Let`s forget South Africa

The referee

I am not too fond of Lannoy`s style, especially about the way by which he tries to silence players who try to argue with him - putting a finger to his mouth while the other hand gesturing to the player to get away.
As for the running on a pitch covered by six officials, Lannoy adopted the method which will soon become tradition - an almost straight line through the middle with a slight tendency to the right. One can say on his behalf, that whenever there was an attack on the left, Mr. Lannoy hurried across to be close enough to the events. But whenever there was a free-kick or a corner-kick, he was scrutinizing the developments from the right, with his back to the ar on the touchline.
His foul/non-foul calls weren`t bad, though he had a spell of about ten minutes in the second half (55th-65th) where the game flew not for good refereeing but rather because he lost concentration and didn`t react appropriately.
Thus, it was clever of him to re-assert his authority in the 65th minute when he stepped in between the players anticipating a corner-kick to be taken and admonishing them in advance.
After a talk, one should know the referee will watch events closely. But sometimes there are players stupid enough to ignore these facts of life and pay dearly for their stupidity. It had happened before, for instance in Euro2008 when a Polish player had tried Mr. Webb in the dying minutes of the game against Austria, and yesterday this chain of events unfolded again: When the corner-kick was taken by Werder, the Italian Lucchini held and grabbed an opponent in front of the watchful referee. A yellow card (a second one) followed by a red one and a penalty-kick for the German team (converted - a second goal).

The assistants

The assistant referees , Ugo and Stephane Duhamel were OK and had no real difficulty in adjudging offsides/non-offsides (there were not to many replays from good angles to check all the decisions made). The French FA sent two FIFA referees as additional assistant referees (hence, aar).
I had seen Busacca and de Bleeckere before and hadn`t noticed any value added by the participation of aars. This time though there was one incident where added value was in sight. In the 28th minute a German header went over Sampdoria`s crossbar. Watching the goalkeeper`s reactions, one was sure Mr. Lannoy awarded a corner-kick though the goalie didn`t touch the ball. At the end play was resumed by a goal-kick which one might presume, was awarded by aar Thual who stood just a couple metres from the goalline when the incident occurred.