Refereeing Put On Trial At Nuremburg

Lovers of pure football and fair play, the second round game between Portugal and the Netherlands was the dream match for you. Ditto those who appreciate a referee who lives and breathes the principle that no one comes to see officials do their work (therefore keep the hell out of the way of the players fans do pay to watch). The result of all that exemplary activity was an upset 1-0 Portuguese victory that often looked more like a pro wrestling match — featuring as it did bad theatrics, horrid sportsmanship, and some astonishingly poor football for a World Cup knock-out round. Imagine a drunken white trash family row at Christmas dinner and you'll get an idea of the atmosphere. If there could be such a thing as a silver lining in as adulterated a game as this one was, it was that the majority of shoddy football was the work of the Dutch — making the Portuguese win merited, albeit in an utterly warped context.

French totalling friends have heard (and alternatively chuckled or rolled their eyes at) my only slightly hyperbolic dictum when it comes to referees: they should be systematically shot after every matched on the logic that even if they didn't butcher that one, they will the next. Or both. Case in point: Russian referee Valentin Ivanov. His stewardship of Portugal-Netherlands was the second World Cup match Ivanov has absolutely brutalized with his incontinent whistling, and unrestrained orgy of card waving. He started strong with the France-Switzerland game, where he distributed eight, mostly undeserved yellow cards, yet — probably freaked at that excess — failed to conduct h another three or four bookings that should have come down.

Logic? Continuity? Not for this Cybil in a day-glow shirt. But that was just a warm up for his single-handed massacring of Portugal-Netherlands. Ivanov made 16 bookings on the night, sending four players off with red cards. In his worst spasm of sanctioning, Ivanov let fly with six yellow cards between the 73rd and 78th minutes alone — doubtless a record on this level, and a melt-down that will have heads shaking for a long while to come. "It's too bad the referee had to make a mess of this game," the usually soft-spoken Dutch coach Marco van Basten said after the match. "I don't want to be too harsh, but you have to say it: he made a mess of it."

But you'd expect the losing coach to say that though, right? Not so much FIFA president Sepp Blatter, astounded the footballing world by breaking his addiction to the sterilized, "all is well" party line to acknowledge Ivanov "was not at the same level as the" players he reigned over. Dotting that condemning "i", Blatter added, "in this case, the referee deserved a red card". In other words, don't expect to see Ivanov in shorts again in this World Cup. In fact, his Numb Nuts in Nuremburg act probably means we've seen the last of him, tout court.

Yet, the man from Moscow shouldn't carry the can for this 1/8th final debacle on his own. Far be it from me to find mitigating circumstances for refereeing you wouldn't want to step in if it were lying on a sidewalk, but Ivanov had lots of help in pushing the match far beyond the pale. After the only goal of the night — a 23rd minute shot by midfielder Maniche the right of the penalty spot — the game slowly degenerated into a series of desperate and often reckless Dutch efforts to score, followed by lunging moves back on defense to prevent the sprinting Portuguese from doubling their lead. By the time the second half developed peach fuzz, however, Dutch desire to even the mark had morphed ill-contained vexation and frustration at being denied — often by their own self-defeating facility of lobbing Hail Mary balls into the penalty area, where they invariably found Lusitanian defenders. Tackles got wilder, contact harder, simulations more grotesque, and ultimately, shoves and slaps common.

And all through it, Ivanov struggled to regain control and his own self-confidence through bookings — which only pour gas on the flaming tempers of players. Thuggish Dutch players like Mark van Bommel alternated cheap shots with wilting-lily dives, and one truly misguided move to get Portuguese midfielder Luis Figo booked by faking an entirely imaginary blow to the face during a jaw-fest. Talk about tempting fate. Three minutes later, as the same Figo dribbled shoulder to shoulder with Dutch defender Khalid Boulahrouz, he exploited a flailing arm to feign a blow to the face of his own — the resulting yellow card being Boulahrouz's second, and a one way trip to the showers.

By the time the final whistle was blown, a sense of relief filtered among the Portuguese joy (and Dutch disappointment) that this parody of sport had finally finished without anyone getting seriously hurt, or any career-jeopardizing acts of violence. It was without doubt the most dismal match in the current tournament, and even in recent Cup history. Was there anything positive in the unsightly dog-pile? If so, van Basten himself may have found it, noting at least quarter final pairing of England and Portugal will offer the world a re-match of the teams' scintillating, though controversial semi-final game in the European Championships of 2004. Even if the two sides don't play a game of that quality, it's certain they'll manage to do better than the Knuckle fest in Nuremburg. We can only go up from here.