17 GERPOL Medina Cantalejo

Luis Medina Cantalejo was one of five referees who had to wait until Matchday 2 to start but the Spaniard's first appointment was well worth the wait. Hosts Germany could make a huge step towards progression with a win while Poland had to grab at least a point to keep their hopes alive after a shock loss against Ecuador.

The duel between the neighbouring states was expected to be a heated one and these predictions were proven correct in a first half that had lots of difficult foul-or-no-foul decisions and rash challenges. Medina Cantalejo clearly wanted to avoid a card feast and decided only to book two players in the first half – both after extremely late and reckless fouls.

Especially Poland, criticized for acting timidly in their opener, played very aggressively. Medina Cantalejo had quite a high threshold for fouls and especially in the opening ten to fifteen minutes, one had to wonder if his lenient approach would endure. The match remained intense throughout, but calmed down considerably, especially in the second half.

The question is if it did because of or despite of Medina Cantalejo’s leniency. On a theoretical level, there are plenty arguments that he missed a couple mandatory cautions. He had opened the cards in 3’ after a tackle from behind left him with no choice, but only produced one further booking for another very late challenge.

The game was at times end-to-end stuff, with the disciplinary focus turning from reckless to tactical offences in the second half. Medina Cantalejo punished these consistently with yellow cards. Overall, his leniency felt a bit too much – especially considering FIFA’s guidelines for the tournament – but the fact that there were no player altercations and little protests until the end in a match that was both very tight and important certainly speaks in his favour.

Medina Cantalejo showed good fitness and had full control during the entire match, the SYC given was correct, although the player could (or maybe even should?) have been sent of earlier for a reckless challenge (63’). In the big picture, it did not matter too much – the Spanish trio had successfully handled the difficult task they were given.

Both ARs had several offside decisions to take. AR1 Victoriano Giráldez Carrasco was mistaken in two out of his three cases while AR2 Pedro Medina Hernández was right to raise his flag in two difficult situations.

Luis Medina Cantalejo - 8,3 Victoriano Giráldez Carrasco - 8,2 Pedro Medina Hernández - 8,4 Khalil Al-Ghamdi Fathi Arabati ESP - KSA, JOR	Germany 1-0 Poland Group Stage
Ballack (58') - SPA (Tripping) Odonkor (68') - SPA (Holding) Metzelder (70') - SPA (Tripping)	Krzynówek (3') - Reckless sliding tackle Sobolewski (28') - Reckless play Boruc (89') - Delaying the Restart
	Sobolewski (75') - SPA (Holding)