27 SVKPAR Maillet

 

Important game in what was seen as the race to finish behind Italy. Having already drawn with them, Paraguay's defeat of Slovakia looked to have done enough in order to advance, and the European debutants seen to be more-or-less down and out, pending Italy's probable victory a few hours later against New Zealand. 

Second match of the tournament for Eddy Maillet - referee from Seychelles had done a decent job in his first, and FIFA had backed him after his mistaken identity case with a further appointment.

Again, Maillet showed that he deserved his place at the World Cup, but at the same time did not show competencies on the level required for a knockout stage match. He avoided big mistakes, and completed a successful afternoon for the officials here.

In a match without big, controversial calls, let's look at how the game was handled. 

Approach

Slovakia began playing in quite a rough way. Maillet warned Martin Škrtel after a foul at 8', and when he committed another foul from behind, this time on Nelson Valdez, at 10' he should really have been cautioned. Given nobody really reacted to the second foul, you can can understand why Maillet didn't really want to make too much of a splash and kept his card in pocket. 

Unfair play from Slovakia continued (11', 13', 21') but Maillet wasn't really acting against it in any decisive way. Ján Ďurica probably did the referee a favour with his reckless standing leg foul at 42', which earned him the first yellow card of the match. The determined caution procedure was very good. 

A few minutes later Enrique Vera followed with a rather inexplicable foul from behind, for which he was also cautioned. Procedure this time, especially in terms of whistle language, was not really optimal.

After a very mandatory card at the start of the second half (47'), his missed advantage at 51' showed some deficiencies in managing the game. Then there were missed cautions to Vladimír Weiss (after advantage) and Martin Škrtel (incredibly missed by both referee and AR Bechir Hassani); that tackle at 67' was quite ridiculous and I am surprised no Paraguay players were irked by it.

With the score still 0-1 at this point combined with Maillet's lack of wider preventative refereeing, the game was quite on edge and boiled over a bit with Weiss' late foul at 83'/84'. 

Referee missed it (he should really have expected something like that), and only on the shout of fourth official Joel Aguilar did he book Weiss. Caution procedure this time was unfortunately befitting of a man somewhat over his head, but to be fair the referee didn't really have further problems after that. 

Paraguay's second goal calmed everyone down a bit, and there weren't many problems thereafter. Miroslav Stoch was tripped outside the penalty area in the last seconds, only just mind, but I had a strong feeling that the contact was not an accident on the Slovakia player's part. A far-away Maillet probably didn't really perceive what happened properly anyway. 

Really not long after, Seychellois referee could call fulltime on both the game and a pretty solid tournament as referee.

Balance

Eddy Maillet in both his games showed why his presence at this tournament was merited and well-deserved. A solid decision taker both here and in the prior Honduras - Chile match, Maillet belied the notion held by some that referees from apparently minor nations have no place at the World Cup finals. He should be proud of what he achieved. 

Besides that very clear missed (reckless) foul by Bechir Hassani, a quiet afternoon for he and Evarist Menkouandé as assistant referees. 

Eddy Maillet - 8,2 Evarist Menkouandé - 8,4 Bechir Hassani - 8,3 Joel Aguilar Juan Zumba SEY, CMR, TUN – SLV	Slovakia 0-2 Paraguay Group Stage 20 June
Ďurica (42') - Tackle Šesták (47') - Tackle Weiss (84') - Tackle	Vera (45') - Tackle