Beware the slippery slope

REferee and ars

This time, I'll start with assessing the ars. Unfortunately, I didn't detect any improvement in Praprotnik and Vukan's performance, on their previous game (Russia vs. Slovakia). Worse than that, Skomina who received my accolades for handling the other match, was dragged this time to the lower level characterizing his assistants. Three issues come to the forefront: The first and most obvious was the reminder of Garcia-Aranda's 1998 handling of the France-Croatia semifinal. The Spaniard never interfered and hand nothing to say to players who used any unsporting tactic available when preparing for a free-kick or a corner-kick to be delivered into the penalty-area. It culminated with Bilic provoking Blanc and "eliminating" the French from being selected for the Final. The same with Skomina - after being aware to shirt-pulling he never once called captains or certain players to order, and in the dying minute of stoppage time (90'+2') we witnessed at least one French player pulling an opponent's shirt on the edge of the French goal-area, when the ball was driven towards them - a clear penalty-kick deserving infringement, unnoticed by the ref. Then there were two principles, Skomina didn't adhere to. the one included in the new rules and instructions - not to permit attacking players to position themselves inside a defensive wall when a free-kick is taken: Payet prepared himself to direct a free-kick towards the Swiss goal while at least one other French player was mixing with the Swiss defenders, with no appropriate measures taken by the referee (88'). And before that, in a much earlier stage of the game (33'), Coman was not totally satisfied with just getting a free-kick after being fould by Rodriguez, and waived his hand, gesturing to Skomina he should show the yellow card to the Swiss defender. In the EPL, the referees were instructed, at the beginning of the 2015-16 season, not only not to accept this gesture, but to admonish a player who tried to influence them in this manner. To sum it up: bad day for Puma, no improvement for the ars, Skomina should recover his skills and regain his composure.