(11) Portugal-Turkey

 

Highlights

Report

According to the assessor assignments made by the committee themselves, it seems like Group A and Group C and were the two pools which commanded the most attention and scrutiny by the internal UEFA refereeing organisation. It also appears to me that the two World Cup 1994 final candidates were treated in the same way: both Peter Mikkelsen and Sandor Puhl were given charge of less sonorous, but technically challenging fixtures in B and D respectively. Where the Dane failed in his Eastern clash, Puhl succeeded in this Southern Euro match between Portugal and Turkey - the Hungarian managed to adapt his lenient style to satisfy the instructions of the committee, and won through into the knockout stages of Euro'96. 

Puhl showed seven yellow cards, used his sanctions well to "curb the worst excesses of the players", and generally did a good job in a match which was quite difficult. I wonder how much it registered for those at the time who had 'my' job of assessing the refereeing, but with his strongman approach there was one situation where Puhl's confident demeanour allowed him to avoid questions asked (clip): after initially deciding that Turkey's Abdullah Ercan had committed no foul, he then later revoked that assessment and booked the Turk for reckless play (there was no advantage). This isn't an especially uncommon scenario, using the 'feel' of the game rather than solely perceiving the incident before deciding to book someone, but usually a freekick has been awarded first! This could have cost Puhl in a later incident where Abdullah committed a heavy challenge on Figo, but in 1990s football I don't see this as a clear yellow card. Figo was rather irked by the later foul however and got booked himself a couple of minutes later, having chuntered away at Abdullah before (likely) snapping back angrily at a rebuke by the ref with the game live.

Turkey striker Saffet Sancakli appealed three times for a penalty (8', 25', 48') -- supported by the ref-aimed jeers of the again-partisan crowd in Nottingham -- but on each occasion Puhl was absolutely correct to allow the game to continue. A handful of missed fouls and one missed yellow card for reckless (30'; ironically this would have been a good scenario to issue an 'intuition booking' for a rather crude thigh-high kick) are the only smaller criticisms one could level at the referee. Overall, this was a game assuredly navigated by Sandor Puhl with a good performance. Finally, quite a lot of work for both linesmen, but they never made a clear mistake - so a sound level all-round for the Hungarian crew.

Matchsheet

Sándor Puhl - 7 Lászlo Hamar - 7 Imre Bozóky - 7 Sándor Piller (assessor: vautrot)	Portugal 1-0 Turkey Fri 14June 430pm, Nottingham Group Stage
Por  P. Santos (+46') - SPA (Challenge)  Figo (58') - Dissent  Tavares (72') - Challenge	Tur  Abdullah (43') - Challenge  Vedat (65') - Tackle  Rahim (73') - Challenge  Tolunay (76') - Tackle