Big decisions

First goal

When Hernandez broke clear, carried the ball round Lloris and calmly slotted home a great goal, my immediate reaction was that he had been several miles offside. However, the replays showed that he was level with the second-last defender, perhaps offside by a hair's width, and so the assistant referee was absolutely correct to keep his flag down and give the benefit of the doubt to the attacking side. Another big decision that the officials got right.

The nitty gritty

When it came to more mundane decisions, Al Ghamdi did strugle a little bit. His foul detection was poorly calibrated, and was awarding free kicks for invisible infringements of the laws (or to use my favourite phrase of the month, phantom fouls). On one such occasion both teams competed for the ball less than a metre from the assistant, it went out of play and he flagged for a Mexico throw, but Al Ghamdi who was much further away decided it was instead a free kick to France. If you are going to overrule the assistant, you need to be right! His judgement of cards was also a bit dodgy, with several Mexicans being booked for similar, or lesser, fouls than France were allowed to committ without finding themselves in the referee's little black book.

Style

He whistled a lot, and unlike Frank de Bleeckere earlier in the day, in this match it badly affected the flow and made several passages of play turgid. And, unlike de Bleeckere, a significant number of his foul calls were simply wrong, perhaps because he was quite distant from the ball at times. However, even though he did stop the match a lot his signalling and cards were low-key and unobtrusive, which I most certainly approve of. He did not tolerate any back chat from the players, and was firm and confident when he awarded the penalty.