9 KORMEX Benkö

Mexico came from behind to defeat South Korea for an important win to open a tough-looking Group E; the game turned on the red card to Ha Seok-ju, who was the first player in France to fall foul of FIFA's Serious Foul Play guidelines. 

Günter Benkö had the whistle in this game and was the man who sent him off - was he right to do so? Yes, and FIFA said so specifically. But such a tackle really was coming, and the Austrian referee could have done more to avoid this decision which totally changed the game. 

Big Decisions

Here I will talk about the theoretical nature of both the SFP call, and another potential red card for a dangerous tackle, but expand on their wider significance for this match in the 'Managing the Game' section:

20', YC - the consensus at the time was that Lee Min-sung should have been sent off for this foul. In my eyes, it's really borderline between a caution and an ejection, but Benkö made the right call:

1) you can see the Mexico player put his leg across on purpose, this was more a tackle from the side than behind

2) the Korea player is in control of his body when the contact is made

3) the nature of the contact is not extremely dangerous, only reckless (no aggressive 'trapping')

-> perceived as an incorrect call at the time, Benkö's decision - yellow card - was the right one for my taste. 

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30', RC - this tackle is not too much worse than the one at 20', but ticks enough of the boxes to warrant a dismissal:

1) this tackle is much more from behind, than from the side
2) the Korea player is NOT in control of his body, reaching the Mexico player before the ground

3) the nature of the contact is not a trapping one, so relatively limited danger arising from this particular challenge

-> correct call, rather a 65-35 red card. FIFA assessed this decision as correct. 

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Besides, he was correct not to give Mexico a penalty at 37' (fair challenge) and 41' (clear dive - missed YC), though the situation at 5' is more doubtful (impeding?). There were a couple of potential red cards against Mexico players in the first half an hour, but I will expand on those below.

Managing the Game

The game turned on the red card decision. Günter Benkö was right to send Ha off, and the South Korea player can have no complaints even if his tackle was more impatient than brutal, but managing the players and the match more effective hitherto 30', such a tackle likely would not have come about. 

Korea came out playing a combative manner, committing a lot of early foul infractions. A yellow card would have been defendable at 8' against Kim Do-keun, but given Raúl Lara put his leg across, assessing the foul careless is the better choice. After the third foul in quick succession at 9', Benkö should have sent a signal that his patience was thinning, but instead just gave his characteristic long blow of the whistle. 

But the crazy ten minutes all started with 20' - I think a caution was the better decision for this scene, a red card also possible (and probably expected), but Benkö totally failed in managing the game here. The Austrian referee really had to make a point here with lots of whistles, gestures, in order to successfully keep Lee Ming-sun on the pitch - instead the message basically sent to everyone was that these tackles are more-or-less going to be tolerated. 


That made everyone much more anxious:

- Alberto García Aspe probably committed some sort of VC at 23', no admonishment at all, and look at how Benkö deals with the protesting Korea player(...)

- correct SPA call at 26', but nothing for the Mexico player who smashes the ball at his fouled opponent

- the yellow card at 27' shows that Benkö was beginning to take the hint, but didn't really do anything to calm people down, this booking given from a distance

A tackle like Ha's at 30' was very likely to follow, and indeed did. 

After the red card, the game was interesting in seeing whether Mexico could make a come-back, but was actually played in a pretty boring way; it was a shame that Benkö had to send someone off. 

The players respected him as a distant leadership figure on the pitch despite his presentable dictatorial manner (23', 50'), even if his soft skills were visibly pretty limited (66'). His very-long-whistles for many offences was not the most aesthetic way of refereeing, to be honest.  

His fitness was really good, and in the second half pleasantly surprised me with remarkable two sprints (not in the highlights; 61', 69') to break up with counter-attacks, fair play. 

Assistant Referees

Both Lencie Fred (82') and Erich Schneider (13') were correct when they flagged on the live sequence, with Fred's call being a tight and quite important one. Pretty quiet game for them, no issues in terms of functioning as team members. 

I get that the electronic boards to indicate the number of additional minutes was a new innovation for World Cup 1998, but regardless the Benkö-Toro Rendón duo were rather amusingly inept using it. 

In the first half, the Colombian signalled "2" only for Benkö to play exactly three (no stoppages), and in the second, signalled "3" at 87:10(!!), and Benkö blew up at exactly 90:00. Good job the game was decided by that point!

Balance

Not a bad performance by Günter Benkö, and in principle it's good that he issued a red card for a Serious Foul Play tackle, however managing the game differently, probably this red card could have been avoided and we could have had a much more exciting match. Second appointment possible, but not preferable. 

Günter Benkö - 6 Lencie Fred - 7 Erich Schneider - 7 John Toro Rendón AUS, VAN, GER	Korea Republic 1-3 Mexico Group Stage 13 July
Lee Min-sung (20') - Tackle	Ordiales (26') - SPA (Holding) García Aspe (27') - Challenge
Ha Seok-ju (30') - Serious Foul Play