60 GERCRO Pedersen

Croatia sensationally defeated European champions Germany, controversially reduced to ten men, by three unanswered goals to jettison themselves through to the World Cup semifinal, in their debut tournament no less. 

An emotional evening for a nation who less than a decade ago even had not declared independence from Yugoslavia - indeed, a number of their squad had played in their 1990 squad eliminated in the quarterfinal by Argentina. For Germany's eliminated squad, the adjective "experienced" began changing to "ageing". 

Leif Sundell made quite a mess of the EURO 1996 quarterfinal between these two, and this time it was Rune Pedersen from Norway who was tasked with controlling a potentially poisonous match in the French World Cup. 

Pedersen was an interesting choice, and he gave a very prepared impression in this match which would have been a tall order for any referee. His performance was characterised by the sending off of Christian Wörns, which heads our analysis below. 

Big Decisions

The call on which the match swung was the red card to Germany's Christian Wörns, from the fortieth minute of the match (full clip). 

I had it confirmed by a reliable source - the red card was issued for Serious Foul Play. 

The video evidence backs that up:

FIFA assessed the SFP call as correct. If Wörns' contact was not with studs, then this is a rather poor panic-type decision. If it was then, then this challenge was very dangerous, and Pedersen should be praised for the red card. 

Germany players were convinced that the call was for DOGSO, insisting very vocally that Pedersen had missed the covering man. They were right in that a red card for that reason would have been totally wrong. This was the point they continually made; can we charge Pedersen in any way for not making it clearer to them? Hard to say. 

Would it be unfair to say that a red card in a World Cup quarterfinal ought to be more unambiguous than this? In any case, FIFA's verdict was clear - Pedersen was right. 

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Some more scenes of note:

38' - Oliver Bierhoff uses his arm as a weapon, carted out to attack an opponent while (poorly) disguised as jumping for the ball, this is a red card offence. I think Pedersen only caught the incident out of the corner of his eye, giving a freekick only. Not a clear match error in my view (too ambiguous, too hard to spot). 

54' - a potential penalty for holding on Davor Šuker, which occurs even before the freekick which Pedersen did award defensively. 

77' - Davor Šuker should, by the book, be sent off with a second yellow card for simulation. Pedersen wisely turns a blind eye in this scene. 

Managing the Game

The bad blood from two years ago was very much evident in this Germany - Croatia quarterfinal, and as such Rune Pedersen was quite aware of his large task in refereeing this match. Pedersen had visibly prepared very well, and his approach was largely successful on this evening. 

Disciplinary control had to be studiously approached in this match, and Pedersen started pretty well in that regard:

- quick reaction at 4', good

- instant yellow card at 13' was a smart and correct call

- missed balancing yellow card at 16', could have been used to take the initiative too

- ref was a bit fortunate that it didn't matter, given the mandatory card at 18' which had high tactical value

- tactical foul at 19' showed the difficulties of officiating this match, given that a card was not really an option

- very clear warning to two players at 27', good


It is remarkable how charged games can spin on one even small incident, and that was the case here. Pedersen chose not to caution a (reckless) sliding foul on behind from Oliver Bierhoff, whom he told to get up, causing an angry reaction from the Germany striker. 

Having followed the mood music with a yellow card at 37' for a holding foul, Pedersen had to solve a revenge incident - Bierhoff was still p*ssed off and decided to violently card his elbow out (see above). This triggered a mass confrontation which Pedersen did not really deal with effectively. 

It would have been fascinating to know what would have happened if not for the red card a very short while later, given that Pedersen had dropped the ball just shortly before.The game was rather easier after that. A slightly weak card to Davor Šuker was the only sanction of the second half, but he had been warned in the first half (34'). 


Pedersen had quite a big problem in this game - in a game which promised a lot of conflict, natural authority and leadership was not his his strongest suit. So how did he resolve this?

- the most obvious tactic was to physically get between players after foul calls in order to prevent them interacting with each other, and an ensuing escalation

- he blew up quite pedantically for freekicks a few times (6', 11', 24', 26', 58'), where it would have been braver to give the go on in those scenes; doing so at the very end (87') was simply good refereeing

- Pedersen's interactions weren't altogether convincing, the way Bierhoff dealt with him at 36' was ridiculous, and he (and AR Marc Van Den Broeck) was mobbed quite badly after the red card decision; the Norwegian refereeing really had to act stronger in these scenes!

Assistant Referees

Actually rather quiet games for Mikael Nilsson and Marc Van Den Broeck, who both computed offsides and functioned as active team members well. The Belgian seemed calm in the wake of the red card decision complaints, to his credit. 

Balance

Rune Pedersen made the most famous decision of his career sending off Christian Wörns - it was a brave call, and one FIFA assessed as correct. In the rest of the game, the Norwegian served the game with his satisfactory-level prepared performance in a very challenging match. 

Rune Pedersen - 6 Mikael Nilsson - 7 Marc Van Den Broeck - 7 Urs Meier NOR, SWE, BEL	Germany 0-3 Croatia Quarterfinal 4 July
Heinrich (18') - Tackle Tarnat (37') - SPA (Holding)	Šimić (13') - Tackle Šuker (57') - Delaying the Restart
Wörns (40') - Serious Foul Play