Jerome Damon matches

Jerome Damon refereed the way FIFA seems to like at this World Cup: focused on little things, small pushes and some elbows on headers where the fouls were barely visible. In his way he was consistant, he halted play quite often and he gave out some cards which I found not only superflous but very harsh. Two positive teams on the pitch, so this narrowmindedness went unpunished.

What he did well...
I do think that Damon on the whole was in good position to make his calls, his physical shape was in no doubt and you could hear his whistle quite clearly. He seemed self-assured and seemed to know what he was doing. In a way he followed his own line and he used it until the last minute. I think, you have to judge him from there although I have my doubts if this kind of game management would work in a controversial and hot match.

Where I am not so happy...
He issued tow yellow cards for "time wasting" in the eleventh and 25th minute to Japan which I found very unusual. If you do this in the second half, I can understand that, but these two cards were out of this world by other standards in this tournament. There were a lot of decisions against Danish players in the box where players jumped for headers where I couldn't see an infringement at all. In England, no referee would have whistled for this. The yellow for the one Danish player on one of these "challenges" was over the top. I would like to see how he reacts in a match with a lot of physical contact - he would have to send five players off I guess.

The penalty
The penalty was another soft call to me for a push which will remain unpunished in eight out of ten situations in a match. To give a penalty on this seems quite selective and not really consistant on the whole. But in a way this sums up Damon's policy "If in doubt, always whistle for a foul". The major fouls were detected, but I found the fluency of the game to be an issue in this match.