53 GERMEX Melo Pereira

 

Having come from behind in all three of their group matches, it was Mexico who this time let a lead slip by against Germany, in a game the Latin Americans might well have come out the winners. Oliver Bierhoff's expert header five minutes from time was the difference, and an equally venerable and vulnerable Germany team progressed to the quarterfinal. 

Vítor Melo Pereira was a surprise choice as referee - the Portuguese official had been rather elevated after his round one game (JAMCRO) and found himself in the middle of a challenging knockout tie. Melo Pereira kept a calm head throughout, even if his performance was not the most convincing, did enough to pass through a game which was far from easy. 

Big Decisions

Surprisingly, very little on this front, no decisions worthy of great analysis. He turned away a number of minor penalty appeals correctly (6', 33', 79', 84', 88') and Achmat Salie was clearly correct not to flag for a Germany goal at 40', the ball was not close to crossing the line. 

Managing the Game

Vítor Melo Pereira was in the middle of a rather tense game - Mexico knew they had a shot against a faltering Germany team, and the result was open from first minute to last. The referee from Portugal passed the test, remaining composed, even if this performance was pretty limited. 

 

I thought Melo Pereira was a bit fortunate to pass through the first twenty-five minutes unscathed:

- missed defensive freekick at 5', followed by a (reckless?) tackle leading to a very promising attacking freekick, triggers a small-ish player confrontation; good chat after that between Melo Pereira and Mexico captain Alberto García Aspe, but the whole handling of this scene didn't convince me

- both Mexico (12', 16', 24') and Germany (7', 10', 19') were getting irritated that fouls on them were not being adequately punished; missed incident at 10' aforementioned and chaotic sequence at 19' did nothing to calm them either

- this all led to a tense scene at 21', where Melo Pereira had to sprint in and (successfully) de-escalate everyone

The contretemps at 5' highlighted a wider problem with this performance, the inability of the Portuguese referee to take the initiative in inter-personal conflict situations. Most evidently was at 70'/71', where clear warnings were needed after a minor-ish scuffle, but instead Melo Pereira was in hurry to get the game restarted. 

Natural charisma and rapport with the players were not the Portuguese ref's biggest strength, as we saw on a few occasions (5', +46', 70'/71'). The match would have really benefitted in these scenes from a referee taking charge of the situation, issuing unambiguous signals - as he did when cautioning Dean Burton in his first match at World Cup 1998. 

This performance combined both very good decisions (yellow cards at +46', 56' to highlight) and some weaker ones in both disciplinary control (58') and foul detection (32', 56'). However, despite not being the strongest decision-taker, he kept his base level of decisions pretty solid overall. 

A good feeling for when it was necessary to jump in with both presence (21') and cards (58', 78', 88', 89') was enough to see this partly unlikely referee through a very tricky game for him - he kept both his composure and a feeling for the bigger picture to survive this game fairly impressively, given it's pretty intense, if not very challenging, nature. 

Assistant Referees

Pretty quiet game for Mohamed Mansri and Achmat Salie - we had the South African in our camera view and he again impressed very much with his movement style.

Salie showed to be a competent team member (67'), but not more, the excellently penalised Lothar Matthäus charge at 56' was all the ref's work; he had kept his flag down despite the situation being clearly in his vicinity. 

In general good performances by the Tunisian and South African ARs, with this game ascertaining the impression that Salie had star quality for 1998; indeed, it seems FIFA had the same view. 

Balance

Vítor Melo Pereira did enough in this match, impressive of itself - this was not academic by any means. Even if some deficiencies were visible which might be more problematic in the most very challenging games, the Portuguese referee should be content with his performances at World Cup 1998, which were on a satisfactory level. 

Vítor Melo Pereira - 6 Mohamed Mansri - 7 Achmat Salie - 7 Masayoshi Okada POR, TUN, RSA	Germany 2-1 Mexico Round of Sixteen 29 June
Babbel (+46') - Challenge Matthäus (56') - SPA (Impeding) Tarnat (78') - Tackle Hamann (89') - Delaying the Restart	Davino (58') - Delaying the Restart Blanco (88') - Dissent