Group B
Perceived as the stronger of the two groups in 1992, both the now-unified Germany and Netherlands were expected to advance. Having qualified as the Soviet Union, the dissolved bloc would complete their last hurrah on the international stage as the 'Commonwealth of Independent States', or CIS for short. Completing the section were Scotland, who narrowly qualified atop a tight qualifying group two.
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| Referee Gérard Biguet took charge of the CIS vs. Germany tie in Group B |
The matches of Group B at EURO 1992:
Fri 12 June 1992, 17:15 (UTC+2) – Ullevi, Gothenburg
3 – Netherlands vs. Scotland
Referee: Bo Karlsson (Sweden)
Linesman 1: Lennart Sundqvist (Sweden)
Linesman 2: Bo Persson (Sweden)
Reserve: Leif Sundell (Sweden)
Fri 12 June 1992, 20:15 (UTC +2) – Idrottsparken, Norrköping
4 – CIS vs. Germany
Referee: Gérard Biguet (France)
Linesman 1: Alain Gourdet (France)
Linesman 2: Marc Huguenin (France)
Reserve: Rémi Harrel (France)
Mon 15 June 1992, 17:15 (UTC+2) – Idrottsparken, Norrköping
7 – Scotland vs. Germany
Referee: Guy Goethals (Belgium)
Linesman 1: Pierre Mannaerts (Belgium)
Linesman 2: Robert Surkijn (Belgium)
Reserve: Frans Van Den Wijngaert (Belgium)
Mon 15 June 1992, 20:15 (UTC+2) – Ullevi, Gothenburg
8 – Netherlands vs. CIS
Referee: Peter Mikkelsen (Denmark)
Linesman 1: Arne Paltoft (Denmark)
Linesman 2: Jørgen Ohmeyer (Denmark)
Reserve: Kim Milton Nielsen (Denmark)
Thurs 18 June 1992, 20:15 (UTC+2) – Ullevi, Gothenburg
11 – Netherlands vs. Germany
Referee: Pierluigi Pairetto (Italy)
Linesman 1: Domenico Ramicone (Italy)
Linesman 2: Maurizio Padovan (Italy)
Reserve: Tullio Lanese (Italy)
Thurs 18 June 1992, 20:15 (UTC+2) – Idrottsparken, Norrköping
12 – Scotland vs. CIS
Referee: Kurt Röthlisberger (Switzerland)
Linesman 1: Zivanko Popovic (Switzerland)
Linesman 2: Paul Wyttenbach (Switzerland)
Reserve: Bruno Galler (Switzerland)
Match 3: Netherlands vs. Scotland, Bo Karlsson
ReplyDelete(Right click here to open highlights link)
Decent match, definitely better than DENENG, but also definitely below the opener - Scotland played well and were unlucky to lose by a goal to nothing. Sweden’s top ref since Fredriksson retired, Bo Karlsson, represented the hosts in an officiating capacity at EURO ’92 as referee. Karlsson delivered the game (ie. passed the test) and his performance was without controversy, but it fell a bit short of expected level for me - too many missed or under punished incidents.
DeleteThe worst of them was a clear yellow card for Wouters ignored (03:15), and it encapsulated the Swedish ref’s biggest weakness - he was always (too) anxious to save his disciplinary munition as possible. Flexible movement and nice gestures can only go so far. Karlsson always gave a very thorough and competent impression in his games, but if we compare to eg. Fredriksson, then this was not an official in the same high class, in my opinion.
Near-side linesman Bo Persson (cameras are vis-à-vis at Gothenberg ;)) showed a nice ability to correctly perceive crossover scenes in more minor situations, but his key call - offside given against McPherson in against the goalkeeper (01:05) - was wrong (he definitely did flag). That aside, no hugely relevant scenes for either assistant.
(sorry about the audio thing, that never happened to me before on VK... I'll put the highlights up on OK.ru for those interested, link below)
DeleteHL:
https://ok.ru/video/3697893640739
Match 4: CIS vs. Germany, Gérard Biguet (FRA)
ReplyDelete(Right click here to open highlights link)
The last ever match of French referee Gérard Biguet's career. His resume of an Olympic Games final (Seoul 1988) and a handful of UEFA club semifinals was to be topped up by a EURO finals match as a last act. Given that FIFA had slashed the international age limit down from fifty to fourty-five after Italia '90 (after a transition period), it was quite common that EURO 1992 constituted being 'towards the end of the road' for quite a few officials.
DeleteWhereas Biguet had refereed the Soviet Union's victory over Brazil in that '88 final, and attended that tournament as compensation for missing out on WC1990, won by West Germany, times had since changed. The top clash CIS against Germany was his EURO match, at Norrköping (pronounced: knaw-shur-ping ;)), a very modest and tight stadium: by far the smallest capacity venue at Sweden's EURO. I recall well how all three matches at the comparable Toluca ground at Mexico '86 had descended into varying degrees of carnage, no doubt encouraged by the fervent fans in the stadium, and perhaps UEFA underestimated this element as well (many German fans travelled too).
Is visible in the appmnts that UEFA wanted to appoint the refs of qualified nations as-early-as-possible in the group stage, but in hindsight, it would have been by far preferable to switch the assignments of Biguet (CISGER) with Mikkelsen (NEDCIS), in my opinion. Biguet struggled quite significantly in this game and I would have rejected his performance despite not assigning any clear match errors to him - indeed, he correctly awarded a penalty to the CIS, and the freekick from which Germany scored a dramatic late equaliser (90’), was also justly given. Biguet’s complete lack of communication skills was most jarring, but it was not the only issue with this performance, as he curtailed his career on an exciting game, which threatened to get out of hand on multiple occasions.
In the same way that FIFA tried to revolutionalise the refereeing after Italia ’90, I myself decided to wage something of a war on exaggeratedly long highlights videos as well - I’ll link to some timestamps below, but I’d recommend watching the full video to get a grip of how deficient G. Biguet was in a number of areas. His linesmen were pretty shaky too: in my idea of running the tournament, the French team would have been eliminated after their performance in CIS 1-1 Germany.
— Video Clips —
1’, 3’, 4’ - early management scenes
vk.com/video400374426_456239338?t=26s
7’ - potential penalty to CIS
vk.com/video400374426_456239338?t=1m41s
30’ - missed yellow card to GER’s Buchwald
vk.com/video400374426_456239338?t=4m41s
+46’ - tackles, then HT whistle
vk.com/video400374426_456239338?t=6m21s
51’ - choatic sequence before dive call (no YC given)
vk.com/video400374426_456239338?t=8m9s
59’, 60’ - PAI for GER, followed by potential penalty to CIS
vk.com/video400374426_456239338?t=9m57s
62’ - penalty awarded to CIS
vk.com/video400374426_456239338?t=11m13s
68’ - dissent, followed by YC to CIS’s Dobrovolsky, then potential penalty to GER
vk.com/video400374426_456239338?t=12m50s
74’ - YC to CIS’s Charin
(was for DtR; sound decision as they were wasting time since going 1-0 up, not much management/warnings and this wasn’t the most blatant, but overall sound call still)
≈≈ - a number of interesting scenes at the end of the match (all sequential)
vk.com/video400374426_456239338?t=17m12s
Hello my best friend why joel quiniou didn't referee in Euro 1992 ?
ReplyDeleteMy guess is that if Biguet was due to retire in eg. 92/93, then FFF would have gone with Quiniou, but because this was the former's FINAL season, then they wanted to give him a nice 'reward' upon his retirement. Contrary to Vautrot, who was a very well-known and respected official by all football public at the time, Quiniou was 'lower profile', and Blatter's (correct!) strong favouring of the unobstrusive Frenchman wasn't really replicated at UEFA. These two elements conspired in Biguet's favour.
DeleteBtw it was a really terrible decision: Biguet was leagues below Quiniou, and his performance in CISGER was too poor.
And you mikael also candidated quiniou for wc 1990 final
DeleteMatch 7: Scotland vs. Germany, Guy Goethals (BEL)
ReplyDelete(Right click here to open highlights link)
Expected level performance in the first major tournament match for Belgium’s new top ref, Guy Goethals (pronunciation: youtu.be/xiJZ6rRI6N4). Closer inspection I suspect would show that Goethals should have awarded Germany a first half penalty (03:20), but that aside, he discharged his responsibilities as referee with little problem. Natural authority was his biggest strength on the pitch, in technical aspects, he was a bit weaker. After two very serious head injuries to Germany players (they actually finished the match with ten men as a consequence), additional time should have reached at least 96:00 (we finished on +2:40), but in reality, I doubt the issue even passed comment back then. Germany were 2-0 ahead in a match well-played by both teams, and Scotland were resigned to defeat. Like their team leader, both linesmen did a sound job, not especially challenged.
DeleteMatch 8: Netherlands vs. CIS, Peter Mikkelsen (DEN)
ReplyDelete(Right click here to open highlights link)
The conspiracy theory goes that the explanation for officiating errors against the Soviet Union at various World Cups was fervent anti-communist sentiment amongst FIFA (referees) of the time. Accordingly outlandish, but a tongue in cheek remark would be that it would seem that a name (and ideology) change had done the trick by 1992: the decision to chalk off a Marco van Basten headed goal ten minutes from the end of his side’s clash with CIS rescued the ‘Soviets’ a crucial point in Group B, and was a completely incorrect decision. Van Basten and the Dutch were wrongly denied a (winning) goal, 11:50 on the highlights video for the footage.
DeleteThe official at fault was linesman Jørgen Peter Ohmeyer, a train driver from Aarhus by profession, though his blatant and poor error is easily explained - and does not require alluding to George Orwell and the like. Ohmeyer, whose performance in the rest of the game was quite adequate, had only taken ‘the snapshot’ of the attacking player Bergkamp, who was being played onside by defender Tsveyba, when the ball was being centred into the penalty area. Bergkamp-Tsveyba were closer to the linesmen’s side. Van Basten cleverly sneaked around the back of them, fooling not only the CIS defence, but also Ohmeyer, who hadn’t ‘assessed’ Van Basten’s position when the ball had been played. Accordingly, the official panicked, and made a guess, to flag for offside. Mohamed Hansal had showed us two years previous the pitfalls of such an approach, and his Danish colleague - though his error was not quite so glaring as Hansal’s - spoilt his team’s performance likewise.
A shame, for it tarnished the overall highly competent work of Denmark’s officiating crew, and a rock solid refereeing performance by Peter Mikkelsen - for my money the best ref in the world at the early 1990s era of international football. The same elegant style which he brought to Italia ’90 was on show again, and in a match of moderate difficulty, Mikkelsen handled the game very well (high 7). A slightly irritating 1H moment (04:00) and two cautions to the Netherlands ignored after they were frustrated circa disallowed goal count against him, but in the whole picture, we are basically talking about “flying colours” here. Only thirty-two, Mikkelsen had remarkably already left a very strong impression on two major tournaments, at a very tender age in refereeing. Finally, one had the impression of a really focused execution of linesmen's duties by the near-side official, Arne Paltoft. His decisions didn’t totally convince however, though clear evidence of clear errors by him isn’t present. Both Paltoft and Ohmeyer would be overtaken in the linesman’s stakes by Carl-Johan Christensen Meyer on the road to USA 1994, who would accompany Mikkelsen to the Stateside World Cup.
I posted a higher quality version of the Van Basten disallowed goal on my Twitter profile, here:
Deletehttps://twitter.com/MikaelReferee/status/1572168253514088449
Match 11: Netherlands vs. Germany, Pierluigi Pairetto (ITA)
ReplyDelete(Right click here to open highlights link)
Having boiled over in Hamburg and Milan, some of the heat between their top international sides had disparsed out of the Netherlands vs. Germany derby before their fixture at EURO 1992, but it remained by far the top clash of the group stage. Though not a knockout tie, defeat could easily have sent the loser packing too - going down here meant reliance on a favour from the already eliminated Scots to avoid an early flight home for either the European or World champions. That this game took place as the final game of the group stage ruled out a number of candidates (Mikkelsen, Karlsson, Quiniou), so UEFA were left with relatively limited options. Ultimately, they bet on Italian major tournament debutant Pierluigi Pairetto to take charge. Pairetto’s appointment owed much to: a) the very strong lobbying position of Italians at this time and b) the familiarity of the referee with a number of NED/GER players, eight starters to be precise, who played in Serie A.
DeleteProbably, they also bet that the more genial Nordic settings - compared to the cauldrons in which their ’88 and 1990 meetings took place - and indeed the earlier stage of competition, would lead to a less gladiatorial affair than storied previous encounters. And that is exactly how it proved, with Pairetto’s unfussy approach doing the job in the expected technically-strong piece of football. Whether it be thanks to Serie A connections or not, the players worked with the Italian ref’s laissez-faire approach, only one yellow card given, not much preventative work in disciplinary either. The booking, Kohler’s, would have surely been avoided if Pairetto had taken Sammer’s name a minute earlier (from 4:36 HL), but that aside, one cannot point to clear cautions missed by the Turin-based official - besides for persistently infringing Effenberg. It all worked out okay, but some of the fouls attempted on Bryan Roy in a second half run are a good example to highlight that control of the players actions was pretty limited in this game (8:00). Linesmen Domenico Ramicone and Maurizio Padovan performed soundly.
Match 12: Scotland vs. CIS, Kurt Röthlisberger (SUI)
ReplyDelete(Right click here to open highlights link)
Only needing a win (by any score, Germany lost vs. NED) against already-eliminated Scotland, the CIS succumbed by three goals to nothing in a strangely flat game, the curtain falling for their tournament experience in the humble setting of Norrköping - and not only for 1992. The officiating talking points:
Delete(1) — uefa and röthlisberger —
Kurt Röthlisbeger from Switzerland stood as referee in this match, a man whom UEFA used in a very weird way across his career, in my opinion. It was well-known that Blatter held high personal regard for him:
- for the politically important first American WC game in 1990, he was there (eg. Swiss administrator had a big argument with Agnolin about a penalty he didn’t give the USA in qualifying)
- they sent him to Florence in a terribly tricky spot for the QF, having done well, he was rewarded with 3/4playoff appearance as linesman
- when he was formally rejected for missed penalty in 1994, it was Havelange who rejected him; noteworthy, as Blatter was de facto ref supremo, but the Swiss said nothing this time
- and in the Grasshoppers Zürich affair, to which there is perhaps more than meets the eye IMO, Blatter staunchly defended Röthlisberger, while UEFA found him completely guilty
And in appointments, Röthlisberger was ostensibly never considered at the top by them - but then he got the 92/93 Champions League final. It seems that he was viewed as sth like a ‘political pawn’ (just look at this EURO’s final appmnt!), not the only time that this happened in the nineties / very early noughties at the European governing body.
Alas, in terms of profile, it would have made much more sense to switch the final two Group B appmnts, but it was Kurt R. who got the lesser game as it happened.
(2) — shirt colour quandary —
EURO 1992 was the final major tournament before ‘coloured shirts’, but owing to Scotland playing all three fixtures in Sweden adorned in their dark home shirt, 20% of the the games in this tournament were reffed in non-black shirts. Goethals could wear the red shirts used in Italia ’90 on the Adidas range, but against the Netherlands (orange) and CIS (red), this wasn’t possible, so Karlsson and Röthlisberger wore white.
Both had to change their card set-up for their respective games therefore, as Karlsson only had a left shirt pocket (he kept YC in his right shirt) on the long sleeve, but bizarrely it was different on the short sleeve, as Röthlisberger had no shirt pockets at all. Whereas the Swedish ref moved his yellow card to left shorts, Kurt R. moved his full notebook to his back pocket - there was one amusing scene where he went to book someone going to his shirt pocket, before realising his error and having to reach for the back shorts! :D
(3) — (some very) interesting penalty box calls —
’Quick-fire’ montage. 22’, 24’, 30’, 70’, 83’, 83’: https://send.cm/d/FDqI
(4) — overall ref verdict —
On the whole I found Kurt Röthlisberger’s performance convincing in a normal difficulty match (7).
(5) — final hurdle cleared? —
The only example of the performance principle in operation at EURO 1992, short of incendiary behaviour by the reserve referees in these two games, was the showings of the linesmen in the final round of Group B matches. With (basically) pre-determined assignments, it was hardly the ‘deepest’ application of real meritocracy, but I’m pretty sure that a NEDCIS-esque mistake would have put a spanner in the works and maybe forced UEFA into a rethink.
Ramicone-Padovan were more convincing than Zivanko Popovic and Paul Wyttenbach were (both at 6), but in a pass vs. fail situation, I’d have given both Swiss ‘assistant referees’ the green light for further tasks. They would accompany Bruno Galler, for whom being a rain-drenched ‘fourth official’ was not the final act of his UEFA EURO 1992 tournament.
Some remarks on what I'd have done as 'UEFA refereeing chief' at this EURO in terms of assignments from this stage of the tournament on in a couple of scenarios:
ReplyDelete>> (Following same appointment pattern at EUROs 1984/1988) <<
DeleteLanese and Soriano Aladrén in charge of semifinals and therefore out.
UEFA never deviated from using the same trio of officials again (ie. no mixed teams), so all teams with rejected members can be immediately ruled out - Biguet, Puhl, Mikkelsen. Sorry for the Dane, actually the natural choice based on refereeing skills for the final, but too much conspired against him even if Ohmeyer was taken out *and* Netherlands beat Denmark in the SF.
I think we can also rule out other three ref squads from the semifinal teams: both Karlsson and Schmidhuber had enough 'trust principle' to get the gig, but given performance + already European Cup final (and more probable GER victory), both can be un-considered. Blankenstein out for level / not enough 'trust principle' (in 1992), plus very expected Netherlands win vs. Denmark.
That leaves us:
Forstinger, Goethals, Pairetto, Röthlisberger, Santos, Spirin
Goethals (too young / level), Forstinger (lack of trust principle, his style not for a final), Pairetto (already Italian in SFs, too young) can also be struck out. The remaining three would all be completely satisfying choices from my side:
- Rosa dos Santos showed a nice level/style, especially looking at UEFA’s willingness to reward officials at the end of their careers, and also Christov in ’84 shows that they were ready for a less politically-strong nation to get the final. But his foul recognition + some elements of SWEENG were not completely convincing.
Waiting for semifinal results, taking into account the expected games:
Sweden vs. Netherlands: Spirin
Sweden vs. Denmark: Röthlisberger
Germany vs. Netherlands: Spirin
Germany vs. Denmark: Röthlisberger
As a final, general remark: contrary to 1988, and to a lesser extent but still 1984, there was no outstanding candidate for the final amongst European referees at that time (besides Mikkelsen, next was probably Lanese). I guess you can understand why in the end UEFA managed it as they did, choosing Galler directly for the final.
>> (With a free hand to create mixed teams as at WC) <<
DeleteThis is working with only group stage referees and linesmen (though unrealistic as eg. no Spain), trying to satisfy political lobbies as at WC:
Sweden vs. Germany: Röthlisberger, Popovic, Möstl, Forstinger (SUI, SUI, AUT)
Netherlands vs. Denmark: Santos, Padovan, Szilágyi, Goethals (POR, ITA, HUN)
Final (all matchups): Spirin, Filippov, Ramicone, Pairetto (CIS, CIS, ITA)