07 NORMEX Puhl

Norway won their first World Cup finals match since the Second World War, defeating a mostly disappointing Mexico by scoring an opportunist late goal to earn a deserved win. The last minutes were rather fraught, but the Scandinavian nation held on. This was the first genuinely challenging match to handle at World Cup 1994 and was in the hands of Sándor Puhl. Puhl got through the game but his performance was a long way short of excelling. He ignored a clear red card in the first half and his performance was not faultless besides.

The scene starting at 16' was the most emblematic of the wider performance. 

- Puhl did not whistle an ostensibly clear impeding foul on the edge of the Mexico penalty area (DOGSO? one can make a fairly strong case in my eyes). 

- After this he declined a handful of opportunities to whistle freekicks, given a bad tackle was likely to follow. 

- A bad tackle did follow: rather violent, from behind, not targeted at the ball; excessive force, a red card should have followed. 

- Hungarian ordered the Mexico players away well... 

...before issuing only a caution (crucial mistake), the showing procedure of which left a lot to be desired.

This touches on most of the key points to analyse in Puhl's performance.

It was quite stunning when Puhl reached for a yellow card to punish a tackle which could not have been more archetypal of the type of tackles FIFA ordered to be punished with ejection at World Cup 1994 (simply a violent attack from behind). And this was hardly the last we saw of the referee concerned. Whatever the World Cup, whatever the guidelines, FIFA never change. 

Besides that incident, one could expect better of a man very high in estimation before a ball kicked in the United States (Puhl handled the first leg of the Australia - Argentina playoff). He struggled to assess duels in a consistent manner due to Norway's physical approach, and he missed (ignored?) some clear fouls. While Puhl did succeed in exhorting his leadership of the match on the players with his fairly dictatorial manner (no problem with that of itself!), he did not really take the lead in the game, for instance he allowed play to continue whilst giving a verbal warning. The juxtaposition of this is very well-demonstrated in the aforementioned scene at 16'. 

Puhl rather wouldn't have had enough time to whistle the foul before the 1-0 so much as play an advantage, but the result was good all-the-same. The last minutes were very hectic and certainly dramatic, but Puhl kept a hand on it until the last whistle. His wider performance was a mixed bag. While his aggressive reactions to players who challenged his authority was effective, he lacked in other areas such as foul detection and setting tactically clever signals, in addition to under-punishing a Serious Foul Play tackle. One could have the feeling he was refereeing to survive. 

Sándor Márton made an important mistake in the second half (- 0,3). Valentin Ivanov, this would not be the last we heard of the Russian linesman, had a good performance. He played a nice onside at 77'. 

Sándor Puhl - 7,8(2) Sándor Márton - 8,1 Valentin Ivanov - 8,4 Manuel Díaz Vega HUN, HUN, RUS	Norway 1-0 Mexico Group Stage
Håland (17') - Tackle Leonhardsen (26') - SPA (Holding)	Suárez (62') - SPA (Holding)