08 CMRSWE Tejada

 

Cameroon and Sweden played out an exciting two-all draw to open their respective World Cups. Alberto Tejada Noriega, the Peruvian referee, had a mostly quiet afternoon where football and not the referee was in focus. He lacked courage (as many others would have done too) in a scene at the start, the rest was good.

Quite different in a match context from the red card that Arturo Brizio Carter excellently issued in the opening game, but this violent conduct kick from Emile M'Bouh was rather more forceful and dare I say targeted at hitting his opponent where it hurts (a bloke). Tejada was quick on the scene, everything was under control, and I am sure some would argue it was a good piece of big picture refereeing. Regardless, the caution given was not enough, M'Bouh should have been dismissed (crucial mistake).

Tejada's style was quite interesting - his mimics and gestures contained a lot of body tension. There was no doubt who was in charge! While his (quite elegant) presence certainly wasn't, Tejada's tactical approach put him rather in the background. He showed to be a good mover; his positioning at set-pieces that were going to be centred into the penalty area was really interesting, one could arouse the impression he planned to challenge for the ball himself! There were some smaller mistakes here-and-there, but nothing of any great significance.

Rather poor afternoon for both linesmen, who were officiating for the second consecutive day (FIFA just flipped the appointed for Colombia - Romania which also took place in Pasadena the day before). Douglas James made a very important, nearly crucial mistake in the first half. I would support him regarding the Cameroon equaliser (what happened with Tejada going out to James, it was a simple on-or-offside question?). Yousif Al-Ghattan simply made too many mistakes, with significant errors occurring in both halves. 

(One can wonder if the decision to nominate only twenty-two linesmen for a competition hosted all over the vast United States in searing hit was a good one. Especially as there is always one more association you can appease by selecting an official from their country!)

Alberto Tejada - 7,9(3) Douglas James - 8,1 Yousif Al-Ghattan - 8,0 Jamal Al-Sharif PER, TRI, BHR	Cameroon 2-2 Sweden Group Stage
M’Bouh (5') - Aggressive Behaviour	Dahlin (71') - Lack of Respect (Handling)