To answer the question directly: No. It wasn’t a penalty when Raheem Sterling went down in the 104th minute. Everything that you could see in the pictures spoke against a real foul: The sequence of movements when falling, especially if you didn’t see the scene in slow motion. The largely hopeless position of Sterling near the baseline. And the alleged harshness of the contacts between the two Danish opponents, which in a comparable situation in midfield would probably not have resulted in Sterling looking for the way to the grass. Almost everyone, with the exception of Sterling, agreed on this assessment, but well, he’ll be forgiven for that.
The whistle did not match the line of referee Danny Makkelie in this EM semi-final between England and Denmark or the so-called Uefa tournament line, which clearly instructed their referees to let go. But referee debates nowadays follow several stages, and the stage at which you can enter is this: Would Makkelie have had to watch the scene again on the screen?
There was an initial check by the Video Assistant Referee, or VAR for short, but he probably just told Makkelie: “There was contact, no clear wrong decision.” You can see it that way and it would then be the correct procedure – only in that case can you definitely discuss whether a recommendation to look at the incident again on the screen would not have been better for everyone involved.
Referee Danny Makkelie had his hands full in the semifinals.
(Photo: Laurence Griffiths / AFP)
Even when looking at the pictures on the field, Uefa clearly defined a defensive line – they wanted to avoid referees staring at a screen too often and for too long. In the Bundesliga, the intervention threshold was once very low, and here the phenomenon also became a nuisance at times.
As a reference, you can take the two dismissals against the Dutchman Matthjis de Ligt and the Swede Marcus Danielsson at the EM – both saw yellow at first, the referee on the field saw and assessed the scene. The VAR nevertheless recommended its own review, both were then red. So why not in a definitely dubious and with a high degree of probability decisive scene in the EM semifinals?
Because you are always smarter in hindsight, you can now say: half a minute would probably have been half a minute well invested. Whether Makkiele would have corrected himself is again speculation, but had he been sent there, he could probably have done himself a favor. Then you would have had the feeling that at least the whole referee tool kit was being used at a moment that was particularly important for Denmark. As welcome as it is that Uefa does not use the screen wastefully – in such situations you can use it. Also in the sense of the referee.
Sure, rules or rule interpretations shouldn’t depend on context. In theory, a decision in a meaningless preliminary round match and in the decisive phase of an EM semi-final must be made on the same basis. And as a viewer you can also ask yourself critically whether sympathy for Denmark doesn’t also play a role in your own assessment. Fittingly, there was a scene in the 75th minute when Makkiele did not decide on a penalty for England after contact with Kane and the VAR also recommended no intervention.
The referee was wrong in a gray area decision, both at the whistle and the decision not to check the screen again. One can criticize that in detail, and it was a mistake of huge importance – but it was certainly not a huge mistake.