We have our first repeat referee of the tournament, and it’s a bit of a delightful surprise: Mark Geiger of USA. As I mentioned earlier, Geiger really impressed in his inaugural performance between Colombia and Greece (above) and I expected to see him again. But not quite so soon, and in quite so big of a game. Spain v. Chile
Read moreHere’s a special edition of “Ask Jenna”, World Cup style! As always, these questions are all in random order and the answers are just made up. 1.) “Who’s the sexy World Cup referee?” (Actual quote.) Yeahhhhh…..that’d be Felix: 2.) How does the vanishing spray actually vanish? You know, I don’t really know. Nor does anyone else. Everything you read about it just
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Ravshan Irmatov (UZB), Switzerland v. Ecuador – I’ll be completely honest: I support Switzerland, so I’m biased. But I do sympathize with fans of teams like Croatia and Mexico, who’ve been hard done by referees, because Irmatov’s team were pretty awful. I counted no less than three Ecuadorian handballs in the box, without a single call of any kind on any of
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UPDATE: Cuneyt Cakir (above) of Turkey has been announced as referee for Brazil v Mexico. As of this moment (9am Pacific Time), the referee has not been officially announced by FIFA for the Brazil v. Mexico game. For all the talk swirling of Brazil getting an easy ride from the referees in the opener and Mexico have at least one, and
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Luckily, the referees appear to have moved past their nervy start and the four referees today performed admirably. There was one big penalty call and a red card (both from Felix Brych in Uruguay v. Costa Rica) but neither could really be disputed. Mark Geiger (USA), Colombia v. Greece – Geiger did really, really well. Very solid performance, and he looked very
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The big game Monday is undoubtedly the Clash of the Group G Titans: Germany and Portugal. These two are expected to battle it out for supremacy in the group, with Germany an early favorite to reach the final. In yet another nod to how highly FIFA thinks of him, Milorad Mazic has been given this game. Mazic has only been
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As the first full day of group games wraps up, here are my thoughts on the World Cup referees: Wilmar Roldan (Colombia), Mexico v. Cameroon – The talk of this match are the two Mexico goals that were disallowed for offside. Though Mexico ended up winning 1-0, the disallowed goals were a huge talking point. The truth is, though, Roldan actually
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First of all, let me start off by saying I’m partial to this referee. And not just because he’s a hottie. I’ve watched him in Serie A and Europe for literally years, and I love his style. So there’s that. I also thought he pretty much kicked ass in this game; his demeanor, his utter lack of patience (he really
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Sunday should be a very quiet day for the referees, and there are no particularly huge games. Therefore, there are no particularly huge names. Of course, Switzerland are playing and that’s always huge as far as I’m concerned. My beloved La Nati have pulled Uzbekistan’s Ravshan Irmatov. He’s fairly well rated, so I’m optimistic. At least he’s not one of my
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Needless to say, this isn’t how FIFA wanted the World Cup to start. People have a lot of concerns about several of Nishimura’s decisions. I, personally, thought Neymar’s elbow to Luka Modric’s face was deliberate. (He checked to see where Modric was, then swung his arm not once, but twice in quick succession.) And I thought the disallowed goal was
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PLAY THE ADVANTAGE 