After the Belgian seum, the English seum and the Moroccan seum, make way for the French seum. Difficult aftermath of defeat on Monday, after the coronation of the band to Lionel Messi Sunday in Qatar, despite the exploits of Kyky. And as for every loser, or almost, already a lot of controversy over the arbitration of Polish Szymon Marciniak, credited with a score of 2 in the Team, but a 7.5 for an Argentine media. Former professional referee Philippe Malige returns for 20 minutes on four controversial situations, while warning from the outset: “We must stop looking for excuses for our defeat”.
Does Dembélé foul on Di Maria?
Half of the first half was not yet played that a penalty was already whistled for Argentina. Coincidentally, well, well. Argentina has benefited since the start of the tournament from sometimes generous penalties, and to see Di Maria collapse we said to ourselves that it was another blow from FIFA to title the Pulga. Except that Dembélé should never jump on the Argentinian’s first feint, because defending from behind often leads to disaster.
The opinion of Philippe Malige : “At real speed I tend to agree with the referee, I also had the impression that there is contact. And looking at the replays, I can’t tell if there is contact or no contact. But from the moment there is slight contact, there is contact, and therefore a penalty. All goalscoring actions are reviewed by VAR, and if they haven’t called it is because they believe there was no manifest error. The procedure was followed. »
Did Otamendi deserve the red for his fault on Kolo Muani (78th)?
The Argentinians lead two goals to zero, there are only ten minutes left to play and we already know that Messi will lift the only trophy he lacks. This is without counting on the incoming Kolo Muani, who manages to get the upper hand over Otamendi to go to goal after an opening from Mbappé. But the clever Argentinian unbalances the attacker before he has time to shoot. penalty. A small victory already, but the bench of the Blues rushes on the 4th referee to claim a red card. Except that Otamendi won’t even be notified.
The opinion of Philippe Malige : “In reality the concept of last defender has never existed, it is the concept of annihilation of net chances of goal which comes into account. At the time, it did not shock me that Szymon Marciniak did not give cards. The rule is that in the surface there is no longer a double penalty. Before it was a penalty and a red card, now it’s more yellow if the action is inside the box, red if it’s outside the box. There is also the notion of intention to touch the ball that comes into play.
Szymon Marciniak cancels a French counter-attack (90+7)
A criminal. This is the best qualifier that comes to us when we think back to this whistle from Szymon Marciniak at the very end of the match, when there are only 30 seconds left in added time. Coman recovers the ball at the entrance to the surface of the Blues and projects quickly forward. But Acuna launches a loose tackle to nip the counterattack in the bud. The Bayern player manages somehow to get up to push his effort but the Polish referee whistles the fault and warns Acuna. Mbappé and Kolo Muani were however launched towards the opposing goal, with only one opposing defender visible, and another off-field.
The opinion of Philippe Malige : “Overall, I think he made a remarkable arbitration in terms of event management. But if there’s one thing he didn’t do too well, it’s cut that advantage. Maybe he didn’t have the right line of sight, or not a wide enough line of sight, to see the counterattack position. He whistled too quickly, technically he should have waited and returned to the fault.
Was Messi’s second goal valid (110th)?
At first we thought it was an offside position. Then to a miracle rescue from Koundé on his line. But nay, the third Argentinian goal scored by Messi was validated by Szymon Marciniak. When he shouldn’t have been because two Argentinian substitutes were on the pitch when Messi pushed the ball with his right foot. These intrusions constitute a violation of the law 3, paragraph 9 of the IFAB (International football association board) which governs this sport: “If, after a goal is scored, the referee realizes before the resumption of play that an extra person was on the pitch when the goal was scored: the referee must disallow the goal if the extra person was: a player, substitute, substituted player, sent off player or team official who scored the goal; play must be restarted with a direct free kick from the place where the extra person was. »
The opinion of Philippe Maligne “There is a difference between theory and practice. Indeed if there are more than 11 players on the field, a free kick must be whistled against the extra player(s). But already you have to see it, and I think he didn’t realize it at the time. I myself realized that this [lundi] morning. And anyway the presence of these players has no influence on the game. I am both a supporter and a referee and I think we have to stop looking for excuses for our defeat. »
Was there a hand from Upamecano before the second French penalty (115th)?
On a video that surfaced this Monday morning on social networks, we see the defender of the French team, Dayo Upamecano touch the ball quite roughly with the hand on a cross from Coman. In the process, Mbappé recovers the ball and shoots. Argentinian defender Montiel elbows the ball away and Szymon Marciniak points to the penalty spot. But if Upamecano makes a hand like on the video, the penalty should have been canceled. Except that by reviewing the action from different angles, we realize that at no time Upamecano touches the ball with his hand, but with his head, with indeed an arm movement which seems to accompany the trajectory of the ball.
The opinion of Philippe Malige : “I am now suspicious of all these videos that come out and which can be very well done fakes, especially with the technical means these days. On the video, the hand is really huge and I would be very surprised if it got through. Unless it’s Gilbert Montagné at VAR, otherwise it’s not possible to get through that. And in general I am wary of slow motion, which can be misleading. Did the referee not give enough cards? I prefer to consider his performance as a whole and I find that the three important decisions he made [les trois penalties] seem to be justified. He kept control, and did not influence the result when he was under enormous pressure, in terms of the stakes, the atmosphere. And at each World Cup new instructions are dictated, and apart from the match between Argentina and the Netherlands, the referees have given very few cards.