19 ENGTRI Kamikawa

Kamikawa Tōru of Japan was the first referee of the 2006 World Cup to be appointed for a second game after handling Poland vs. Ecuador on Matchday 1. For more than 80 minutes, it seemed Trinidad & Tobago could repeat their surprise feat from their opener where they held Sweden to a goalless draw (despite playing with ten men for nearly the entire second half). But then one remarkable incident happened that few realized at that time – unfortunately, Kamikawa was among them.

England struggled to create chances against a well-organized Caribbean side which managed to avoid the heavy tackles from their opening match. For the AFC refereeing team, the match was an easy affair. The number of bookings is deceiving – one was for time wasting, two for tactical offences and the three bookings for reckless constituted most fouls that were worthy of note. Appropriately in a match with many set pieces, he focused on verbal prevention of holding offences in the first few of them.

Unfortunately, despite the rather low number of infringements, Kamikawa was too lenient in several scenes in the second half involving tackles. He missed one booking for a reckless one by Yorke in 60', and definitely should have sent Gray off - if not for his first tackle, which would surely be a SFP nowadays (57'), then for his second one in 75', a two-footed frontal attack on Lennon.

Kamikawa also seemed to have changed his approach towards time wasting offences compared to his first match. After warning Ecuador’s goalkeeper repeatedly and without success, Kamikawa used the first opportunity to book T&T goalkeeper Shaka Hislop nearly immediately after the second half had started for taking too long to execute a goal kick.

Apart from that, there was little to say about Kamikawa – maybe he could have solved a dropped ball situation in 30’ with a bit less confusion, but in the big picture, there was little to do for the refereeing team.

However, England’s breakthrough goal scored by Peter Crouch should almost definitely not have been allowed. None of the initial replays showed it, but the tall striker had won his header after pulling his opponent’s – Brent Sancho – ponytail before scoring. On an expectation level, such an incident is simply impossible to consider. It comes as no surprise Kamikawa did not. We do not assign a crucial mistake for it, even with VAR spotting such an incident would have required detective-like work. Kamikawa's position was not ideal, but considering the cross came from the midfield, he can't be faulted for not being closer to the left or to the goal-line.

Both ARs were rarely challenged with most offside decisions being rather clear. AR2 Kim Daeyoung assisted with a few foul calls in his vicinity in the first half, while his most interesting offside call was not replayed (58’). AR1 Hiroshima Yoshikazu had one supportable offside decision (22’) and was correct to disallow a late Trinidad & Tobago goal (90+2’).

Tōru Kamikawa - 7,8 (8,2) Yoshikazu Hiroshima - 8,4 Kim Dae-young - 8,4 Kevin Stott Chris Strickland JPN, JPN, KOR - USA	England 2-0 Trinidad & Tobago Group Stage
Lampard (64') - Reckless sliding tackle	Theobald (18') - SPA (Holding) Whitley (19') - SPA (Tackle) Jones (45+1') - Reckless play Hislop (47') - Delaying the Restart Gray (56') - Reckless sliding tackle