Chris Lopez59 said:What exactly were they leaning toward? What kind of favors were the refs actually handing out to them?
A little bit of compensation here and there—nothing major, just enough to keep things moving.
The Norwegians get four minutes, we get ten—including two double suspensions... you really think four minutes of penalties is enough to account for all the absolute beatdowns they handed out?
And just how exactly did those refs manage to prevent a full-blown brawl? By calling that four-minute timeout? Please. Give me a break.
Honestly, it would have been even better if they hadn't called that one, too. ☕
Let’s be real—the Norwegians were playing it incredibly smart. They knew exactly how much they could get away with, keeping those hits just "subtle" enough so the whole thing wouldn't devolve into an all-out brawl. Honestly, you have to hand it to the French officials; they practically policed them during that previous match to make sure things didn't spiral out of control. It was calculated.
Alright, figured I’d finally jump into this debate... work was a bit more of a grind than usual today, so I haven't really had a second to breathe, let alone chime in.
So, just to flex a little bit—I’ve been busy getting everything squared away for the trip to Norway. Flights are booked, tickets for the semifinals and the finals are all set... yeah, I'm basically running this whole operation at this point.🙂...who knows, maybe I'll run into the Queen of Torcida while I'm out.
As far as the officiating goes... it wasn't actually that bad—at least if you compare it to how much the refs tended to favor the home teams during past championships... or even look at that Romanian duo handling the Norway-Norway matchup.
Those first two penalties they gave to Norway? Total garbage. Let’s be real—on that first one, Dominiković was clearly positioned in the crease, practically holding the shooter back. And get this: the guy had his back turned to the goal. How is someone with their back to the net considered an immediate scoring threat? It’s a textbook nine-meter shot, nothing more. If you aren't facing the goal, you aren't in a scoring position. Plus, Dominiković was partially shoved into the area. Just a complete mess of a call.
On that second penalty, the players—Balić and either Špoljarić or Metličić—jumped into the block from out of bounds, but they didn't even touch the player or the ball... nothing. Now, if you want to talk about when a penalty actually gets called, look at the very next play. That’s when the Norwegians jumped in from the crease and blocked our guy's shot, knocking the ball out of the zone—that's the kind of situation that earns you a penalty.
People are still losing their minds over the whole seven-meter penalty debate—it’s one of those endless arguments that never seems to die down. You’ve got these folks who swear it’s a penalty even if the player jumps completely out of bounds and blocks the shot while mid-air... they argue that the 6-meter line acts like some kind of impenetrable wall that you aren't allowed to jump over into the crease. Honestly, it sounds ridiculous to me—especially when you look at how the "zeppelin" play works, where a player basically dives into the keeper's space on a teammate's assist just to snag the ball. It's all pretty inconsistent if you ask me.
We end up with ten minutes of suspensions while they only get four—it’s ridiculous. If you ignore that stupidly obvious foot fault from the Vorijevo play (which was clearly intentional, and honestly, the refs were practically begging for an excuse to blow the whistle there), we would’ve had eight minutes of advantage against them, and the Norwegians would’ve been sitting in the penalty box for four. Plus, let's be real, there were at least two other blatant calls where the refs should have tossed those Norwegians out of the game entirely. But hey, you have to factor in how the officials basically gave Dominiković a free pass on that shove through the lane right after the last timeout. Typical.
First off, that "double" suspension? Totally justified. You saw it—the guy was pulling the Norwegian player from behind. It was blatant. As for the second one, we got hit because of that little moment where Vorijev decided to play soccer instead of handball. Just classic.
The officiating was pretty much spot on—they kept both the Norwegians and Balić in check. There was that one moment with the double ball situation where the refs tried to justify giving the Norwegians a 9-meter throw by claiming they were just a split second late on the call... typical.
Every single one of Metličić's drives was totally justified—well, except for that last one where the refs completely lost the plot. There was absolutely no foul there. It’s especially ridiculous when you consider the linesman behind the goal was calling it a charge, which is supposed to be the main field official's territory—so why even bother insisting on a call like that? In my book, that was easily the biggest blunder the officiating crew made all night.
Honestly, Sušeć was the only one getting under my skin here—he actually thought that because Metličić got injured, it somehow constituted a foul against him. Give me a break. An injury has absolutely nothing to do with whether a foul occurred. I still remember this one time I was officiating a game and had to call a charging violation; the player involved ended up dislocating his shoulder during the collision. Just because he suffered a dislocation didn't mean I couldn't call the charge. It’s about the mechanics of how the foul happened during the play, not whether someone ends up in the training room. Simple as that.
And they missed another penalty call for Cupić too...
All things considered, the officiating wasn't terrible—look, nobody calls a game perfectly every single time. It’s really just about figuring out when someone is actually making a mistake versus when they're intentionally playing dirty...