The game of Quarterfinals WC 2018, a CONMEBOL - UEFA clash involving Brazil and Belgium, has been always under the full control of Milorad Mazic. We have appreciated for sure the experience of the Serbian, who has also managed with charisma very 'difficult' players from both teams, by never losing control, and being always respected in his choice. He correctly rejected some penalty appeals by Brazilian side. Milovan Ristic and Dalibor Djurdjevic: 'Hawk-Eye's'! VAR- support and respect for Daniele Orsato. Well done!

About penalty incident on Jesus. When first contact is made, ball is still in play, but that is not enough for penalty-kick. Foul is made when Kompany raises his foot but at that point ball has already crossed goal line (Law 9 and 12 LotG)!

Andres Cunha used VAR technology twice in the first match to make the right decisions. He gave France a correct penalty kick after VAR intervention and used goalline technology to award the second French goal. The pace of the game was not great: France looked sluggish and Australia too harmless to put pressure towards the Goal of Hugo Lloris for most of the time.

58'' foul on Griezman inside the box (VAR technology reveals the contact) 62'' Umtiti handles the ball above the head (correct penalty for Australia) 81'' Behich tries to clear and hits the crossbar into his own goal (goalline technology shows that the ball has clearly crossed the line)

Janny Sikazwe showed no hesitation to book players early (Meunier 14'') and issued an astonishing eight cautions in an not so unfair match. The average number of yellow cards at this tournament was 3,4 after the group stage, so his approach seems a bit over the top. His body language fitted this slightly overmotivated line perfectly - fuzzy and a bit too theatrical for my liking.

The foul detection was not at all bad and also the general decision making was in line with the general level at this tournament. In critical situations, the refs at this WC 2018 tolerate a lot of dissent and where I thought more cards at the right time would calm things down, FIFA seems to again have the position that booking for dissent is not desired. Sikazwe ignored these guidelines to a great extent and booked very easily which stood out even more compared to his colleagues. De Bruyne received an "orange" yellow for a kick near the stomach, but I would have ruled accidental contact myself and thought a red card too harsh.

Szymon Marciniak caught my attention first at Euro 2016 in France where his performance in the Iceland versus Austria game didn't impress me at all. In this game (Icelandic Huhhuhuhs again) though, he tried to impose himself with a strong performance but maybe caused controversies by actively overruling VAR help available in a critical situation of the game.

At a WC, it is virtually impossible to watch all the matches. The ones I did see (e.g. IRN versus MAR or FRA versus AUS) had a very slow pace, players entangled in physical duels in midfield and the referees had to stop play very often. A lot of pushing, talking and delaying happened and especially in the Friday game, it was very difficult for the ref to cope with that without looking overwhelmed. Szymon Marciniak had an interesting solution to this: He whistled not for every contact as refs usually do at this occasion, but picked out the big things. He was patient but firm - and surprisingly it worked. Even with Argentina.

Worldcups are invaluable as they open up the view to a worldwide perspective - not only in footballing terms but also in refereeing. Alireza Faghani is not a new man in the center circle as the many reports on this site suggest, but for me it was a first. He has a completely different style than UEFA refs, but we'll come to that a little later.

2006, 2010 and 2014 - many refs resorted to call every little contact to slow games down and to maintain control after FIFA told them than cards are only to be used in emergency. In this WC, we are back to a more generous approach which I like much better. Match flow seems to be more important than whistling absolutely everything. Faghani applied this rule in a frantic and chaotic beginning of the match where Germany was all over the place and Mexico pressed very hard pushing the limits quite far.