52 PORNED Ivanov

'The Battle of Nuremberg'

Valentin Ivanov sensationally issued four red cards and a further twelve cautions as Portugal defeated the Netherlands one-nil in an extremely tempestuous and ill-spirited Round of Sixteen match. A highly intense game turned into a manifestation of utter chaos in the second half as any hint of moderation, restraint or fair play from the players of both nations ebbed away into the Nuremberg night. Ivanov faced what he called "the most challenging match of my career"; Joseph Blatter tried to pull the same expedient trick in the media he did on Byron Moreno four years earlier, but fortunately this time was shown up and forced to apologise to the referee from Russia for asserting that "he should have shown himself a yellow card".

After the final whistle - which by way saw the players were apparently remarkably calm (this really was a special kind of battle on the pitch) - the post mortem could begin. Whose fault was this gigantic, thrilling, mess of football: the players? the referee? FIFA's instructions? And what kind of a legacy did this one night have an a refereeing optic where nowadays the idea of producing sixteen cards in a FIFA match is ludicrous if not just downright funny.

The full story then of a cursed World Cup football match and its referee, Valentin Ivanov.

Setting

Portugal finished top of Group D by virtue of avoiding to defeat to Mexico in their final first round game; the Netherlands had to beat Argentina in order to play through the perceived weaker draw that awaited Group C's winners (Mexico then probably England vs. Portugal then probably hosts' Germany), but didn't in quite a boring match which finished scoreless. Portugal - Netherlands was set for the Round of Sixteen.

Valentin Ivanov's interview with FIFA was suitably incontrovertible but did herald two quite interesting comments - the first of them is "The Netherlands and Portugal were both teams that had set themselves the target of winning the tournament, so defeat in the Round of 16 was out of the question for both of them". This reminds me distinctly of Howard Webb's comments regarding his World Cup Final in 2010 where he says both teams were overcome with trying to be first time winners of football's greatest prize - defeat not an option.

Contrary to popular understanding, Ivanov was not widely a strict referee. Despite showing eight cards in France - Switzerland it actually was his discretion in assessing tackles as careless vs. reckless that saw him succeed in a tough match. FIFA were evidently impressed and immediately appointed him for a Germany match, admittedly the easiest of the tournament, vs. Ecuador. He passed through the game okay, but his disciplinary control was without doubt lenient. FIFA again were taken by this very interesting referee and appointed him for one of the top Round of Sixteen matches.

Nobody expected what was to come...

Match

A clockwatch then for how Portugal, the Netherlands and Valentin Ivanov made history on an incredible night in Nurenburg:

2' - Ivanov decides to open the cards after around ninety seconds and he did not have much choice; flying foul by van Bommel on star-player Ronaldo, so theoretically also a tactically valuable caution - one had the feeling that the match's temperature would have remained exactly the same with the card given or not; a dangerous signal for the referee.

7' - Boulahrouz commits a brutal foul on Ronaldo, for which he is only cautioned; to emphasise the point, Ronaldo was later substituted injured, Boulahrouz should have been shown a Red Card for this foul; somewhat surprisingly, I think most of the players were satisfied with only yellow. Ivanov was unfortunate here - he simply couldn't perceive the incident, look at him craning his neck a second before the foul. Could Marco Rodríguez, fourth official, have helped at all?

11' - Ivanov seems to be the only person on the pitch who misses Deco's kick from behind on pantomime villain van Bommel, Netherlands players even slow down; Ivanov inspects the injury while the ball in play and then gives a "carry on" gesture to the player with ball; note taken by the players.

15' - Ivanov is perfectly correct not to award Netherlands a penalty for a trifling holding on Kuyt, but the problem is he doesn't assess the situation, having turned round to Ronaldo to wave him back on the pitch , and fails to assess the situation at all himself, hopefully Evgenij Volnin gave him a shout in the comms; poor practice from Ivanov, with a comms kit there is no need to turn facing the player being waved back on the field of play.

19' - Ivanov plays advantage from a late, mostly careless foul on van Bommel; having detected a handling by Robben, twenty seconds later he cautions Maniche for his prior foul, presumably supported by Nikolai Golubev in computing who made the foul, having apparently struggled to perceive it himself.

This, in my view, is where Ivanov started to get off on the wrong track - he saw Maniche's foul as a perfect, or perhaps even unavoidable chance to balance the two cautions he gave to Netherlands players. What is easy to say in hindsight - he misread this game. Actually, this was the start of the players not seeing the referee as a 'force for good' on the pitch, and lacking the feeling for the nuances of the match. It's funny in a way - exactly by not doing what he did here, succeeded in the France - Switzerland match. 

23' - Goal! Portugal lead one-nil.

30' - Kuyt reacts very angrily to a handling call against him (no replay); Ivanov should have reacted against this challenge to his authority with a warning / shout back.

31' - Costinha picks up a mandatory caution for a reckless foul; unlike 2', Ivanov could and perhaps should have made a point with the foul, at least by ordering Costinha back to him and not issuing a caution to his back.

38' - Cautioned a half-dozen minutes earlier, Costinha commits a pretty nasty off-the-ball foul on Ooijer, he should have been sent off; unlike 7', everyone on the pitch knew he should have been sent off. Ivanov missed the foul - considering that such a foul was coming in those two minutes, and it was only just off the ball, he should have detected the offence using his trailing eye. Lots of players from both teams went to shout at Ivanov.

Ivanov's status as a 'force for good' on the pitch took quite a big hit here - doubting his perception accuracy, the danger of the players turning to physical vigilantism increased a lot with this missed ejection.

42' - I am quite at a loss to explain what Ivanov is thinking here. There is a duel between Kuyt and Carvalho, with the Netherlands player successfully passing the ball to teammate Robben who is taken out by Meira's karate kick which should be punished with a red card. Ivanov initially raises his hand in the air as if to signal an indirect freekick - and then decides to penalise Kuyt for fouling Carvalho, an offence that is at least hard to detect from the television pictures, if anything, it is Kuyt himself being fouled.

43' - Freekick awarded to Netherlands on the edge of the Portugal penalty area. Not a black-white situation, but more good defending and play on for my taste.

+46' - Costinha, having already tempted fate, commits a handling offence that is absolute lunacy having already been booked. Ivanov correctly sends him off.


HALFTIME


46' - Do the FIFA guidelines demand that Boulahrouz be ejected here (delaying the restart; second caution)?

50' - Tactical holding, correct yellow card. The hope here is that the game was will become counter-attack and football focused.

58' - Game is getting very testy now, van Bronckhorst is late and Deco has space to run towards the penalty area, Ivanov with a short delay books the Netherlands player (any scope to to not give a card here?). While doing so, behind his back, Figo headbutts van Bommel, which of course should see the Portugal player sent off. One would hope that between non-active AR Nikolaj Golubev and fourth official Marco Rodríguez, they could have seen and informed the referee. I am not really sure how the very unsatisfactory educated guess that Figo should be cautioned came about, but the result was certainly unfair - Figo could play in Portugal's Quarterfinal, as Ivanov sanctioned him for the incident.

62' - Boulahrouz's revenge on Figo was much more easily visible to the referee, which in fact should have seen the Netherlands player directly ejected. By virtue only of two yellows, Ivanov did at least do that - Boulahrouz walked. This incident, in front of the benches and after Figo's unpunished violent attack, saw the players begin to lose their cool and reason. Here - fourth official Marco Rodríguez did do a good job and prevented a worse escalation.

71' - A tactical decision which more than any cost Ivanov on this surreal night: stopping play and ordering a dropped ball with Carvalho down injured. Portugal were on the attack and expected the Netherlands to pass the ball back to them from the ensuing dropped ball.

Here, was a defining moment. Ivanov looked into the abyss - he desperately needed Netherlands to comply with the spirit of fair play and give the ball back. One could probably conduct a fairly extensive psychological study on why they don't - but they don't. Deco really ought to be sent off for his tackle as an attack, but okay. Sneijder and van der Vaart are also cautioned for their involvement in the ensuing confrontation.

A trivial but quite interesting moment then - Evgenji Volnin calls Ivanov over and they have a short chat. I am quite sure that Volnin thought Ivanov had cautioned a player twice without ejecting him, which was of course on the officials minds after the Croatia - Australia match. Ivanov correctly confirmed that he hadn't.

From that point on the match resembled pantomime rather more than World Cup football. 

78' - FIFA's instructions were quite clear, Deco has to be sent off (SYC) for this flagrant case of Delaying the Restart; should Cocu be sanctioned too?

+95' - The last of the twenty cards Ivanov raised - yellow, then red to van Bronckhorst for a reckless kick from behind. 

FULLTIME - Portugal are through to play England in the Quarterfinal and the Netherlands are eliminated. 

Analysis

He wasn't perfect (by any means), but one had to feel sorry for Ivanov. The question that we will never know the answer to - with a different referee, would it have played out too much differently? I'm not too sure it would have.

One could analyse all of the (very many) Key Match Incidents but I think that partly misses the point here. I think we should be careful to criticise Ivanov too much (his assistants were good, Golubev even very good with an excellent onside at 80'), even if his performance was not really optimal either: if they really don't want to play, it is (neigh on) impossible to succeed. Also - who in their right mind could even imagine a game like this before the event! Impossible to prepare for.

This was a seminal moment in FIFA Refereeing ideology that set spinning until eight years later when a new idea won the argument at the Brazilian World Cup. FIFA's vision was that unobtrusive and strict referees would be able to serve both football and fair play best; a win-win.

What the referee of this match really needed to do in order to succeed was to slow it down - such was not the parlance though of World Cup 2006. So, Ivanov just did his job, and sanctioned fouls as he saw them; the players gave him nothing and he gave them nothing in return. The result was a huge mess that FIFA wanted to avoid at future World Cups. And yet, you could argue that Ivanov missed as many as five red cards! 

Hence, the more management-orientated optic of World Cup 2010. Overall that tournament was well-refereed in my opinion, but the football was widely seen as very boring, and FIFA President Blatter had to do something to change that. And then we got Brazil - Colombia in 2014. But one can argue that in a way Portugal - Netherlands was not too much different...

Ivanov was caught in the crossfire of a battle both on and off the pitch. In apparently the most rigorously officiated World Cup match ever, perhaps the reality is that whatever decisions the referee from Russia took, the result would be the same. 

Valentin Ivanov - 6,9 Nikolaj Golubev - 8,5 Evgenij Volnin - 8,4 Marco Rodríguez José Camargo RUS – MEX	Portugal 1-0 Netherlands Round of Sixteen
Maniche (20.) - Tackle Costinha (31.) - Tackle Petit (50.) - SPA (Holding) Figo (60.) - Aggressive Behaviour Deco (73.) - Tackle Ricardo (76.) - Delaying the Restart Nuno Valente (76.) - Tackle	van Bommel (2.) - Tackle Boulahrouz (7.) - Tackle van Bronckhorst (59.) - Tackle Sneijder (73.) - Aggressive Behaviour van der Vaart (74.) - Aggressive Behaviour
Costinha (45.+1') - Lack of Respect (Handling) Deco (78.) - Delaying the Restart	Boulahrouz (63.) - Striking van Bronckhorst (90.+5') - Tackle