Champions League Referee April 22: Jonas Eriksson
The Atletico Madrid v. Chelsea Champions League semifinal will be officiated by The Big Swede: Jonas Eriksson.
Eriksson has been very active in European action this season. In addition to some Europa league matches (including Tottenham’s), he refereed Manchester City v. Barcelona in the Group of 16 and Bayern Munich v. Manchester United in the quarterfinals.
He’s performed pretty well in all of those matches, despite what Manuel Pellegrini says.
Unfortunately, drawing this match almost certainly rules Eriksson out of refereeing the Champions League final. He’s been a possibility until now (even Pierluigi Collina assessed one of his matches).
But no referee has refereed both the semifinal and the final.
Bjjorn Kuipers of Netherlands is still in the hunt, but Eriksson’s appointment to this match makes things weird for another possible final referee candidate, Felix Brych of Germany. This would have seemed a better match for him, since he can’t referee a German team. If Bayern go through, he’s out for both the quarterfinal and the final, which would be a shame given his current form.
We may see him on the return leg of this one.
PLAY THE ADVANTAGE 
He has overseen all of the big English teams’ exits from Europe this season, and Chelsea’s Super Cup loss to Bayern in August… Ominous.
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Well, Chelsea will have another shot. This is just the first leg. He has been refereeing a lot of English teams this year; it seems odd that UEFA keeps appointing him…
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Yes, I hope he has a good game. And from what you understand, what about the second leg? Felix Brych? Where does Pedro Proenca stand these days? Great to see Howard Webb represent England in the Madrid-Bayern one too.
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Felix is the outlier, because of Bayern. I think he was probably a Final candidate, but I can’t see them saving him and then Bayern making it through. I would say Brych would do the next leg of this, and Kuipers will take the final.
Proenca is in very good standing, but he’s done a final before so he’ll probably not get it this year. He might get a semi, but since he took a quarter and Rizzoli didn’t my bet is on Rizzoli. (He also had the final last year and the semi seems traditional.) But Webb had a quarter, too, so who knows. Still, the amount of Portuguese in the Real Madrid side may rule him out.
Also will depend on what they plan to do with the EL final. If they give it to Felix, Pedro may take the Chelsea second leg.
More than you wanted to know, I’m sure. 😉 And of course, this is all just educated guesswork…
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Brilliantly thorough, thank you! We just have to see. Intriguing how complex it all is..
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