51 ENGECU De Bleeckere

England and Ecuador produced one of the worst matches of the World Cup, with the precious few goal-scoring oppurtunities being courtesy of individual errors. Still, the favourite did just enough and won 1-0 thanks to a free kick goal scored by David Beckham.

For Belgian referee Frank De Bleeckere the match was not challeging too handle in terms of crucial decisions, but the very scrappy nature with many fouls did require some management skills. He solved it overall by whistling and mostly avoiding talking to the players – he seemed distant and not interested in communicating quite often. There was quite a number of small mistakes he made – his foul detection was faulty at times.

There are also good arguments that he underpunished Terry’s high studs hit on Carlos Tenorio in minute 18. It seems De Bleeckere saw what happened, but only produced the yellow card immediately without even speaking to the player or underlining his decision with a crystal clear announcement that such challenges would not be tolerated. A similar one on Hargreaves later on by Delgado could be convincingly explained as just bad luck, but again, his handling did not endear him to the players. The Belgian repeateadly asked the England medical staff to remove Hargreaves from the pitch.

While unsurpringly strict on DtR offences, perhaps De Bleeckere’s general attitude can be summarized by his measures against the persistent dissent shown by Wayne Rooney – there were none. In fact, De Bleeckere seemed to ignore it. The yellow card given to Carragher for DtR in 82’ was also quite curious. The referee did correctly punish the offence, but seemed in no hurry jogging over to Carragher and booking him.

In some way, Frank De Bleeckere’s performance fitted in with a match that was tiring to watch. The Belgian wasn’t bad, but did not fully convince either. His ARs Peter Hermans and Walter Vromans were rarely challenged and did well.

Frank De Bleeckere - 8,2 Peter Hermans - 8,4 Walter Vromans - 8,4 Óscar Ruiz José Navia BEL - COL	England 1-0 Ecuador Round of 16
Terry (18') - Reckless play Robinson (78') - Delaying the Restart Carragher (82') - Delaying the Restart	Valencia (24') - Delaying the Restart C. Tenorio (37') - Reckless play de la Cruz (67') - SPA (Handball)