Past his sell by date

Italy suffer

When Smeltz opened the scoring for New Zealand in the 7th minute, he was in an offside position as the ball came forward off the head of Reid. As such should have been penalised when he became active, even though the ball did catch Cannavaro before it was slotted home. This was not a close call, and the assistant referee can have no excused for getting it wrong. Batres should also have been in a position to make this easy judgement. Cannavaro and Chiellini were also the subject of a number of high-elbow challenges from Fallon, who eventually picked up a solitary yellow card, but could easily have been booked twice and sent off within the opening 30 minutes.

New Zealand suffer

In the 29th minute Italy got a debatable goal of their own, when Iaquinta converted a generous penalty. Tommy Smith had hold of de Rossi's shirt for no more than a second, and after he had let go de Rossi decided to fall over rather theatrically. Batres pointed to the spot and booked Smith. Now yes, technically shirt pulling is an offence, but de Rossi was not challenging for the ball and so this was absolutely no different to the tussling that goes on at every corner kick. And a penalty is never awarded then. If the referees are going to give penalties for such minor offences, they must be consistent and penalise every single time - the mathes would certainly be high scoring because there would be 10 penalties per game! Ridiculous decision. And yet another ridiculous decision was to show a yellow card to Ryan Nelsen who was hobbling off the field with hamstring trouble for taking too long to vacate the pitch. How utterly disgraceful from Batres. He also seemed to penalise every bit of contact that the New Zealanders made with a free kick, but did not apply the same logic to the Itallians: I suspect this is pre-match prejudice. By coming into the match expecting New Zealand to play in a particular physical manner and the Itallians in a more fluid style he saw New Zealand committ fouls when they were not and the Itallians not committ fouls when they were.

Time to say goodbye

I imagine this will be Batres' last match in this tournament, it certainly would be if I were in charge of the appointments. He looked to have little authority or respect, his assistants were not great and looked a bit unfit and the overall feel of the performance was poor. Perhaps time to hang up the whistle after a long and distinguished career, this World Cup has show he has gone on too long.