Hategan and Tudor
Rumanian no. 1
Tudor had been Rumania's referee no. 1 until Hategan's arrival on the scene. Tudor getting older and just missing a permanent spot in the CL list, has actually been sidelined by the about ten years younger Hategan , who also has been handed more important games to handle at the EL level. Tudor seems to be more strict and stern looking, Hategan is more easy-going when it comes to facing trouble-makers. He is also more adept at letting the flow-of-match go. On the other I like Tudor's attitude of not indicating the direction of throw-ins and letting the assistant-referee's flag do it except for cases where the crucial tackle took place close to the ref and far away from the ar. The frequency of using the yellow card is quite similar. All in all, no big differences between the two, but the age difference, which Tudor a referee which his future lays in the past, while Hategan has a really good chance of becoming part and parcel of the CL list in the near future.
The games at hand
Curiously, both referees allowed the first goal of each match to be scored after a little nudge, but a crucial one, enabled the offender to put a defender off balance and score. To be fair to Hategan, in his case it was very difficult to spot the infringement, and not every angle would have provided the sight of it. In bothe games there were throw-ins which were illegally taken (a foot inside the pitch or not on the ground, one-hand throw, etc.), but both referees and their ars , especially Nica in Tudor's case (the other ar was Onita) and Sovre in Hategan's case (the other ar was Gheorghe) ignored these infringements of the law. Foul detection in both games was alright (one can always complain about this or that). I liked Tudor's handling of two cases involving two players or more. In the first one, when things didn't boyl over he just used a verbal message to both players (28'), but in the second incident, close to the end (87'), when the two-men incident became heated and others became involved, he cautioned both instigators. As mentioned above, I was impressed by Hategan's clever use of the advantage rule, not being hasty to whistle, waiting a little to see how things devlop (a good example - 36').