(17) France-Bulgaria

 

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This was quite a remarkable game really: Bulgaria were two-nil down with twenty minutes to go when Stoichkov expertly (and almost flippantly!) scored a direct freekick to halve their losing position. All they then had to do was draw this game, as 2-2 (etc) would have biscotto-ed Spain out of the tournament, and seen both Bulgaria and their opponents France through. But, characteristic of a disjointed second half, they sauntered to the end of the game and when the situation turned in the group's other fixture, Stoichkov's teammates had thrown it all away, they were eliminated from Euro'96 on four points.

Adding to the strangeness of this match was the novelty that it had two referees: Dermot Gallagher, the then-high flying Premiership referee who had done both a Champions League quarterfinal and semifinal in that spring, tore ligaments in his achielles which curtailed both his participation in this match and that as one of the top class UEFA referees thereafter. Paul Durkin replaced him and the handled the last hour or so. The match is perfect for the cliche 'a game of two halves' - the first was a tense, rumbustious affair; after halftime the match was pretty much placid and played to a calm end.

Leo van der Kroft wishes Durkin

'good luck' as he enters the field of play

Unlike the same event in Euro 2000 ('spookily', also in Match no17!), the injury to the main referee did not have wider ramifications for the refereeing organisation moving forward in the tournament: the reserve referee of this crew completed the match, and this English quartet were naturally not considered for the knockout insets; indeed Euro'96 could not conceivably have gone worse for the refereeing group of the host country. For Gallagher personally though, who always wore long-sleeves a la Clattenburg to conceal a tattoo on his arm, the injury would have huge consequences - he didn't referee another match in England until February/1997, and skipped the whole 97/98 season internationally. He was never able to recover his rating in UEFA from the period of his rapid rise in the mid-90s, which ended after this match. His style orientated around closely following play (he was among the fittest refs at Euro96) and calmly giving yellow cards as required. It would be very interesting to know how his performance in the aforementioned Champions semifinal, a difficult tie between Juventus and Nantes, was assessed: for my money he got into a bit of a mess, and ended up showing seven cards (including a second yellow) to the away team, but none to the hosts. In a way, given the injury and what came later, it became somewhat academic ultimately.

Durkin was not an international novice, he had for instance taken charge of a Real Madrid match in the Champions League in 1995, but having been hoist unexpectedly into the scenario of replacing Gallagher in France-Bulgaria one shouldn't be excessive in criticism of how he handled this game. That being said: the referee assessor (Lars-Ake Bjorck) who rejected Paul Durkin's performance in Italy-Austria at the World Cup two years later did work on this group for UEFA, but he was stationed at the other stadium (Leeds). Reason for mentioning that episode is that Durkin employed a virtually indentical style of refereeing in this match as at the Stade de France, and I personally would view take a similar view as to that of Bjorck's in 1998; "he tried to ref it like a Premiership match", my feeling on both occasions. Despite the trying circumstances, had the 'war-ish' first half been replicated in the second, then perhaps this match would have served as something of a blacklisting for the replacement referee. As it happened, I'm sure that UEFA were just glad that match was completed 'regularly' (certainly, there were no massive clangers or anything like that) and moved on from the episode.

As a final comment: Mark Warren, the other English refereeing representative at that World Cup (he would go on to run the line on the final), made an impressive call for this era to rule the third and decisive French goal as onside (clip). That decision outweighs a couple of mistakes Warren made earlier on.

Matchsheet

Dermot Gallagher Philip Joslin - 7 Mark Warren - 7 Paul Durkin - 5 (assessor: van der kroft)	France 3-1 Bulgaria Tues 18June 430pm, Newcastle Group Stage
Fra  Desailly (3') - SPA (Challenge)  Dugarry (36') - Challenge	Bul  Ivanov (8') - Tackle  Kremenliev (14') - SPA (Tackle)
•• in the 28th minute, Paul Durkin (reserve referee) replaced due to injury the referee Dermot Gallagher, Gallagher stood as reserve referee for the remainder of the match; additionally, Philip Joslin was appointed as 'first linesman' and Mark Warren as 'second', but it was Warren who served on the 'senior' line.