(8) Turkey-Croatia

Highlights

Report

He is a name largely forgotten to time due to rise of this match's fourth official, Urs Meier, but I would like to use this report to underline what an excellent referee Serge Muhmenthaler from Switzerland was. The former Swiss pro(fessional footballer), a Young Boys Bern and FC Basel striker who had to retire in the 1970s due to a meniscus repture, hugely impressed me with his way of refereeing in both the Spartak-Nantes quarterfinal and UEFA Cup final leg in Munich - and ascertained that strong impression here. Muhmenthaler solved this potentially problematic match with an absolute minimum of fuss, played in atmosphere which wasn't quite 'Ali Sami Yen on the River Trent', but very partisan nonetheless.

The match also comprised two oft-fiery sides, and was a big occasion for them both. Croatia qualified at the first time of asking (Euro 1996 cycle was their first as an independent nation), so this a major tournament bow for them; in a de facto sense was also a debut for Turkey - their only previous big championship was the 1954 World Cup in Switzerland. Nowadays, this match would be immediately identified as a hot-button occasion and a leading referee knowingly siphoned off to it, but perhaps it was seen a little bit differently back then (not necessarily by UEFA). One might have had the feeling early in the match that Muhmenthaler wasn't totally enamoured with the appointment, there were a small handful of rather angry interactions with (Turkey) players and some missed fouls as the game went on, but by distributing yellow cards shrewdly and his excellent presence on the field of play that immediately won respect from players, Muhmenthaler ultimately made this game look like an unremarkable, run of the mill affair.

Croatia won the game one-nothing with a late goal, but UEFA were also winners on the night - the game passed really without incident. They rated Serge Muhmenthaler's performance strongly, but the Swiss official missed out on an appointment to the knockout stage (more on this later); that, for the sake of making an example, that the referees committee voted for the other referee on this day (11th June) over Muhmenthaler is something of a travesty, for what my view is worth. He collected some more nice appointments in 1997 (Atletico-Ajax, Le Tournoi's Italy-Brazil and finally the Naples playoff Italy-Russia which he retired on) but in remaining on one match in Euro 1996 and losing his race to World Cup 1998 with Urs Meier, his skills as a referee are perhaps passed over 'refstoriographically' more than they ought be.

Finally: in the Moscow and Munich matches, Ernst Felder generally made quite good calls as a linesman, while Martin Freiburghaus was slightly more unreliable. This theme also followed here, with Freiburghaus making one quite important mistake to wrongly flag a Turkey attack. Otherwise, both were fine.

Matchsheet

Serge Muhmenthaler - 7 Ernst Felder - 7 Martin Freiburghaus - 6 Urs Meier (assessor: vautrot)	Turkey 0-1 Croatia Tues 11June 730pm, Nottingham Group Stage
Tur  Tolunay (31') - Tackle	Cro  Asanović (40') - Challenge  Boban (55') - Challenge  Soldo (90') - Challenge