lenient

trust

Pull a shirt, make a dive in the penalty box, kick someone: Hansson sees it. He seems to know what you did, but he doesn't always whistle. Hansson is lenient when he can. A red card, two no-penalties and two no-goals (both by Farfan) proved Hansson dares to make decisions. And he was right.

alex

Actually, Hansson was too lenient, since leniency can lead to severe damages especially when the culprit is PSV sider Alex, an ape of a guy made of cast iron. Twice Alex hit a Turkish player while making a jump for the ball. Once he hit a face with his shoulder and once with an elbow. Both times no coincidence, but an act of a defender who knows how to scare away agile forwards. Alex should have been sent off. Hansson could have shown many more yellow cards than the three he did.

match

The Turks were much better in the first half but lost a player and probably decided to give up.

match report by Antonio A. Forsteri

Martin Hansson: 35 years, quite tall, a fireworker in his hometown, still a relatively unknown Swede, was in the summer of 2006 the referee of the under 21 European Cup final in Portugal, played between the Ukraine and the Netherlands. Besides that he led some international games like Ukraine versus Scotland (he will be better off not to go on holidays to Scotland the coming years).
Anyway, with only some international experience, I was impressed by his performance. PSV-Galatarasay was totally under his control. Even the red card for Galatarasay-player Tomas, was readily accepted by the hotheaded Turks. He did not award dives, was not impressed by the usual theatrical play by the players, and even a bleeding Turkish nose seemed for him a part of the game. This Martin Hansson is definitely not a sissy-boy, unlike the retired Anders Frisk, "the walking barbershop from Sweden", who made lots of mistakes in the last years of his career.
Martin Hansson did not award any penalty during the game, which had a positive effect on the game. Both teams seemed to be even more motivated by that neglect. Also because of his physical presence (he was the tallest and boldest of the 25 persons involved in the game), he earned the respect of both teams and the public. So he starts at www.worldreferee.com with a high rating. The game was completely under control, he showed 100% neutrality and was very punctual! He ended the game at 48.00 exactly after 3 minutes of extra time not even one second extra.
I would recommend him for any game in the Portugese competition since our Iberian friends always like to pretend they have been beaten, hit, overrun or shot on the pitch!