The best match so far

Coulibaly

We know this case. In the African matches and in most of his FIFA youth tournament matches, he showed his qualities and then he was designed for USA SVN. I am still wondering whether one can blame Koman for this performance or whether it was more likely FIFA's fault.

Situations and calls

The match was in general fair. However, there were some situations which were difficult for Coulibaly. A Zambian player hit his opponent with his ellbow in minute 16' who suffered from this by a cut. He correctly gave a free kick, but to my mind he should have issued a yellow card. After that, he gave a card for handball, but it was the player's chest, so this decision was wrong. Coulibaly fell for a large amount of small dives committed by Libyan players who seemed to be the dying swans. His foul detection was not good at all. There was a difficult call in the very last moment of the match when a Zambian was potentially fouled in the box, but there was no replay, I cannot make a clear judgement, tendency: rather no penalty. His assistant referees Balla Diarra from Mali and Richard Bouende from Rep Congo were good, especially the offside decisions were very good. The 4th was Rajindraparsad Seechurn.

Style

Very experienced referee, he solved every upcoming conflict in a good way. He had a good approach, but one thing was bad: he was very lazy, very sedate. He did not run much, it was an economic style, but finally, he was hit by the ball two times due to this circumstance. Coulibaly is to my mind no candidate for a big match at this AFCON, perhaps 3rd place or a weak quarterfinal, but not more. The problem was the foul detection in a very intense and good match characterized and influenced by the conditions which naturally had a certain impact on Coulibaly's decisions, too.