8 ESPNGA Baharmast

 

Memorable goals and a dynamic match from start to finish - Nigeria's upset of Spain by three goals to two was a real World Cup classic. The African nation trailed for the second time just after the break, but a glaring Andoni Zubizarreta mistake and Sunday Oliseh's long-range stunner won the day for Nigeria.

Esfandiar Baharmast from the United States was the referee, and the American had a pretty good game - despite missing a penalty to Spain in the first half in a tricky scene, I would assess his performance as a convincing one. 

Big Decisions

It was tough to see for Baharmast (and you can see he is strictly following the diagonal control path), but he should have awarded a penalty to Spain for a 31' trip on Luis Enrique. You can see from the replayed sequence that Enrique's left leg is kicked onto his right, causing him to lose his balance. Actually, Celestine Babayaro should have seen sent off too - he denied a clear goal-scoring chance. 

According to the LotG this can only be a penalty, but I would spare Baharmast a clear match error in this scene - especially given where this situation fell on the ref-AR diagonal, it was very hard to properly see what happened for the American referee (and you can't really blame Costa Rican AR Luis Torres Zúñiga for not flagging / buzzing). The nature of the foul was only really visible on replay. 

I'll invite watchers to see if they can spot the crystal clear SFP foul on the highlights - remarkable that nobody cared even one jot about this (awful) tackle! Baharmast played on, and nobody was in the slightest bit bothered. Remarkable!

Also to note - the freekick from which Fernando Hierro directly scored the opening goal was correctly awarded.

Managing the Game

While this was certainly a decent, even good performance (-> passed the test) by Esfandiar Baharmast, I cannot assess it as among the best of the tournament thus far, as he left some doubts in his handling. 

The strongest part of this performance was the manner of the American referee - a good mixture of firm and friendly tones, keenly following play, and I absolutely loved his excellent(!) gestures. Both the players and the audience alike could accept this official as a force for good on the pitch - not least because of the exciting match which he was helping foster around him.

I was not really convinced by his approach to disciplinary measures though. Besides the giving of a yellow card or not, there was no real distinction between the careless, borderline (10', 18', 20', 29', 35'), and reckless / SPA offences (55', 59', 62', 75' - last one a good call worthy of note). 

On the most sophisticated level, I didn't see a referee who could zoom-out and manage the game whilst trying to (positively) mould the players actions towards fair play. 

For my taste he also mis-assessed three clear, mandatory card situations too:

- weird borderline red card incident at 15' (technically correct solution IMO - yellow card to Nigeria no.8, even an SFP for me(!); yellow card to Spain no.19, close to SFP but you can see the studs pulled away; freekick to Spain as Nigeria no.8's foul was more severe)

- missed striking incident at 53', should be a yellow card to Spain no.6

- reckless kick by Spain no.21 at 85', I guess some people would argue for VC, but definitely not in my eyes (we can't mind-read as a referees and given the ball was there, should be assessed this as simple reckless foul); ref obviously didn't really see it properly and just gave a freekick

I hope my words don't give too negative an impression, this was certainly a decent even good performance by Baharmast, but on the highest level, I think he was short of some of the other referees who we have seen 'so far'. 

Assistant Referees

More of a possession game than a long-ball one, so not much to compute for Luis Torres Zúñiga and Juryj Dupanaŭ, the Belarusian correctly played Raúl González onside for the Spain goal just after halftime. Torres Zúñiga was involved in the 31' penalty area incident, analysis you can read above.

Balance

In a throughly dynamic game, this was a good performance overall by Estfandiar Baharmast. The biggest issue is the missed penalty for defeated Spain in the first half which brings down a generally positive impression. Second appointment would be deserved for the American referee. 

Esfandiar Baharmast - 6 Luis Torres Zúñiga - 7 Juryj Dupanaŭ - 7 Ian McLeod USA, CRC, BLR	Spain 2-3 Nigeria Group Stage 13 June
Amor (55') - Tackle Nadal (59') - SPA (Holding) Campo (75') - Tackle	Okechukwu (62') - Tackle