A tale of two halves

Herr Dr. Brych

He made two excellent decisions, but they were no compensation for a generally weak assessment of infrigements of the laws. The first excellent decision has to do with swiftness, as the Koscielny foul on Pedro was obvious enough, but the very quick and adamant decision to award the penalty-kick (41'), just two minutes after a very controversial decision at the other end, prevented the french of any argument at a very delicate moment. However the penalty was not converted. The second excellent decision had to do with content. It happened in the dying minutes of regular time (87') when Fabregas, who had fluked with the penalty-kick, blocked a French defender, thus preventing him of reaching to Torres who dribbled dangerously inside the French penalty-area. The whistle went correctly against Fabregas, awarding an indirect free-kick to France. But, and it is a big BUT, a lot of shoves and pushes, kicks and other tricks from behind went unnoticed, while in all cases the culprit's team got the advantage. Just to mention some: 08', 38', 43', 46', 47', 56', etc.

Borsch and Lupp

The young ars weren't better than the man in the middle. Lupp made a grave mistake, when he flagged for a Spanish offside. It could be understandable under the old way of interpretation and the ar's perspective. Cazorla was offside on the very far side of the ar, but knowing that he stayed put, and Alba who came from far behind took the ball, but the wrong call stopped his advance. On the other side, ar Borsch made the big mistake of the evening, as he disallowed a perfectly legitimate French equalizer (39'). There is a good possibility that Benzema was slightly offside when a free-kick was crossed towards him, but then Mr. Borsch didn't raise his flag. Benzema headed the from the left side of the goal-area to its right side, where Menez came fro behind to head the ball in. But then there was the ar signalling for an offside that never was. The tempretatures on the pitch rose immediately, and that's why I mention so favourably the ref's swift decision for a penalty-kick on the other side of the pitch two minutes later.