Slim Jedidi matches

It was a small surprise when CAF unfolded the nominations for this AFCON edition: after two participations at the last two AFCONs, Kacem Ben Naceur from Tunisia counted as one of the talents from Africa. However, he was not nominated this time. Born in 1977, he should have been under FIFA's eyes and therefore - I thought - CAF must have good reasons to prefer the older and nevertheless less experienced Jedidi for this competition. I did not see these good reasons.

Match
The first time at this AFCON, I have to say that it was an unfair match. Many riots occurred in an easy match; moreover, there was a large amount of small fouls. Finally, Guinea was the better team and would have deserved to win or at least to equalize.

Jedidi
Let us start with the positive things. His fitness was very good indeed. In the 40th minute, there was a very essential call to make: the Guinean Diallo fell in a high pace attack in the box. Jedidi immediately cautioned him for diving. The first impression was: penalty. Then there were two replays which have contradicted each other: the first replay showed that there was a small contact which was the reason for Diallo to fall. However, the second penalty made me agree with Jedidi: there was a small contact, yes, but Diallo started jumping some moments before. A difficult situation, perhaps, the best solution would have been: no penalty, no dive. Finally, it was no mistake and more likely a reasonable decision. The bad things: there was a goal scored by Mali earlier to the 1-0. However - according to Jedidi - it followed a striker foul. Very pedantic, in general, one cannot say that it was a total mistake, but a bit more leniency would have been great because it is football, not handball. There were two riots in the first and second half, some acts of violence, nothing too amazing or serious. Hence, Jedidi decided not to book a player in both occasions. A yellow one would have been adequate to a Mali player. Then, there was a hard foul in 54', foot-up in the air into the opponent's thigh, should have been at least yellow (Baldé on Manier). A bad surprise that Jedidi did not even whistle it. His card policy was overall still ok.

His style
Briefly describing his style: kicking the ball away and moving out of the wall 0,5 seconds too early is more serious than a rude foul from behind. One can like that, I do not do.

Assistant Referees + 4th Official
Beshir Hassani and Felicien Kabanda (Tunisia, Rwanda) and Eric Otogo (Gabon) were his fellow officials. The ARs had some offside mistakes, but also many good calls. Otogo's signaling to award only 1 minute of added time in the 1st half was bad, there were injuries which took more than 3 minutes, Hubert_De is right, according to rule 7 it was Jedidi's fault.

Another situation
There was another call on which I forgot to report: there was a situation after the dive call on the other side: a Guinean hold the kit of his opponent in the box, the opponent fell. If Jedidi awards a penalty, he will have to send the defender off. He chose the comfortable way: no whistle..the replays supported rather a penalty.