12 YUGIRN Tejada Noriega

Yugoslavia, playing their first major tournament match since restrictions on their team were lifted, beat an the first Iran team since 1978 to make the World Cup finals by a goal to nothing in a pretty average game. 

There was no restrictions on Alberto Tejada Noriega in 1994, and he had an ambivalent yet successful two matches in the United States. With his characteristic demonstrative style, the Peruvian performed decently in a tie of normal difficulty. 

Big Decisions

The only goal on the day was scored directly by Siniša Mihajlović from a freekick - despite Karim Bagheri getting a small touch on the ball, the ball was still in Predrag Mijatović's reach when he was tripped, so I agree with Tejada Noriega for punishing the contact.

There was a potential violent conduct by Mehdi Pashazadeh (76') where there was no replay shown - the live sequence does suggest that what Predrag Mijatović saw was exactly what happened, when Pashazadeh got annoyed that Dejan Stanković slipped into him. Not that it earned him any sympathy from the referee...

Amongst other decisions, of which none had any headline importance for the officials - if the ball hadn't crossed the line for a corner at 63', perhaps Yugoslavia have been awarded a penalty. 

Managing the Game

This was a pretty quiet game for Alberto Tejada Noriega, who in general did a sound job.

The most instantly noticeable thing about this Peruvian referee is his manner - it is rare to see such a demonstrative figure on the pitch! This was perhaps most evident in how he solved the 76'/77' incident, and also in some other scenes (eg. 28', yellow card procedure). 

Tejada Noriega picked out 43' as a SPA caution, the only sanction for a foul infractions given in the game. Certainly a defendable decision, I'm not sure it was that much worse than other such potential yellow cards though (28', 45', 72'). 

The scene at 15' is at least a missed caution, and one could even argue that the challenge was a case of Serious Foul Play; in any case, the correct restart was not an indirect freekick. Regarding the dissent caution given - do you think Tejada Noriega had 44' on his mind when booking Dragan Stojković at 61'?

My biggest problem with this performance is that it was too chaotic, too often, for a game of this difficulty - in a number of scenes (29', 30', 45', 59', 76'), it felt as if the game and even less its referee, were not always on solid foundations. To add - a missed foul at 20', he fell for a routine at 90' in giving an attacking freekick. 

Assistant Referees

Quite a large body of work for Jacek Pocięgiel in this game, and as far as we could see, he got all of them correct - good job. Owen Powell made quite a poor mistake at 79', but was correct to flag at +92' in a cross-over situation. 

Balance

In general a decent performance by Alberto Tejada Noriega, but not the best thesis for a second appointment by the same token. 

Alberto Tejada Noriega - 6 Owen Powell - 6 Jacek Pocięgiel - 7 Rune Pedersen PER, JAM, POL	Yugoslavia 1-0 Iran Group Stage 14 June
Petrović (43') - SPA (Impeding) Stojković (61') - Dissent