Serbia u21 1 - 3 Sweden u21
Euro 2009 u21 group stage · 2009-06-23 Referee: Pedro Proença

Gunman

Control

Everything good or bad starts with authority and how the referee came in the match. Proenca made mistakes in the preparation for the match. He refereed the first Serbian match and must have known how the players behave. His colleagues must have said something about the Swedish players.
But he didn't do anything to ease the tension and because of that the match was violent. When he woke up it was too late so he started to show a card for everything but inconsistently.

fouls and cards

From the beginning of the match he didn't see well, so his assistant, who was at least 50 meters away, awarded a penalty to Sweden. Proenca wanted to show a yellow card because he thought the Swedish player had dived. After consultation however he changed his decision something that made the Serbian players protest wildly. That decision was very harsh, but if it was a foul then it was outside the box (but the Swedish player fell five meters in)
A few minutes later one Swedish player committed a hard tackle, but Proenca waved it off and for revenge a Serbian player (Kacar) fouled for a direct red card. Both benches came one meter in the field and after a few minutes of nervousness Proenca showed two yellows. In last minute of first half Pedro gave second yellow for Sebian players for not such violent foul but that decision was right if he had a same criterium from beginning. Second red Serbian player was deserved because he jumped and with hand kick Swedish player. Pedro gave eight caution , two players send off but with that criterion at least three more players should been sent off ( Kacar and Smiljanic from Serbia and Bajrami for Sweden). His valation of fouls was bad and for the example in last minute of the game , when eveything was clear, he didn't award two fouls for Sweden and one for Serbia.

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