20 ITACMR Lennie

 

Italy scored the only victory in the first four matches of Group B over Cameroon, placing themselves top of the group and their African opponents bottom. Despite the fairly comfortable nature of the three-nothing win, both sides could still go through, or go out, after the completion of the group.

Edward Lennie from Australia was the referee, though in the looser sense of the term. Lennie unfortunately delivered an incredulously poor piece of refereeing, which was so away from the standard (which should be) expected at the World Cup finals. 

Big Decisions

Raymond Kalla's absolutely ridiculous assault on Luigi Di Biagio (43') drew the only possible conclusion from the referee - red card. If the game had been refereed properly unto then, I doubt such a tackle would have happened, but regardless: well done to the referee who interpreted the scene correctly and issued the correct sanction. 

Cameroon should have already been down to ten men as early as 18' - Pierre Njanka clattered through the back of Roberto Baggio, the Aussie referee played advantage. I would like to think that without being mobbed by Italy players with the ball out that he would have sanctioned Njanka, whom he showed yellow.

18' is the first example of a clear Serious Foul Play from behind which has been under-punished by the refs here, FIFA decreed this was a clear red card, and I agree (clear match error). 

Otherwise, Cameroon should actually have been awarded a second half penalty for a striking offence (49'), but nobody really cared about that back then. Insofar as the Australian ref saw it, Lennie was correct not to give Italy a penalty at 87', in a scene comparable to the spot kick they did get in their last game (ITACHI); FIFA contrasted the two scenes in an educational video, Lennie's being the right call. 

Managing the Game

Unfortunately, this section is a bit of a red herring for this performance, because Edward Lennie did not manage the game at all, in the sort of performance which should be a million miles away from a referee at the World Cup finals. 

It started with the totally random caution at 7' - it's understandable that he wanted to show that he wasn't going to stand for Cameroon foul play, but this yellow card was certainly not the way to do it. 

After that, his card choices were principally okay, but his absolutely bizarre manner, running the game whistle-in-mouth the whole time with absolutely zero verbal communication and a totally counterproductive supercilious tone, very strongly count against this performance. 

In addition, his foul detection was quite awful, with Lennie waiving play on a number of times after crystal clear offences. It was not really predictable either which contacts he was going to blow up for either, surprising or otherwise. 

Only the highlights really give a precisely accurate impression of how capricious (and that's a polite way of formulating it) this performance was - though I had a strange sense of déjà vu which only got stronger as the match progressed...

Assistant Referees

Lencie Fred and Claudio Rossi were the shining lights in this performance, especially the Vanuatuan, who showed a real eagle eye for computing offside situations (1', 1', 11', 20', 42'), very good performance from him! Rossi had an easier second half than Fred's first (46', 60', 62', 64', 75', 83', 84'), despite the higher number of situations, and also did well. 

Balance

Edward Lennie's performance was really much too far away from where a World Cup finals ref ought to be - it would be highly unfair to the other officials if he were appointed again in the middle, under any circumstance. 

Edward Lennie - 2 Lencie Fred - 8 Claudio Rossi - 7 Pirom Un-Prasert AUS, VAN, ARG	Italy 3-0 Cameroon Group Stage 17 June
Costacurta (26') - SPA (Challenge) Di Biagio (64') - Delaying the Restart	Womé (7') - Challenge Njanka (17') - Tackle Angibeaud (79') - Challenge Song (85') - Challenge
	Kalla (43') - Serious Foul Play