(9) Bulgaria-Romania
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A sad, sad affair this game. Peter Mikkelsen, the man who catapulted himself into the top stage of international refereeing with a stunning performance as a virtually unknown thirty year old in the San Siro at Italia'90, would over the course of ninety Euro'96 minutes in Newcastle sink his international career for good in desperate fashion. A match comprising two (or three, if you include the ref) starring protagonists of the previous World Cup resulted in a one-nil Bulgaria win, and the fury of both their opponents and UEFA.
Matches go awry for a variety of reasons, but this was a particularly harrowing watch: Mikkelsen had been suffering hugely with his weight, indeed through injury he had to renounce his appointment to the Real Madrid vs. Juventus Champions League quarterfinal (Rothlisberger took his place), and was reduced in this match somewhat to the look of an amateur referee hoisted well out of his depth - for the Dane, nothing could have actually been further from the truth. The biggest error of this game was not his, but there was no doubt that this was a regrettably condemnatory display for Peter Mikkelsen, for whom after this it was de facto game over. On top of the world for the first half of the 1990s and then only 36 (he was age eligible for Euro 2004), eighteen months later his entire career as an international referee was over.
Matches go awry for a variety of reasons, but this was a particularly harrowing watch: Mikkelsen had been suffering hugely with his weight, indeed through injury he had to renounce his appointment to the Real Madrid vs. Juventus Champions League quarterfinal (Rothlisberger took his place), and was reduced in this match somewhat to the look of an amateur referee hoisted well out of his depth - for the Dane, nothing could have actually been further from the truth. The biggest error of this game was not his, but there was no doubt that this was a regrettably condemnatory display for Peter Mikkelsen, for whom after this it was de facto game over. On top of the world for the first half of the 1990s and then only 36 (he was age eligible for Euro 2004), eighteen months later his entire career as an international referee was over.
Analysis is split into two parts.
1. Key Match Incidents
1. Key Match Incidents
As said, the most significant mistake of the match was not committed by the referee, but rather by one of his linesman. Future Euro final assistant Jens Larsen worked the near side but the error implicated Henning Knudsen (seven years Larsen's senior as it happened) on the far - Dorinel Munteanu's shot crashed into the crossbar, over the goalline and back out, but Knudsen didn't award the goal. The mistake that Knudsen made was being too anxious about the Bulgarian team pushing up once the corner had been executed, you can see on the replay that he overshot this and actually came too far out, missing the player(s) in the middle. Had he been following the game with the flag in his left hand, perhaps he could have been okay, but in not so doing the extremely quick nature of the play caught him out.
Knudsen was by no means the first, nor the last linesman to make this mistake: but his error cost Romania, and was a crucial mistake for the tournament.
Knudsen was by no means the first, nor the last linesman to make this mistake: but his error cost Romania, and was a crucial mistake for the tournament.
2. Managing the Game
Everything that went wrong in this game, the missed goal aside, can basically come back to Mikkelsen's physical condition; to this regard, a technical analysis is almost superfluous. But in any case: the Danish referee struggled in his coverage of the field of play. There were some episodes where players fell easily and Mikkelsen, surprisingly for the players but actually quite rightly, ordered play on. However, by doing this without clear gestures and often far away from the actions, the Dane made the match more chaotic.
Despite the large number of incidents in this game (no match has longer highlights so far than this!), the disciplinary resume can be relatively quick: Mikkelsen started going wrong by playing a (passive) advantage from an off-the-ball trip in 14', when a whistle and strong warning was needed. Romania were under pressure having lost their first game 0-1 and losing here, and started to lose their nerve: a crude kick by Selymes was whistled as a normal freekick (20'), then Hagi was lucky to not be booked for a blatant tactical trip at (22') in a moment that the ref let pass. Mikkelsen was mobbed a bit, then mobbed crazily also in this period (25'). The first half was bad but not totally irretrievable. The referee from Denmark started the second half well, with an opening card for blatant holding after advantage (48') - perfect. Visibly struggling, he decided to apply something like 'the WC1990 approach' to reckless, and missed two/three clear bookings at the start of the second half. The game was getting out of control and the ref didn't really clock a very wild tackle by Borimirov (64'), being 'forced' into playing advantage after which he booked the wrong player, Cvetanov (clip is above^). Together with this mistaken identity case, the ultra-blatant yellow card ignored to Jordanov (69') completely killed any chance of salvaging anything. Unfortunately, the officiating of Bulgaria-Romania was an unmitigated disaster.
Peter Mikkelsen's peformance in this game was rejected by UEFA.
Matchsheet
| Peter Mikkelsen - 3 Jens Larsen - 7 Henning Knudsen - 5 Knud Erik Fisker (assessor: van der kroft) | Bulgaria 1-0 Romania Thurs 13June 430pm, Newcastle Group Stage |
Bul  Kišišev (48') - SPA (Holding) Borimirov* (64') - Tackle | Rou |
| •• while the yellow card in 64' was issued on the field of play to Bulgaria no.18 Canko Cvetanov, UEFA recognised the case as 'mistaken identity' and reassigned the caution against no.16, Daniel Borimirov. | |
Rest in Peace, Peter Mikkelsen (1960-2019).
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