No nonsense

Large defenders

Maybe the fact that both teams' forwards didn't give the large defenders Stam (Milan) or Alex (PSV) much to worry about, was one of the reasons the Austrian referee had it easy. Easy until Inzaghi.

Blue murder

Filippo Inzaghi, who came in the second half as a substitution for Shevchenko, is a player who should get booked in advance by default. An actor, screaming blue murder while rolling over the grass as if he just escaped an assassination attempt everytime someone touches him in the box, Inzaghi is every defender's nightmare. If you play against him and there is an inexperienced referee, you know you're in for trouble. Plautz, though, knows his Inzaghis, knows his southern European actors, and after Reiziger got shown a yellow card for pushing the little Italian forward out of the way, Plautz had enough. He warned Inzaghi and even booked him later on for yelling for not getting a penalty.

Invisible

Konrad Plautz has a talent for being almost invisible during a match. He doesn't talk, doesn't get drawn into discussions, waves it all off. He has a no-nonsense attitude.

Why

Later, or even during the match, probably every referee gets asked questions like "why me and not him". Referees make mistakes, see things different, don't get to see the replay until later. But one could seriously ask Plautz why he booked Reiziger for pushing but not Italian veteran Maldini after he tried to break Farfan's legs. A mistake.