. Batista-Januário-Cardinal would join Bulgaria, eliminated by their defeat in this match, on the plane ‘home’ after the group stage.
BONUS: Below, some examples of what I mean about his facial expressions! :)
Deletehttps://www.gettyimages.co.uk/photos/lucilio-batista-euro-2004?family=editorial&assettype=image&phrase=Lucilio%20Batista%20EURO%202004
Match 14:
ReplyDeleteItaly
vs.
Sweden
(1-1)
Ref: Urs Meier.
Originally slated to referee this key Group C game was Markus Merk, but UEFA diverted from that to select Urs Meier to handle Italy against Sweden when the appointments were made on 17th June by the referees committee. Italy's rather tepid draw against the Danes combined with the Totti trial made this a somewhat 'delicate' job for Meier - but the form ref of EURO 2004 absolutely justified UEFA's faith in him with his second very good performance of the tournament. The officiating wasn't much topic for discussion after the game, but that belied what was a tough gig for Meier. Besides replicating the teams with an ever-so-slightly jittery start, and then replicating ESPRUS with a slightly jittery end, the Swiss official delivered a high-class display of officiating: perfect carding (five booked), excellently keeping up with play, asserting his authority when needed.
DeleteOf the six officials who 'qualified' to the knockout rounds, I would bet quite strongly that none of the other five faced a tougher group stage than Urs Meier: both the 'technically challenging' Spain-Russia and then 'classic top clash' Italy-Sweden were no small asks of Switzerland's top referee. As we know, the hard games didn't stop there for him! The Italian heritage of linesman Francesco Buragina hadn't gone totally unnoticed in the media prior to this clash, but the only mistake that the CL final AR made in the game afflicted the 'Azzuri' - flagging down Antonio Cassano errently in a tight call at 54'. Italy tested Rudolf Käppeli more than Buragina (in the 1H) over the whole game; the AR2 did well.
Match 15:
ReplyDeleteLatvia
vs.
Germany
(0-0)
Ref: Michael Riley.
(1/2)
DeleteLatvia were well worth their sensational scoreless draw against an extremely blunt and unproductive Germany - and the result might have been even better if not for the substandard officiating of English referee Mike Riley, who denied the Baltic nation at least one stick-on penalty in the game. They could point to 82’ (-> 14:25) as well, but the biggest call was earlier in the half at 54’ (-> 10:36). The genesis for ‘swallowing’ that penalty decision (54’) for the ‘minnows’ is quite obviously what happened about ten seconds before Māris Verpakovskis was taken down by Frank Baumann: an off-the-ball striking by Latvian midfielder Valentins Lobaņovs on young fullback Philip Lahm. After a series of play on calls prior, Riley must only have caught Lobaņovs flailing arm with his trailing eye (violent conduct?), and rather panickly waved Lahm to get up.
The English ref was clearly ‘put off’ by that event, initially not even following the consequent Latvian attack, still staring at the duel for a few moments too many. It seems Riley gets caught too rightwards as Verpakovskis broke forward, and Latvia were denied a spot-kick (DOGSO?). 82’ should also be a penalty — Luis Figo had an extremely comparable case also turned down vs. Russia — though it was a trickier incident to detect AND punish, as all of the subtle signals were that nothing of great significance had occurred. Contrary to 54' though, Riley had a good view this time.
The rest of it for the English referee was actually the easiest match of EURO 2004 thus far - a perfectly credible but choatically given caution in the opening seconds was not a sign of things to come. Riley could just give the most blatant bookings, not really have to worry about borderline incidents (very fair spirited players in this game), and mostly focus on assessing aerial duels, which the English ref almost always did accurately.
Latvia could rue the English officials crew (though not good-performing and this time unchallenged Sharp and Turner as ARs; in 'mixed teams' era both would have gone far, not brought down by their head referee). Referee Michael Riley cost them what were two rather clear penalty kicks, and perhaps denied them the chance to even progress into the knockout rounds had they beaten Germany. More damaging for Riley, in my opinion, is more than "he misassessed two incidents which should have resulted in penalties for Latvia" was the feeling that 'he didn't really have the bottle to award A penalty, (hypothetically), for Latvia'; which constitutes a pretty damning assessment indeed.
A quite regretable performance for Mike Riley, which would conclude his EURO 2004 experience as referee.
(2/2)
Delete—> SO, to answer a more holistic question, were UEFA (and Kenneth Ridden specifically) justified in calling up Michael Riley as ‘England’s representative’ at EURO 2004, and snubbing Graham Poll?
Well, the performance data would say: quite definitely, no. Riley had two of the easier group stage games, wrongly awarded a penalty in the first, missed a clear ‘peno’ in the second, and never really gave a convincing impression. I can understand what Ridden was getting at though, and the affair is quite a nuanced one. If we compare to Lucílio Batista, who never showed the ‘skills’ to succeed in his two games, I do believe that Michael Riley could have offered good performances in ‘Sweden vs. Bulgaria and Latvia vs. Germany’ as, say, qualifying matches - the rather introverted Englishman had a steady style, was ready to card when required, and offered sth a bit ‘different’ to Graham Poll, the widely percieved ‘no.1’.
So maybe Riley did deserve a chance. But the big problem with his EURO is that it seemed quite obvious that he could never quite really believe he had been selected, less so that he thought he deserved it, and seemed rather ‘unsettled’ and on edge in both of his group stage games - neither of which were especially challenging, it must be said. To be blunt - Riley probably wasn’t ‘big time’ enough for an international tournament. This is a very different argument to the one about eg. Batista. In summary, how much you can defend Ridden comes down to ‘how obvious was it to him, knowing Riley (and Poll) personally, that EURO 2004 would be too big for the former?’. My fear is that it was relatively obvious, but Ridden swallowed his doubts to insist on Riley, and that personal factors also played a (too) big part as well.
In any case, the result remained that football (refereeing’s) country of origin didn’t actually present a top performing referee candidate representing their country for what would tick round to sixteen years by the time of the next WC. According to Graham Poll, Ridden would later tell him personally that his choosing of Riley was a mistake. For what it is worth, I agree.
Match 16:
ReplyDeleteNetherlands
vs.
Czech Republic
(2-3)
Ref: Manuel Mejuto González.
MAJOR TALKING POINTS
DeleteCorrect interpretation of (2004's) Law11 to allow the second Dutch goal
05:42
Arjen Robben's nasty tackle on Tomáš Rosický, no card given
13:25
Red card for Johnny Heitinga, cautioned for a second time (SPA)
20:00
---
What a brilliant game! A thrilling display of attacking football, as the Czechs came from two goals down to defeat the Dutch in a momentus Saturday night clash in Aveiro. In the middle of it, Manuel Mejuto González as referee, the Spanish official displaying an overall decent level of officiating in the five-goal thriller. Match control was never in doubt, so ‘all’ the ref had to focus on was interpreting incidents and making decisions. However, I must say that the picture was not wholly positive for Mejuto from this game; reasons:
- Robben ought to have been sent off at 51’ for an unncessarily crude foul on Rosicky, studding him down near the halfway line. Especially for Robben to get away without any card at all is rather hard to accept. To be fair to the ref, fourth official Pierlugi Collina had the best view of all four officials there…
- Not really for the right reasons, the indignation of the commentators at Heitinga’s 75’ explusion was indeed ‘correct’. Pavel Nedved very cleverly stops his run (it seems the Czech star takes a glance as who is behind him when he starts his run forward) in order to generate a collision between himself and the Dutch defender in what would be a SPA-scenario. Mejuto, who it should be noted only realised he had to check Heitinga was off after he checked his post-booking notes, whistled the foul and issued the sending off. Unsatisfying decision.
- In ‘managing the game’ aspects one had the same impression as Denmark vs. Italy, overall sound but regarding stuff like going ‘deep’ in foul recognition and showing sophsticated softer skills, perhaps Mejuto González fell a bit short.
- For such a game, the Spaniard always had an extremely serious and authoritarian look! DENITA was quite an ‘edgy’ game in some ways, but it felt rather out of kilter with this match, and hardly presented NEDCZE’s ref as the best ‘partner’ of a flowing/exciting tie.
Mejuto’s EURO was far, far from a disaster - but one must say that something was a bit ‘missing’ from making the Spanish ref a big candidate for a late stage game. Consequently, unlike the two sides he refereed here, Mejuto would not go on for the knockout rounds.