Penalty

Marriner

Marriner is just one of the few referees from the third category who got a chance to referee a play-off match for the Europa League, so this match probably was crucial for another step to his progress into the second category. Even though Andy is a referee every week, with intensive complicated matches, tonight he looked lost in some moments. Maybe this boring match had an effect on his concentration, but even some obvious decisions, while he was in a good position to see what happened, were wrong. Nothing too much, a few fouls and two yellow cards that he should have shown, and that had influence later on during the match when the Hungarian players made a couple of harsh tackles and the Croats (only a few Croats play in the first eleven) try to get revenge. Marriner had to prevent that behavior with his body language, what is extremely important for referees, especially when players don't understand English well. Marriner tried to talk with them with little success. With all these little problems he was good, but nothing better then that.