A Bridge Too Far

The higher you climb...

Skomina had a great start in Russia vs Slovakia, then started to falter in Switzerland vs France, performed no better (according our colleagues on this site) in England vs Iceland, and went through another bad evening in Lille, handling what should be his farewell to this tournament. In this game, Skomina summed-up his Euro16 - a great start, with a clear agenda of clamping down on fouls intended to deny the opponents of a counter-attack - all three Welsh players who did that in the first 24 minutes were booked. He also used correctly the advantage rule, when ar Vukan flagged for offside (23'). But then the edifice of the building he had meticulously built, started to crumble. The first cloud was seen around when ar Praprotnik (the less convincing between the two ars on the night and in previous games) indicated Robson-Kanu fouled Denayer in a tussle near the Belgian penalty-area, which the Welshman won (11'). The replay cameras demonstrated clearly the infringement went the other way round. Then came the 24th minute which marked the watershed of the referee's performance. On the one hand Gunter (Wales) merited a yellow card for impeding a Belgian on the way to a counter-attack, and on the other not penalizing Allen for a clear foul on Hazard in centre-field and awarding the free-kick to Wales because Hazard, after falling down held the ball in his hands. Then we witnessed along series of decisions and indecisions, when the whistle didn't go in clear foul-play cases or was blown when it wasn't necessary. Sometimes, there was no replay, which Skomina should be grateful to, as almost all replays didn't vindicate him and his decisions. Some examples of questionable or wrong decisions could be gauged by those who would like to watch incidents in the following minutes: 18' (again a gathering cloud before the deluge), 26', 33', 63', 84' - I can assure you there were many more minor ones.