34 CRCPOL Maidin

The match between then already eliminated national teams of Costa Rica and Poland served as a confirmation that both deserved to exit the tournament after the group stage. Poland won 2-1, thus avoiding elimination without goals or points, but it was an evenly matched encounter dominated by poor football. It comes as no surprise that all three goals were scored from set pieces.

That leaves more of the focus on Shamsul Maidin, who refereed his third match at the tournament. He also became the first one to give a double digit number of cautions. The impression created by this statistic is a bit misleading though. The match was by no means rough or unfair, but all the bookings handed out by the Singaporean were correct.

Maidin had a decent performance, was quite consistent in punishing SPA offences, reckless play and the obligatory DtR infringements. His accuracy in decision-making dropped a bit after a good first half, though there were few decisions of importance to make. In general, Maidin came across as a bit sheepish while making decisions, even such that were communicated quite aggressively.

What stood out was the some of his mistakes were rather clear and while not overly important should not happen at a World Cup level. That included a missed corner for Costa Rica (45+1’), a wrong goal kick for Poland (88’) and most importantly, a missed stamp in 76’. Maidin did not whistle a foul, which led to series of challenges and the only larger flare-up. He solved it without bigger problems, but it should not happened in the first place. One could also argue there were perhaps more possible cards in the second half, but nothing egrogious was overlooked.

Still, the game had one very interesting criticial match incident: Was Costa Rican goalkeeper Porras tripped by Smolarek before the Polish equalizer? Yes. But is the contact and the tripping by the Polish striker just sneaky play or the result of Smolarek being clearly held by Badilla, who makes no move towards the ball at all? Did Maidin saw both and decided that Smolarek’s trip was the result of the holding and therefore decided to play on? Did he miss both?

The preferred decision for me would be YC for Badilla and penalty for Poland. Since it is not fully clear if Smolarek’s trip was really intentional or a result of the foul, no crucial mistake is assigned here.

Both ARs had a quiet game, AR1 Prachya Permpanich should not by any means have missed a clear corner for Costa Rica (45+1’). AR2 Eisa Ghoulom was fully correct to raise his flag in 82’ and deny Costa Rica the 2-2 – it was a clear offside.

Shamsul Maidin - 8,2 Prachya Permpanich - 8,3 Eisa Ghoulom - 8,4 Jerome Damon Justice Yeboah SIN, THA, UAE - RSA, GHA	Costa Rica 1-2 Poland Group Stage
Umaña (17') - SPA (Tripping) Marín (45+2') - SPA (Holding) Gómez (HT) - Dissent Badilla (56') - Reckless play González (76') - Reckless play	Radomski (18') - Reckless sliding tackle Bąk (23') - SPA (Blocking) Żewłakow (29') - Delaying the Restart Baszczyński (60') - Dissent Boruc (90+1') - Delaying the Restart