Real Madrid vs Bayern Munich

[Mooseybaby]

Not a good night for the officials or Bayern tonight. 2 of Ronaldo's 3 goals replays showed were clearly offside, the first of which you would expect an assistant at this level to spot.

Vidal's 2nd yellow/red card. Easy to say with replays, but never looked a foul in a month of Sundays for me.

 

[RustyRef]

Kassai has had an absolute nightmare. Started it off with a ludicrous red card for Vidal, then both assistants have waded in with incorrect offside decisions that have led to goals. I do have sympathy with the second one as it was close, but what was worrying is that the assistant was miles behind play and had no chance of getting it right.

 

[es1]

Kassai has had an absolute nightmare. Started it off with a ludicrous red card for Vidal, then both assistants have waded in with incorrect offside decisions that have led to goals. I do have sympathy with the second one as it was close, but what was worrying is that the assistant was miles behind play and had no chance of getting it right.

As fit as these guys are, keeping up with world class footballers moving at speed is some ask...he also is directly in line with the 2nd rear most defender!

 

[RustyRef]

As fit as these guys are, keeping up with world class footballers moving at speed is some ask...he also is directly in line with the 2nd rear most defender!

But he needs to be level with the second last defender or the ball, whichever one is furthest forward. It was a fast break, but it wasn't an all out sprint as Marcelo had to go through a couple of challenges that slowed him down. Whilst I accept it is difficult, there is a no way an elite level assistant should be that far behind.

 

[Sheffields Finest]

 

[Peter Grove]

I think on that second image, the 'offside line' isn't quite parallel with the edge of the penalty area. IIRC, the freeze frame with computer-generated line on the coverage I saw showed Ronaldo only fractionally in an offside position. Close enough to give the AR a pass on that one. The first one, however ...

 

[EnglishReferee]

Absolute shocker for them, I think we can defiantly say they won't have another game this CL..

 

[A Freethinker]

Doing a match last night white v red, call for an offside (blatant) and white player turns and says..did you not see the officials at the real game last night? I replied I did and since you are wearing white you would have been onside according to them, however I am a proper ref and you were off...players around all laughed at him.

 

[Peter Grove]

Absolute shocker for them, I think we can defiantly say they won't have another game this CL..

Why would we be defiant about it, and who would we be defying?

 

[A Freethinker]

Why would we be defiant about it, and who would we be defying?

Sssshhhh wasn't going to point that out...but I definitely would if I was marking his English homework

 

[Kent Ref]

At the speed these players run plus the distractions how can the human body make such decisions? I would not fault the assistants as they cannot be expected to be super-human!

 

[Nalbi]

At the speed these players run plus the distractions how can the human body make such decisions? I would not fault the assistants as they cannot be expected to be super-human!

I don't think as referees ourselves we can fault them, but we should and certainly can criticise the obvious glaring errors they fall victims of sometimes! take for instance the offside goal by Ronaldo (the first one) the assistant was in line, he was perfectly placed to make the right call. My personal opinion is he lost focus for a partial second, the moment the ball is played he must have had his attention on something else, because in the second frame (as Ronaldo takes the shot) he doesn't look in an offside position as the Bayern players have all moved closer. So Am I expecting an elite referee at this level to keep his focus 90+ minutes, Surely I do!!! Is it a human error, yes definitely but again do i expect him to perform much better? without a shred of doubt!!

 

[RustyRef]

At the speed these players run plus the distractions how can the human body make such decisions? I would not fault the assistants as they cannot be expected to be super-human!

Granted the second one is tricky, but he is way too far off play to make the decision with any kind of accuracy. I suspect he's switched off and somehow missed the defensive line going back, and that will always leave him playing catch up. I've certainly been guilty of that, I've thought I'm in line, glanced away for a second and then I'm way off and with zero chance of catching up. For all assistants are never going to be able to keep up with players it is rare you will see them that far behind even on an incredibly fast breakaway, and that wasn't the case here as Marcelo had to go through players and was running with the ball which slows him down.

The first one is a shocker. It might not be so much of a shocker for a level 4 refereeing a contrib game in front of 35 people on a rainy Manchester Saturday afternoon, but this is an elite FIFA specialist assistant referee in the quarter final of the World's top club competition that we are talking about. They have to be getting those right and will, rightly, get a very poor observation mark.

 

[Peter Grove]

At the speed these players run plus the distractions how can the human body make such decisions? I would not fault the assistants as they cannot be expected to be super-human!

I think that's partly true for the second one although as @RustyRef says, the AR wasn't doing himself any favours by being so far off line but in the first incident we're discussing Ronaldo was virtually standing still, as was the AR - and it wasn't even particularly close.