SHOULD A REF HAVE THE COURAGE TO SEND A PLAYER OFF IN A

The scene in question

Franck Ribery had his nerves not in control when he got tackled and he retaliated by touching Castro directly to the face before getting separated by the fourth official. He got yellow and Castro likewise which was lucky for him and harsh for the other culprit (Castro). Fritz acted calmly and also tried to ease the tensions in other situations and issued seven cautions in 120 minutes (four against Bayern and three against Dortmund). He could have given more cards to Vidal (who could have gotten a second yellow) and to Douglas Costa. His decisions were on the whole in line with his general policy and reflected the generous tendency he had for the match in general.

Game flow is the top priority

In Germany, the international trend from the WC 2014 of letting the game flow by letting go quite a lot of things has been the overall policy over the last two seasons. The German refs had a bad season by getting quite a lot things wrong - according to the "Kicker" the marks for refs were much lower than in the 1990ies. in general, the younger German refs tend to use the Eriksson approach by negotiating their way through the matches by not getting into too much trouble. They tried to learn their lessons also from hot matches in which the teams fought for relegation or promotion with a lot of controversy over the last few years. The new refs seem to lack personality, crucial courage to take unpopular measures and a clear line when I'm being honest. Three old "warhorses" alias German senior refs retired this season - to fill this gap will be a real challenge. Marco Fritz has still a long way to go to be a Knut Kircher, Florian Meyer or Michael Weiner in my mind.