Some question marks

The Swedes

Mr. Strombergsson is rated second to mr. Eriksson (whom I don't rate highly) among the Swedish referees, and has just been promoted to officiate at CL. However his performance in Trnava raises some question marks. It was a typical Scandinavian too lenient attitude. There was just one yellow card (Sabo, 15') in an encounter which was hard fought, and not always in fair sportsman-like methods. The Slovaks were the more aggressive side, sometimes on the verge of violence, and there were occasions the Scots repeated in kind. Calm was restored in the last 25 minutes when the game had already been wrapped up. The most obvious and crucial mistake was made in the 17th minute - Durica (it's inconceivable how he managed to get to the end without at least being shown the yellow card) barged into Fletcher outside the home-team's penalty-area, letting another Slovak to take possession of the ball. The foul was blatant, the ref must have seen it, but turned a blind eye or, more strangely, didn't assess it as a foul (in defence of such a policy, which can only being interpreted as a total misunderstanding of players' intentions - a few minutes before, a Scottish player body-checked an opponent, thus letting his team-mate get possession withot penalising Scotland). Then Slovakia built an attack which ended in Mak scoring theur opening goal (18'). It didn't lift the Swedish team's performance which left me to aspire for a better one in the CL matches they are going to officiate.