The Champions League referees for the second leg of the Round of 16 have been announced. The rather anti-climactic tie between Paris Saint-Germain and Bayer Leverkusen (PSG leads about a billion to nil on aggregate) will be refereed by Croatia’s top official, Ivan Bebek (above). Stephane Lannoy of France, whose year has included being the first French official in forever
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It’s about damn time. Mark Clattenburg has finally gotten a call up to the Champions League. He’ll take Tuesday’s clash between Atletico Madrid and AC Milan. To me, this makes sense. Clattenburg is by far the best referee in England right now, both from a technical standpoint and a fitness standpoint. Even though he’s been taking match after match, his
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The Juventus v. Fiorentina derby – at least it’s a derby for Fiorentina fans – is probably this week’s showpiece. Daniele Orsato (above) will be in the middle. Orsato is part of the triad of top Italian referees, along with Nicola Rizzoli and Gianluca Rocchi. I’ve noticed that Orsato has been taking several big games lately as his profile rises. This could also
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Here are the referees for the upcoming Premier League matches on March 8. Note: These are not FA Cup matches, but are regular fixtures. FA Cup will be March 8 and 9. Obviously the biggest match is Chelsea v. Spurs, since Chelsea are sitting in first place and Spurs are scrabbling for Champions League football next year. Mr. Wunderkind, Michael
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The referees for the FA Cup sixth round ties, to be played this upcoming weekend March 8 and 9, have just been announed Obviously, the biggest match will be Arsenal v. Everton. Though both teams have cooled off in the past couple of weeks, they’ll be wanting a good showing here, so this is likely to be a great game.
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One of the biggest matches is Sunday between AC Milan (still a threat despite their ninth place position) and league leaders Juventus. The call-up for this is a bit of a surprise: Marco Guida (above). Guida is one of the younger up and comers in Italian refereeing, and recently attended a UEFA seminar for the first time. He’s very talented
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Here are the referees for this coming weekend in the Premier League. There are no particularly huge matches, so it should be a quiet week. The one thing to note is that, aside from a fourth official gig on Saturday, Howard Webb will be resting after his mid-week Champions League match. Considering his form of late, this is probably a
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Here are the referees for the Europa League Round of 32 matches to be played February 27. I think the biggest surprise for me is Bjorn Kuipers. The highly-rated Dutchman has been flying high in international competition of late. (Dutchman…flying… See what I did there?) He made the list of World Cup referees and refereed the final of this competition
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The referees for the final two matches of the Last 16 first round tie are Carlos Velasco Carballo (Spain) and Howard Webb (England). Velasco Carballo will referee Galatasaray v. Chelsea, and Webb will take Schalke v. Real Madrid. Both matches will be played Wednesday, February 26. Now, I love me some Howard Webb. I do. But he has been in shocking form the past
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Here are the referees for the remaining FA cup fifth round fixtures, to be played Monday, February 24. This includes the rescheduled Sheffield Wednesday v. Charlton match, which was postponed due to rain. Mark Clattenburg, who was the referee for the original match and made the decision to postpone, is in charge Monday, as well. Sadly, this most assuredly means
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