Eminently sensible

Key moment

The biggest moment of the match was the penalty for the USA in the 62nd minute. Dempsey was mown down in the box by a clumsy challenge from Jonathan Mensah and Kassai was in an excellent position to award the penalty kick. He also booked Mensah, which was again the correct decision because the challenge was cynical and reckless; there was no obvious goal-scoring opportunity so a red card would have been wrong. The confidence of his body language in pointing to the spot was surely part of the reason that Ghanaian protests were minimal, along with it being such a stonewall penalty.

Communication

Kassai is one of the few referees in this tournament who actually communicates with the players by speaking to them, not simply using his whistle and hand gestures. He seems perfectly willing to explain a decision, or to step in a cool a player down before he does something rash. Being proactive in this way has paid dividends for Kassai and he appears to be awarded a good deal of respect by the players.

Other decisions

He allowed a bit of contact and kept the game flowing. In a match that had extra time as well he only brought it to a halt for 28 free kicks, which is fewer than most refs have been awarding in the standard 90 minutes. However, some of these fouls were a bit soft in comparison to others that he let go. In addition to Mensah four others were all correctly booked and no other cards were warranted. As Ghana tried to waste time at the end he was fairly proactive in speeding them up, and he correctly added on 3 minutes after the second part of extra time - I'm sure you can think of many a referee who would have just given the standard 1 minute there. I cannot remember the assistants getting any calls wrong. So at last a match in which the Americans can have no cause for complaint about the man in black (or aqua blue, as Kassai was sporting tonight)