It’s hard to tell what went through his mind as Harry Kane stepped up to take a second penalty against France, with his teammate and close friend Hugo Lloris facing him in the goal. Maybe he was thinking of his future career as an NFL kicker, he’s publicly stated that once he retires from Football, he’d like to play in the NFL as a place kicker. If that’s what he was thinking about, it would explain why he kicked the ball over the bar, because it would have been a perfect field goal.
England huffed and puffed in this match, mostly directed at the referee. It’s like they needed an excuse, a scapegoat, for why they looked so poor. But I don’t understand what there was to complain about in terms of the referee. That referee (rightly) awarded England 1.6 xG in the form of 2 pens. You couldn’t have asked for a ref to do much more, other than I guess maybe a red card.
In my mind, Wilton Sampaio (Brazilian referee), treated that game exactly like English officials referee Arsenal’s Premier League matches: plenty of bizarre calls, a lot of rough play unpunished, and teams are free to foul Bukayo Saka as much as they want and the referee will pretty much never call a foul unless it’s so incredibly obvious that VAR would force them to overturn their non call.
If the referee had been from France, and refereed the game like French officials are doing this season, there would have been tons of yellow cards and probably 4 red cards. Similarly if it was a Spanish ref. If it was a German ref, they would have relied more on VAR and any foul on a counter would be a yellow card. And this is the state of modern refereeing: every league has it’s own interpretation, every official their own personality. The laws of the game are more of an interpretive dance than hard and fast laws. Refereeing isn’t Newtonian physics, it’s more Salvador Dali.
There were apparently four calls that the referee got “wrong”: a foul on Saka in the buildup to the French first goal, a foul on Harry Kane which prompted England to beg for a pen, Griezmann not getting a red card, and.. oh yeah, the 2nd penalty that he awarded.
So, for the first, it probably was a foul, like in my mind it was but we see this sort of thing dozens of times a week in the Premier League (not the goal, but the foul) and players seem to have special license to foul Bukayo Saka. Referees in England seem to have been given instructions NOT to call fouls on Saka, which has seemingly gotten worse since Steven Gerrard basically called Saka soft. It’s also true that unless it’s against Arsenal, these kinds of fouls which lead to goals are never called and the goals are never called back. Again, unless it’s against Arsenal, in which case then they will use VAR to decide that some slight touch on Eriksen IS actually a foul and use that to chalk off Martinelli’s goal against United. This is just how things are done!
The second complaint, Upamecano foul on Kane, was a funny one. Kane’s main trick in football is getting himself in front of the defender, stopping, and then falling over when the defender has no choice but to crash into him. He does this all the time and was even famously called out on it after an Arsenal match by Sky Sports who made him watch his little dive live on TV.
Now, normally, Kane would get this call. Referees in England LOVE him and his fucking antics. But when the same foul is against an Arsenal player the ref doesn’t see it or, hey, maybe he decided that the contact wasn’t hard enough? We see that all the time too. I remember a game where some guy with a head like Chunk from Goonies literally kicked the absolute shit out of Bukayo Saka – like booterd him into fucking kicked him into row Z, like Kane’s penalty – and the referee didn’t call the foul. Shit like this happens, man, especially this season now that English refs have been told to allow more contact (on Arsenal and especially on Saka). Sorry you didn’t get that call, this is just how games are officiated these days!
As for the third one, YES! This is exactly how referees referee Arsenal matches! Usually some square headed clod in midfield runs around fouling the shit out of Arsenal and when they are called (they aren’t always called) they rarely get a yellow card. Then after that guy does get a yellow card (usually in the 2nd half, after their 7th or 8th foul) they STILL get away with fouling, and especially grievous fouls. This type of refereeing is about as common as carbon atoms – when teams are playing against Arsenal. I’ve seen it so many times in the 23 years I’ve been watching Arsenal that it barely even registers with me any more.
Oh and since you’re not used to this type of treatment, I have a word of advice: whatever you do, don’t retaliate. The first foul you commit will be at least a yellow card and may be even more. I remember Arsenal playing against guys like Joey Barton – who was a criminal who occasionally played football when he wasn’t drunk or in jail – and he would kick Arsenal midfielders all over the pitch and if they got in the least bit bothered by it, they’d get sent off. Chelsea were another team that consistently got away with this “tactic”, especially Michael Essien. What I’m saying here is that you need to just let them kick you, even if it means picking up a career ending injury like Abou Diaby. That’s my experience anyway.
And as for the last one, lol wut? I mean they gave you a penalty. What are you complaining about? This is what we are told.
I guess what I’m trying to say here is that I empathize with the England fans and with the English players who were surprised by this type of refereeing. Most of you aren’t used to being on the receiving end of these refs and a lot of the players are usually the beneficiaries. Harry Kane, for example, is usually the BENEFICIARY of these refs. Spurs are the dirtiest team in the League. Harry Maguire spent his entire career playing for teams who not only benefitted from this type of refereeing but deliberately set out to take advantage of it – Manchester United perfected this tactic against Arsenal. It must be very confusing for these players and guys like Mason Mount, Declan Rice, and Jordan Henderson to experience the other end of it for once.
But look, basically England got refereed like Arsenal do in the Premier League. And I’m sorry that you don’t like it, it does suck, trust me, we watch this week in and week out and it’s frustrating. But we’ve been told time and again that this all evens out in the end – so I guess you’ll win the World Cup in 100 years, when a referee calls the game the other way. And also we’ve been told that the real problem is that we are soft, that we don’t “like it up ’em” (which is a heartwarming quote about stabbing Germans with a bayonet), that we cry too much about the officials, that this is just how the game is called, that the laws of the game are interpretive, and that we should just suck it up buttercup.
So, I guess my advice is to just suck it up. This is how the (Arsenal) game is called.
Post Script: it should be noted that one MAJOR difference between the way that England were refereed and the way that Arsenal are typically refereed is that Arsenal would never have been awarded two penalties by Premier League refs.
On a separate note Tim, I saw this article in the Guardian about Japanese milk bread and thought of this blog …
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2022/dec/11/japanese-milk-bread-ginza-nishikawa-taste-test
Thank you!
I’ve made shokupan many times before. I have a recipe and should make another loaf soon.
Can I have the recipe?
Sure can!
https://7amkickoff.com/index.php/2021/03/02/i-like-big-breads-and-i-can-not-lie-tangzhong-milk-bread-recipe/
You said that Griezmann escaped a 2nd yellow, but he should never have been shown that soft yellow for the foul that he committed. Maguire got away with worse, to the consternation of France.
His failure to award the 2nd pen instantly was corrected by VAR. isn’t that what we want it to do? The foul on Kane was outside the box. Free kick if called yes, pen no.
Yes, he got the earlier foul on Saka wrong (the sort of coming together that playback renders clearer than the in the minute occurrence), but instantly awarded the pen Saka won, a correct call. To the extent that the ref was subpar, he was all round subpar. Not sure i agree with the Arsenal comparison.
I’m confused, Tim. I thought you hated it when people blame referees for stuff. Now you’re saying you think there is a systemic bias against Arsenal (and England)?
I don’t necessarily disagree. Refs are humans and susceptible to bias like anyone else. Maybe it’s not so much anti-Arsenal as a case of simple confirmation bias. They EXPECT to see other teams trying to use physicality against Arsenal, so they don’t react too much when they see it. But when Arsenal does it they think, wait, that’s not normal. These guys are supposed to be the artists. It’s a compliment of sorts.
I think it was MacArthur who kicked Saka’s standing leg out from under him in one of the most cynical fouls I’ve ever seen and was never in danger of getting a red. But then I also remember Victor Moses getting sent off in a cup final for diving which was so glorious.
Oh Doc.
I sniggered/loled at this on the train even before I had finished reading the full sentence: “we’ve been told time and again that this all evens out in the end – so I guess you’ll win the World Cup in 100 years…”
As much as I hated England losing to France (who are the best team in the tournament) I was so pleased it was Kane who will be mainly held responsible to the extent of being taunted up & down the country for the rest of the PL season with “you let your country down”.
It’s funny how our biases come through on things like these. I thought that the referees were very kind to England, and basically allowed them to kick France all over the place. Two early calls really stood out to me: there was what looked like a yellow card professional foul on Mbappe by Stones early on where a foul was given, and the Griezmann yellow was crazy soft. The USA Fox commentators were basically openly rooting for England, and even they thought the Griezmann yellow was absurd IIRC.
In mid-January 2012 we played Swansea and lost 3-2, and one of the goals was a soft penalty awarded by Michael Oliver. As often happens, we had several shouts of our own that fell on deaf ears. I made a bet that day [a bottle of bourbon] at the pub that we wouldn’t get a single penalty for the rest of the season, channeling a lot of the same experience from this post.
Before January was over we faced Villa in the FA Cup. Another 3-2 scoreline, but this time we won. Mike Jones awarded 2 penalties to us that day.
I guess I’m saying that I hope you have the same luck I did and we get every call coming our way for the rest of the season.
Spot on. I have always denied conspiracies in football but bias? Oh yes. Add incompetence and stupidity. Perfect!
I mean, they clearly are using some kind of “bias” when they intentionally don’t call fouls on certain players that they think are divers. And we know for a fact that referees are told to “look out for” certain fouls and certain types of behavior. It’s clear that they have biases.
I also think that there’s a bias against black players. I’d actually like someone to study this objectively: are there any discernable biases against players of color in the Premier League?
Remember that time Mark Clattenburg came out after a pivotal premier league game between chelsea and spurs and said that he had decided to let spurs get away with fouls on chelsea players because he didn’t want to send a spurs player off and be blamed for them losing out on the title.
From BBC
‘Clattenburg says he “went in with a gameplan” so he could not be blamed by Tottenham for losing the title.
He booked nine Spurs players in the bad-tempered match, but now says he could have sent off three players.
Speaking to NBC’s Men in Blazers podcast, he said: “I allowed them [Spurs] to self-destruct so all the media, all the people in the world went: ‘Tottenham lost the title.’
“If I sent three players off from Tottenham, what are the headlines? ‘Clattenburg cost Tottenham the title.’ It was pure theatre that Tottenham self-destructed against Chelsea and Leicester won the title.”
Asked if he helped to “script” the game, he replied: “I helped the game. I certainly benefited the game by my style of refereeing.
“Some referees would have played by the book; Tottenham would have been down to seven or eight players and probably lost and they would’ve been looking for an excuse.
“But I didn’t give them an excuse, because my gameplan was: Let them lose the title.
Agree about brazen fouling of Saka to discourage him, because he is fast , skilful and into the face.
Just a thought
What if Saka sits in the middle of the pitch and when the ref saunters up to ask if he is ok, Saka tells him he has no other protection from battering since you Mr. Ref are looking the other way.Some shock tactic is called for.
According to Son-of-1-Nil, Saka was excellent in that match.
Also, I hear the s&@thousery from Argentina v Netherlands was a thing to behold.
Any thought, anyone?
I didn’t get to see it, myself. I’m not calling out from work for a FIFA match
Man, those dudes hate each other. Even mild mannered Messi was snipping at Van Gaal after the match.
There was good cordiality and warmth between him and VvD at the handshakes and flag exchange but as the match progressed, Neth equalised and both teams went hard at it, things got… uncivil.
Must say that I find Emi — formerly our own Emi — unlikeable. He was magnificent in the shootout, but he was a bit arrogant in his post match comments, and boy can he waste time artfully when his team is in front.
That was the worst atmosphere between any 2 combatants at this world cup.
Neth began to play when they went route 1 — lump it to the big CF. I didnt see them progressing. They’re devoid of Level 1 star quality; although I have liked what I’ve seen of De Jong as an all-round midfielder, and Gakpo as a goalscoring wide man. Gakpo is tall lad, and can play some CF. He’s going to get snapped up by a big club in the summer.
Oh the match… good one, particularly when the Dutch ran at Argentina late in the 2nd half.
It was an ugly game. The Dutch have this reputation for being skillful and playing nice stuff but they have been responsible for some of the ugliest games I’ve ever seen, none more so than in 2010 or in this match. At least this time it was more a case of their shortcomings being exposed than the thuggish display they put on in South Africa.
I really don’t like what Scalloni is doing with this Argentina team but he did checkmate Van Gaal in this game. He knew they didn’t have a ball carrier in midfield and that they wanted to play on the break, so he gave them the ball and put a bunch of workhorses on the pitch. Result: The Dutch couldn’t play through them or get behind them. They had one shot! Until the 80th minute, when, in desperation, van Gaal went 4-4-2 with twin towers strikers, like an Orange Stoke, and hilariously managed to tie the game somehow.
Entertaining? Yes. Low quality? Definitely. This was a meeting of two risk averse coaches, one of whom had Leo Messi and the other didn’t.
CBob.
We have been debating the conspiracy vs bias theories since I first started following ACLF around 2006. I still have no idea what possible motivation there could be for the referee fraternity as a group to have a >2 decade anti Arsenal bias. I can see no possible reason for that supposed long term bias.
First thing we all have to accept is we see the games with a pro Arsenal bias and we are going to judge every ref action thru that lens. With the number of nebulous and debatable 50/50 calls that are inherent with the way football is officiated its almost inevitable that our fans and fans of every team are going to believe they get a majority of calls going against them. We draw conclusions based on our biased interpretation of things we see and then search for confirmatory evidence to support those conclusions. (Bias confirmation). Small teams believe in a pro big team bias. Back in the Fergie era every non ManU fan believed the refs feared Ferguson and ManU always got the benefit of the doubt. At the same time all the ManU fans I knew believed ManU had to overcome a pro underdog bias from the refs. Some want to believe the northern based refs dislike the southern teams but none of us believe that Spurs or Chelsea consistently get hurt by refs because they are southern teams.
Again to me the bottom line is for this to be happening for more then 2 decades there has to be some sort of ongoing long term motivation for an institutional bias among the ref fraternity against 1 specific team like Arsenal
The conspiracy/bias theories have been heavily promoted by Untold Arsenal and they did every thing they could to fan the flames. The stated objective of their blog was to promote the greatness of Arsene Wenger and to fight all the evil fans, refs and media who were against him. What better way to further their agenda then to promote the idea that Arsene had to fight against the injustice of an organized anti-Arsenal conspiracy. I know most fans wanted to believe something was wrong and they settled on the bias theories because they could not accept there was an actual conspiracy among the refs and rest of the league.
Anybody else been watching our 2nd pre-season games? The movement of the players in both phases was like a refreshing, cool breeze on a summer’s day after watching these awkward world cup teams this past month.
When we beat teams in these sorts of competitions, it’s often said that yeah, it’s only preseason, or it’s only Lyon, etc. But these teams were no bums. I was particualrly impressed with the Italian champions’ structure. Both Lyon and Milan pressed Arsenal high and I felt both teams came to play hard. However, we went up 2-0 against both of them before half time. We scored goals from set pieces, transitions and interceptions in the opposition half. Lovely stuff.