1 GERBOL Brizio Carter

 

Arturo Brizio Carter was bestowed the honour of blowing the first whistle of World Cup 1994 - it was the Mexican who FIFA trusted to show the world how this revolutionary championship would be officiated. 

Brizio Carter did a very good job. His unobtrusive, unfussy and sharp approach succeeded in an interesting but not especially challenging game. He sent an important signal with the early caution to Jürgen Kohler for a reckless tackle, and consistently punished hard tackles as FIFA ordered (acceptable to assess 15' as careless?). How much input in the decision linesmen Eugene Brazzale had is hard to say as he is out of shot, but it seems that Brizio Carter saw Marco Etcheverry kick out by himself, and instantly sent him off. Control was never really in doubt; both nations were relatively content with the 1-0 scoreline.

Referee's strong physical condition played in his favour as he was quickly on the scene when a potential player-player conflict arose. His positioning was quite interesting, especially on the camera-side he started in an extreme wide position and then moved in to follow play. A couple of times he was a bit too close to the ball. 

Both Australian linesmen had one seemingly incorrect flag each, but no replay was shown. Gordon Dunster's onside for the only goal was very important, but also one hopes very academic for a World Cup official. When they controlled the half that Bolivia were attacking, they had quiet halves. 

Arturo Brizio Carter - 8,5 Eugene Brazzale - 8,4 Gordon Dunster - 8,4 Rodrigo Badilla  MEX, AUS, AUS	Germany 1-0 Bolivia Group Stage
Kohler (7') - Tackle Möller (52') - Tackle	Soria (37') - Not Respecting the Distance Baldivieso (39') - SPA (Impeding) Borja (67') - Tackle Quinteros (90') - SPA (Impeding)
	Etcheverry (82') - Violent Conduct (Kicking)