There were four penalties in the last Bundesliga game of the year between SC Freiburg and Union Berlin, but not all of them are undisputed. The referees want to use the longer winter break to work through a six-month period that was unsatisfactory for them.
The Bundesliga referees and their sporting management shouldn’t be unhappy that the winter break lasts much longer than usual due to the World Cup in Qatar. This leaves time to analyze the course of the season so far, which has been very bumpy for the referees, and which Lutz Michael also commented on Fröhlich, Managing Director Sport and Communication at DFB Schiri GmbH and thus chief referee, says: “You can’t be satisfied. There are too many construction sites. One can speak of a small crisis.” There was “a lot of criticism and many situations that were not solved well in interaction with the video assistants,” said Fröhlich in the talk show “Doppelpass”.
The referees and their helpers in the Cologne video center were recently in the discussion too often: because of some controversial interpretation of the offside rule when scoring a goal – first with “line of sight offside”, later with “deliberate play” – because of errors in the evaluation of handballs, because of one partly inconsistent with the personal penalties and due to failures of the VAR. Certainly the most serious two weeks ago when Eintracht Frankfurt didn’t get a clear penalty in the game against Borussia Dortmund. In any case, the instance of the video assistant is a topic far too often – even if it is by no means only in Germany – if you consider that it is actually only supposed to be a safeguard to prevent serious mistakes.
On the other hand, it is positive that the referees have been willing to explain some decisions to the public far more often than before since the start of the season. This transparency helps with understanding, especially when the viewer doesn’t agree with a decision. The sporting direction of the referees wants to use the Bundesliga break primarily to train the video assistants more intensively. Among other things, game scenes are to be evaluated with an online tool and workshops are also to be held with former professional footballers in order to improve the evaluation of duels. In addition, there are considerations to work more often with permanent teams of referees and VAR.
The top game between SC Freiburg and Union Berlin (4:1) was the last Bundesliga game this year and it started furiously. After less than a minute, Freiburg’s Ritsu Doan failed with a header at goalkeeper Lennart Grill, but the hosts unexpectedly got a second chance. Because when Christian Günter crossed Doan, Christopher Trimmel touched the ball minimally with the fingertips of his right hand, unnoticed not only by referee Deniz Aytekin, but also by pretty much everyone else on the field and in the stands. No one protested, also because the ball hadn’t changed direction and Doan’s scoring chance hadn’t been affected in the slightest.
But VAR Tobias Welz got in touch with Aytekin from Cologne, there was an on-field review, after which there was a penalty for SC Freiburg, which Vincenzo Grifo converted to make it 1-0. All of this could be justified in terms of rules: Trimmel’s arm position could be interpreted as an unnatural enlargement of the body surface and the intervention justified by the fact that the handball had obviously remained hidden from the referee. However, there was something detective-like about Welz’s intervention that didn’t fit the original purpose of the VAR. From a football point of view, it could also be argued that the Freiburgers, especially Doan, did not suffer the slightest disadvantage due to the barely perceptible brushing contact with their fingertips.
Ultimately, there was a “television penalty” that was not mandatory and seemed disproportionate, especially since the referee had not overlooked a really serious incident here and also committed no clear and obvious error. The second penalty kick came after just eight minutes, this time for the guests and undoubtedly rightly so, because Nicolas Höfler had kicked Sheraldo Becker in the calf while jumping. Aytekin first decided on a free kick, locating the foul outside the penalty area, but corrected himself immediately after consulting his assistant Christian Dietz and awarded the Berliners a penalty. However, Robin Knoche failed at the post.
Ten minutes later, the referee pointed to the penalty spot for the third time in this encounter, this time again for the home side. This was preceded by a duel in the 1. FC Union penalty area between Diogo Leite and Doan, who had the ball. The player from Freiburg went down, probably not only because of these impulses, but it suited Aytekin’s unusually strict line this time when evaluating the duel that he rated Diogo Leite’s effort as a foul play. Since Doan had an obvious scoring opportunity just before the visitors’ goal and his opponent could not be credited for having fought for the ball, the red card was logical. Grifo also used this penalty and scored the goal to make it 3-0.
A few minutes before the final whistle there was even a fourth penalty, the second for the Berliners. Yannik Keitel had firmly held Danilo Doekhi and thus prevented him from running to the ball. Sven Michel converted the penalty kick to make it 4-1. So not all penalties in this game were undisputed, and you could see how important it is, as a referee, to have acceptance and to make the reasons for a decision transparent to the players in critical situations. In doing so, Deniz Aytekin contained possible protests and prevented the players from turning against him.
Referee Sven Jablonski gave a convincing performance on Friday evening in the opening game of this day between Borussia Mönchengladbach and Borussia Dortmund (4:2). In the end, he was also correct in the two trickiest situations, in one of them as a result of good cooperation with his VAR Günter Perl. After 66 minutes, Mats Hummels headed the ball from a short distance into Ramy Bensebaini’s forearm after a corner kick in the Gladbach penalty area. But the defender, who had previously missed the ball, could not really be accused of an unnatural increase in body area. Rather, he had his arms in a position that is normal for a jumping movement. Jablonski therefore rightly allowed play to continue.
Two minutes later, it seemed as if Hummels had lost the ball in the middle of his own half through a technical error to Marcus Thuram, who had rushed to the field when he tried to play it back to goalkeeper Gregor Kobel. The Gladbacher then ran unhindered towards the BVB goal and finally passed the ball to Jonas Hofmann, who scored the supposed 5:2. But video assistant Perl noticed during the check that Hummels lost the ball because Thuram had given the Dortmund player a small but effective kick under the sole that was difficult for the referee to see on the field. He therefore recommended Jablonski an on-field review, which correctly resulted in the cancellation of the goal.
The Saturday games also went off without any major controversy for the referees and their video assistants, which is good news in view of the sometimes escalating debates in the first half of the season. Nevertheless, there is now a lot to work on, especially in the interaction between referees and VAR. Even if there are very similar discussions in other countries and leagues: The fact that the video assistants, who are supposed to work only in the background, are often the center of attention, is an intolerable situation.
