A match that meant so much...

The game

On a windy night in the capital, 2 teams met playing very different styles of football. The Bahrain team played fancy football, making the most of every tackle. While the all whites played a simple game, yet still were the best team. Larrionda handled the preasure of the game very well, as well as managing the play acting from Bahrain superbly.

Refereeing flash points

There was a penalty given in the favour of Bahrain in the 50th minute, correct call. The penalty was missed though, a great save from the all whites keeper, Mark Paston. 3 cards were shown on the night, 1 very early on to Ben Sigmund for a late tackle. Set the tone for the game, refereed strongly, but letting the players play.

The referee

This season, I've probably watched upper of 100 games and I can honestly say, in all of those games, Jorge Larrionda was the best referee. Superb.

Assistant referees

1 thing I noticed was how the 2 ARs exagerated their signals for corners and offsides. Maybe it is just the way things are done over in Uraguay but it looked mighty strange!