03 KORGRE Hester
The large swathes of empty seats in the stadium encapsulated the low-key-ness of this match rather aptly. Korea Republic defeated Greece two-nothing without much fuss.
This game was the selected one in which the Oceanian trio would deputise as officials. Australia's decision to join the Asian Football Confederation gave us a revolving doors moment in refereeing - Matthew Breeze's chance to attend the World Cup slipped through his fingers, and OFC were instead represented by Michael Hester from New Zealand as referee.
Hester's performance was not a disaster, but neither was it at the level expected at a World Cup. The same almost definitely would have happened regardless - but it was right that this was his only match in the middle.
The most important mistake Hester made was not to award Korea a penalty at 15'. Despite actually giving himself a good insight angle, he couldn't detect the careless foul from behind, a penalty should have been awarded (crucial mistake). New Zealander also appeared to miss two crucial holding fouls on Greece attackers at the end of the match - 87' would have resulted in a DOGSO red card; 88' in a penalty. Without replays, we should back the referee in these two scenes though.
Hester struggled greatly in foul detection (3', 22', 25', 30', 33', 38', 53', 75', 80', 82'). His disciplinary control was not really coherent either - the deliberate kick at 67' was a much stronger case for a caution than the careless foul from behind that he did book for at 56'. He couldn't really connect with the players nor arouse respect from them (10', 31'). Actually, I found the Greece players rather more restrained in their attitude to the officials than they might have been.
Quite a quiet afternoon for both assistants, Tevita Makasini played an expected onside at 28' but missed a clear corner in front of him (74').
| Michael Hester - 7,8(1) Jan-Hendrik Hintz - 8,4 Tevita Makasini - 8,4 Martín Vázquez Carlos Pastorino NZL, NZL, TGA – URU | Korea Republic 2-0 Greece Group Stage June 12 |
 Torosídis (56') - Tackle |
Simply a rather poor performance by Hester, including a crucial mistake and several big ones in foul detection and especially disciplinary control. The OFC representative was either not ready or simply the wrong choice it seems.
ReplyDeleteMy analysis at the time was simply about the missed penalty at 15' and then the phantom foul call at 25', so not much to add.
ReplyDeleteI did ask the question back in 2010 as to why Hester was at this tournament but Matthew Breeze, who refereed in the A-League too and was the Australian #1, got dropped. Do you have insight to that Mikael?
Australia had moved to the Asian zone for WC 2010, so Hester was only up against his compatriot O'Leary and a Pacific Islander in the Oceania zone.
DeleteBreeze was competing against particularly strong AFC colleagues, and his performances at Confed Cup 2009 showed too many deficiencies in being a modern referee / managing the game. Third Place Playoff he handled was probably make or break for him, and he didn't ref it especially well.
Érmatov, Nishimura, Al-Ghamdi and Salleh were all simply better referees than him in my opinion.
I understand Australia moving out of Asia. Nonetheless, Breeze still officiated in the same domestic competition as Hester and O'Leary. It's just hard to see how Hester and O'Leary could BOTH be needed at a World Cup when Breeze was not, given the pedigree of Australian referees previously (and taking Hester's performance into account). Was Breeze THAT bad in 2009? He had seemed like a natural to take Shield's spot at the time.
Delete*to Asia
DeleteWC referees are selected per confederation, not per competition. Breeze was in competition for an AFC spot, while Hester for OFC. Unfortunate for Breeze.
DeleteThank you for the highlights and the report Mikael.
ReplyDeleteHester was far from convincing on that match. But since he was the only real candidate from OFC he had to take a match.
Review by MARCA.com: 4/10. So-so performance, he booked Torosidis.
ReplyDelete