32 ESPHON Nishimura

 

With both Honduras and the European champions having lost their first game, another defeat here would more-or-less confirm the loser's exit. Spain defeated Honduras two-nil in fairly comfortable fashion to get their World Cup back on track, and set them back on course for the knockout stage. 

A game more tricky than tough for Yūichi Nishimura in charge - he had already shown his skills in the latter category with a good performance in the highly challenging France - Uruguay match on opening night; he also managed this Hispanic duel rather astutely.

David Villa scored one goal in the first half and another in the second; he later missed a correctly awarded penalty, but should actually have been sent off with his goal tally at uno. Villa struck Emilio Izaguirre in the face and should have been sent off by the Japanese referee.

Not the romp these two played at the Olympics two years later, but not an easy ride for Nishimura by any means. Let's start then with the quite high amount of Key Match Incidents he had to solve.

Key Match Incidents

4' - Potential penalty to Spain?

Potential handling by Emilio Izaguirre. 

To me the replay makes a handling that looks involuntary seem more punishable than it really is - Izaguirre just jumps the ball hits his arm (ball to hand, if I really am going to pander to what an English person would say :)). 

I can understand why some would say this should be given as a penalty, but in 2010 especially I like Nishimura's call to play on.

9' - Potential penalty to Spain?

To me this is a much stronger claim for a penalty than the one five minutes earlier.

Sergio Mendoza clearly pushes Sergio Ramos as he is about to jump for the ball, rather cleverly in fact, as Ramos then careers into his teammate and makes it look like six of one, half a dozen of another. No - the push was clear.

To be honest, I am struggling for reasons to not assess this as a clear mistake - maybe it was too soft? Maybe Ramos wouldn't have reached the ball anyway (he seemed to have a pretty good chance to)? 

Simply it's a foul (that happens to be) in the penalty area. But still not enough to be a wrongly assessed KMI (I think?).

41' - Violent Conduct by David Villa? Second Yellow Card to Emilio Izaguirre?

Nishimura 100% misses what happens here. You can see Villa's offence live by chance at 40:18 on the matchclock, and two seconds later when the director pans on to a different camera angle, you can see the Japanese referee looking out to his assistant Tōru Sagara, surely chatting over the comms kit about the Honduras players who are refusing to retreat.

Referee misses a violent conduct by Villa. Annoyed by being stamped on by Izaguirre, Villa strikes him in the face with excessive force - Spain player should have walked. He should also have been joined by Izaguirre, already cautioned, his was (at the least) an act of aggressive behaviour, worthy of a further caution.

Take home message - always have one of the two active officials controlling the area where most of the players are residing! By not doing so, the referee allowed everyone a carte blanche in there for a split second, which Villa inadvertently took advantage of. He should have given his marching orders.

CRUCIAL MISTAKE

53' - Violent Conduct by Georgie Welcome?

Surely we can give a player the benefit of the doubt here - surely Welcome just didn't see Gerard Piqué and kicking him in the face was genuinely a total accident. Right?


61' - Penalty to Spain

Correct decision, Jesús Navas was clearly tripped inside the penalty area. Would be interesting to hear the comms audio between Jeong Hae-sang AR and Nishimura here - the slight delay suggests it was the Korean's call. In any case, spot on. 

74' - Serious Foul Play by Amado Guevara

Simply a nasty foul by Guevara - in order to stop Xavi Alonso, he rakes his studs onto his opponent's calf. Ouch. To be honest, I would like to see such ruthless fouls punished with red cards, there was no need at all for Guevara to endanger Alonso's safety in this way. 

Given that Guevara's contact is of a partly glancing nature, a dark yellow card is still okay, but just to blow for a normal foul as Nishimura does is not really acceptable in my book.

Approach

Nishimura acted quickly to assert his authority on the match - an early caution to Danilo Turcios was a good way to start, even if his hand was pretty forced here. Japanese referee through a very sophisticated use of whistle tones, mimics and verbal warnings (9', 20', 26') earned the players trust and respect. 

It seemed he communicated through Wilson Palacios, who had been playing in England for three years at the time and probably had a better level of English than many of his Honduras teammates. That might explain why Nishimura didn't want to caution him, or at least offers some explanation. It is quite amazing that Palacios escaped a card in this game, for persistent infringement if nothing else!

Nishimura certainly lenient besides too - Sergio Busquets wasn't cautioned at 34' for more-or-less the same tackle at 38' that saw Emilio Izaguirre fall foul of the referee's yellow card, and possible cautions at 20', 26', 64', 81', 83'. It is a little irksome that when the game was assured to be calm, Japanese referee essentially accepted rough play to a certain degree, but one can't say that he didn't manage the game very well.

Balance

Yūichi Nishimura ascertained the strong impression he gave in his first match with another well-managed second game. This Hispanic duel was certainly easier than it might have been, but that is certainly to the merit of the Japanese referee whose smart approach was successful. His mistakes proved not be to be especially memorable.

Tōru Sagara made a very important and clear mistake at 36', whereas Jeong Hae-sang played a very nice onside at 66', which combined with (at the very least confirming) the penalty call made it a really good evening for the Korean AR (+ 0,1). Not too challenging for the assistants besides that. 

Yūichi Nishimura - 7,8(2) Tōru Sagara - 8,1 Jeong Hae-sang - 8,5 Subkhiddin Mohd Salleh Jeffrey Goh JPN, JPN, KOR – MAS, SIN	Spain 2-0 Honduras Group Stage 21 June
	Turcios (8') - Delaying the Restart Izaguirre (38') - Tackle