50 USAGHA Kassai

 

Africa's World Cup would have an African quaterfinalist - Ghana defeated the United States after extra time to win a somewhat unlikely Round of Sixteen match, setting up a relatively winnable last eight tie against Uruguay. Unlike their early strike in the first half, from which they levelled with a correctly given penalty, the United States found Ghana's goal in the early minutes of extra time ultimately unassailable. 

Perhaps the presence of the Hungarian officiating trio in the knockouts was a bit unlikely too - after an excellent group stage (BRAPRK - MEXURU), Viktor Kassai throughly merited being taken further at World Cup 2010. He faced quite a hard-fought but fair-play orientated encounter, between two of the more physical teams in the competition.

Kassai did a decent job. He did not excel as in his previous game, but most crucially he got the most important call right - to award the United States a second half penalty - and avoided any wider polemics. However, the Hungarian referee only booked a player he should have dismissed, and didn't display the same excellent managerial credentials he had earlier in the tournament. 

Referee had to face lots of Key Match Incidents! This time, let's work through them in chronological order.

Key Match Incidents

7' - Potential red card for Ricardo Clark

A pretty ridiculous challenge by Clark in a nothing area of midfield. He really does fly in - but actually, this for me is not a red card challenge, and just very (very) reckless. 

Clark is in control of his body when he actually makes contact which ultimately did not endanger the safety of his opponent, and merely showed disregard for him. 

Kassai solves the situation optimally with a very prolonged blow of his whistle before firmly issuing Clark with a yellow.

17' - Potential red card for Steve Cherundolo

On this occasion there should be little room for doubt - Cherundolo plants his studs high, down André Ayew's calf, in an attempt to stop a promising attack. With his other foot off the ground, Cherundolo puts a serious amount of his body weight onto Ayew's leg. 

This should be a red card in any game, whether in the World Cup knockout stage or not. Yellow was not enough here. 

CRUCIAL MISTAKE

37' - Potential penalty to Ghana

The way Carlos Bocanegra turns Kwadwo Asamoah's leg as a result is extremely dangerous. I guess that people nowadays are still happy to assess this as accidental, despite the result, as they were in 2010. 

55' - Potential penalty to the United States

A tricky situation to evaluate, not least when you are caught a bit behind play after a surprise giveaway, as Kassai is here. AR Tibor Vámos seems to have a decent insight angle, and might have shouted something in the comms kit. 

The key question here is - does John Mensah play the ball initially? It seems he does - okay, you could defend still giving a penalty as he prevents Dempsey from getting to the reachable ball afterwards, but that would surely be too much. 

Even the corner decision was correct - perhaps itself a nod to self-preservation (if a goalkick was given, the world then ponders a potential penalty much more) - the ball takes a nick off Mensah before going behind.

61' - Penalty to the United States

I always thought this decision was rather underrated - for me, it's a brilliantly seen call!

Kassai is rewarded for a dynamic sprint, slightly running right too, with getting a great insight angle - without that, I could well-imagine that this situation wouldn't have been solved correctly. 

Does the ball go exactly where you'd expect it to if the defender made a fair challenge for it, or is it just me? Well, maybe it is - anyway, correct call by Kassai, together with the yellow card (no DOGSO - rather wide, though fairly close actually). 

I wonder if Tibor Vámos had a shout in the comms kit too, he'd have had a good angle. 

81' - Potential penalty to the United States?

If Kassai saw this exactly right, then that really is to his credit. Jozy Altidore is lightly held (no foul) by John Mensah, before Altidore pushes Mensah over, in the doing so of which, the Ghana player tries to kick the ball, and hits Altidore's leg, rendering him unable to take a shot effectively.

My feeling is that the referee saw a rather awkward play and Altidore be able to get a decent enough shot on the ball, and decided not enough. Either way - he was right. Goalkick given.

89' - Potential penalty to Ghana?

The polemicist thing to say here would be "give me one reason why that isn't a foul?". To be fair, I'm struggling - perhaps, Jay DeMerit genuinely had no idea Asamoah Gyan was there, and the studs-to-chest contact was accidental? 

Or perhaps a more effective one - could see you a hypothetical video assistant referee intervening there? No chance...

105' - Potential penalty to the United States?

In principle - that's a clear foul! Maurice Edu, jumping the ball, wins the position and is only unable to make a header because he is carelessly charged by André Ayew. 

I guess FIFA want a rather clearer offence in the penalty area than that for a spot kick to be given (in a World Cup knockout stage match), in fairness. 

Approach

Viktor Kassai succeeded on the whole, and should be praised for that, but I don't think this match played necessarily to his strongest hand - I never detected a clear, visible line in his threshold for fouls nor cards. 

In at least three (7', 17', 61'), you could argue four (67'), situations Kassai was simply forced to act with a caution. I would too defend the final booking actually, at +91'. A smart choice in my eyes - despite it definitely not being SPA, the ostensible deliberateness of the offence + green grass ahead of Jozy Altidore made the call a wise one; the foul was not in the spirit of things.

For the rest, this wasn't the same referee who brilliantly guided the players through his first two matches - he would simply whistle the fouls required, and no more. Only once did I see him contravene that - an excellent warning to André Ayew at 11' (re. dissent)

Samuel Inkoom's foul at 21' was reckless, Ayew had two borderline fouls in quick succession (33', 36'), Maurice Edu's studs hit (106') and a clear SPA / LoR holding by Inkoom again at 108'. It's understandable that Kassai didn't want to be a policeman and chose to forgive one or the other offence, but this was not managing the game, it was merely surviving it. 

His foul detection was quite reactive too (56', 64') and sometimes faulty (15', 57') - I guess Kassai never really caught the feeling of this match played by two direct teams with quite a lot of agricultural challenges. I guess it says something too that they were both pretty happy with his approach. 

On the assistant referees: both Gábor Erős (23') and Tibor Vámos (76') played nice onsides. Vámos however missed two clear fouls in his vicinity (57', 68'), besides perhaps supporting at 55' and even 61'. 

Balance

Viktor Kassai justified the trust put in him with this well-merited appointment to a knockout stage game.  Satisfying in the bigger picture - the penalty given to the United States was spot on - the media discussion was far away from the refereeing performances in South Africa (for twenty-four hours at least).

However, under the microscope, this performance was not on the level of his first two games - besides an under-punished SFP (which FIFA didn't care about), this was a much more passive piece of officiating by Kassai, not without perception mistakes either.

By no means a bad performance at all, but in my view this was not a strong resume to go even further in the competition with a fourth appointment as referee. FIFA, and perhaps moreover necessity, had different ideas. 

Viktor Kassai - 7,8(2) Gábor Erős - 8,4 Tibor Vámos - 8,3 Michael Hester Tevita Makasini HUN – NZL, TGA	United States 1-2 Ghana (after extra time) Round of Sixteen 28 June
Clark (7') - Tackle Cherundolo (17') - Tackle Bocanegra (67') - Tackle	Mensah (61') - Tackle Ayew (+91') - SPA (Tripping)