MARK HALSEY: BETDAQ Euro 2020 ambassador and ex-Premier League referee Mark Halsey discusses Kalvin Phillips and Tyrone Mings’ role for England against Scotland, Anthony Taylor’s handling of the Christian Eriksen incident and VAR and referees at Euro 2020.
Phillips walks a fine line with tactical fouls
The tactical fouls we saw from Kalvin Phillips against Croatia are a clever part of the game. When I used to play I used to do the same thing! When I was refereeing, I used to say to players after these tactical fouls had been committed, that’s the way it is, that’s football. There are times when you caution tactical fouls if it’s stopping a promising attack and then there’s times when you don’t if there’s enough players around them.
But if there’s a player that’s getting away into a promising position then nine times out of ten the offending player will get a yellow card for that, so Phillips needs to be careful against Scotland. And if he’s committed three or four tactical fouls where he’s not stopping a promising attack he could be cautioned for persistently infringing the laws of the game.
So Phillips has got to watch out for that, especially early on in the game. England don’t want to be picking up yellow cards which could be costly, and they don’t want to be picking up cards through the tournament and losing their vital players, like Kalvin Phillips, who has made a great start to his international career and is at the forefront of seeing the team through.
Check out the video here -> http://bit.ly/HalseyPhillips
Mings must show maturity against Scotland
There wasn’t a single yellow card in the last Scotland game, but Friday at Wembley is going to be different because the intensity is going to be there. There’s going to be fans in the ground – for England and Scotland – the temperature of the game will go up. That makes the players on edge and do things they wouldn’t normally do and perhaps lose their temper… That’s when the referee needs to slow the game down and keep his discipline.
Both sets of players will need to keep their heads. Tyrone Mings is a great player at the back but he’s got to be careful if he starts. In the Austria game we saw him with a forearm smash on their centre-forward and it went unpunished. Luckily there was no VAR involved otherwise Austria could have had a penalty and it could have been a red card. So he’s got to be careful and mindful that VAR is in operation and you can’t get away with anything.
For Scotland, John McGinn and Scott McTominay are tenacious players, always snapping at your ankles so they’re two players that could lose their discipline. It’s going to be a tough game to referee. But Antonio Mateu Lahoz is a sensible appointment, a very experienced referee who refereed the Champions League final excellently, so he knows what it takes to referee these sorts of games. He allows the game to flow, to breathe, doesn’t go rushing in with yellow cards, stamps his authority on the game with his body language and that’s what you want.
Check out the video here -> http://bit.ly/HalseyEngSco
UEFA could have handled Eriksen situation better
When I saw the Christian Eriksen incident I was absolutely horrified. Anthony Taylor handled the situation extremely well. One thing that annoys me with criticism of referees is as soon as there’s an injury, people moan about us stopping the play too early. We’re not medics. And this just goes to show why referees have to stop the game as they cannot take a chance with any injuries, whether it be a challenge, a head injury or what we saw with Eriksen. Anthony stopped the game, got the medics on straight away and that timing was vital – and saved Christian’s life.
I felt for the players having to come back to finish that game. The Denmark players would have been all over the place. Why couldn’t UEFA have said, ‘we’ve abandoned the game, so it’s one point each.’ It would have been awful for the players and the officials, witnessing someone’s life almost go before them. Life is more important than football. UEFA should have given the players time to reflect and see their team-mate as it would have been extremely difficult for them. UEFA were too hasty.
Quality of refereeing so far has been first class
We’ve got to praise Roberto Rosetti, the chairman of UEFA’s Referees Committee, for his leadership and direction at Euro 2020 – not just with referees but for VAR as well. We’re not seeing VAR analysed too forensically so far. We’re seeing minimum interference and maximum benefit, which is what we want.
We’ve seen many incidents in the penalty areas and challenges going and VAR has not got involved, which is how we want it to work. That is how it should be working all over the world, even in the Premier League, where we should be having more training and education through the summer on our active referees. They’ve got referees in the UEFA hub in Nyon, such as Stuart Attwell, but they’re not there at games refereeing, they’re solely there doing VAR. And that’s what we need in the Premier League – we need active referees and then referees solely doing VAR.
Euro 2020 has so far been excellent, the tournament has been brilliant and the refereeing in my opinion has been first class. But the early days of a tournament are always not quite as difficult for referees compared to when we move onto the knockout stages, when the mentality and the discipline of players does change. So it’ll be interesting to see the difference in refereeing between the group games and the knockout stages in the coming weeks.
Check out the video here -> http://bit.ly/HalseyRefereeing
