24 NEDJPN Baldassi

 

Héctor Baldassi's second game after a successful debut was a medium level Netherlands - Japan tie, delivered with minimum fuss by the Argentine referee.

There were a couple of interesting theoretical situations to chew over, before some words on the wider performance.

Key Match Incident

7' - Violent Conduct by Robin van Persie?

First thing to say is that Baldassi actually doesn't perceive this incident at all, having increased his presence to award a freekick a demonstrative manner (good refereeing!), his attention is not on this incident. 

van Persie is visibly annoyed at having been held by Daisuke Matsui, and on the floor, whilst apparently turning his body to get up his leg goes very high in the air and catches Yūichi Komano flush in the face. Ouch.

Intentional (red card) or not (no sanction)? My feeling is that an irritated van Persie did try to hurt his opponent - probably. At least, if I had accidentally hit someone in the face and drawn blood in doing so, I would have been much more apologetic than van Persie. I suppose either way - intentional or not - he didn't want to draw extra attention to it, especially given the incident was missed by the officials.

53' - Handling before Netherlands (1-0) goal?

Again, van Persie, and again we are wondering whether he committed a deliberate act.

This time, a potential handball before the only goal of the match. Frame-by-frame analysis shows that the ball does strike his arm, and he moved his arm there to help co-ordinate the ball after awkwardly controlling the ball off his thigh.

This was de facto impossible for the officials to detect in real time, especially for Baldassi who was screened by his correct positioning in the diagonal, and also for assistant Ricardo Casas / fourth official Martin Hansson, who were really too far away. 

+92' - Penalty to Japan?

No - correct call. Yuto Nagatomo despite winning the position exaggerates what trifling contact there was. Orange hearts surely skipped a beat, but Baldassi got the call spot on. No penalty. 

Analysis

Héctor Baldassi displayed a fully concentrated lenient piece of refereeing. 

He carded the only blatantly unfair tactical foul of the match (36'), which came after two more-SPA-than-not fouls minutes before (29', 31') as well as a late foul (32'); proficient. I would have preferred to see a card for quite a blatant foul at 40', but Baldassi remained consistent throughout. Here I disagree with modern FIFA - in these sort of games, an (even overly) strict approach to these tactical fouls would definitely have made the game more interesting! Of course in some games, the opposite is true. 

He used his presence and personality well in the opening minutes to set the tone. His verbal warning (presumably for a minor off-camera confrontation) at 2' was well-received, and increasing his presence as aforementioned at 7' was simply good refereeing. 

Even Baldassi didn't formally admonish him at 25', the incident should have triggered him to see van Persie as a problem player, and perhaps his solution to the foul on him at 66' suggested as much. 

There was a small handful of occasions where I thought Baldassi had missed freekicks (eg. 90'), but the players potentially upended in all those scenes not react at all in his direction, suggesting he got them all correct.

Balance

Finally, one important offside call, 24' for Ricardo Casas, and he got it right. 

Another good performance by Baldassi - a third appointment awaited, perhaps direct to the knockout stage, though confederational neutrality probably dictated that he would be required for a third group match. 

Héctor Baldassi - 8,3 Ricardo Casas - 8,4 Hernán Maidana - 8,4 Martin Hansson Henrik Andrén ARG – SWE	Netherlands 1-0 Japan Group Stage 19 June
van der Wiel (36') - SPA (Impeding)