(31) Czech Rep-Germany

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Germany, despite having teetered on the edge of elimination in all three knockout matches, defeated the outsiders Czech Republic in the final of Euro'96 with a golden goal by substitute Oliver Bierhoff to win the European title for the first time in sixteen years. The championship victory was an emotional one for their manager, oft-criticised Berti Vogts, and a tough loss to take for the Czech team - they had executed a canny game plan well, and were leading with only twenty minutes of normal time remaining.

UEFA had appointed Pierluigi Pairetto, one of the leading European referees and a Turin-based veterinarian by day, to take charge of the tournament's final. Pairetto's appointment, taking him back to Wembley after a successful performance in the key Scotland-England group stage tie, was confirmed after all the quarterfinal ties had been played out (the Italian quartet flew out to London on the Thursday before the game). For the Italian, this match was the pinnacle of his international career - his participation in the rest of the 95/96 was threatened by injury, but he went on to referee the final of the Coppa Italia (ritorno) and UEFA Cup Winners Cup, before going on to blow the last whistle of Euro'96.

Perhaps fittingly though for the knockout stage of this tournament, the game though did not go that well for the referees. Pairetto's performance was rather inauspicious: most notably, the penalty he awarded to the Czech Republic was not correct, and the very final decision of the tournament (to allow Bierhoff's golden goal and not penalise Kuntz for offside) also didn't cover the officials in the best light. The match itself was among the easier games of the tournament to handle. Below is a video with three 'key match incidents' on and a few words follow later about the 'managing the game' aspect.

Key Match Incidents

1- Penalty not given to Germany (10')
2- Penalty given to Czech Republic (58')
3- Goal awarded for Germany (5' ET)

1- While a video assistant would certainly have his say on the first incident when replays showed that Mehmet Scholl teased a careless trip out of Karel Rada inside the penalty box, the situation didn't reach UEFA's radar back then. What I would say is that it seems Pairetto was a bit 'put off' by the missed incident(/foul) a few moments before, and doesn't make the corresponding move towards the incident. 

2- From the refereeing perspective, it was very lucky that the Czech Republic didn't win the game one-nil: the foul committed by Matthias Sammer on Karel Poborsky from which the Czech team converted a penalty occured not inside, but outside, the penalty area. Pairetto, following up the play from the counterattack, should have given a freekick outside and also missed a yellow card to Sammer in the view of UEFA. The mistake by Pairetto is generally (more) understandable for this era, compared to the over-and-over reviewing of incidents nowadays which would be able to lead referees even by intuition to understand that "it probably was outside" with players moving at quick speed toward the area. Could, or even should, the linesman Donato Nicoletti have helped - the angle of incident favoured Pairetto's assessment, and I wonder if Nicoletti even subtly signalled to Pairetto 'inside' by his actions after Sammer wiped out Poborsky; but without being in Jozef Marko's shoes and conducting the debrief, we can never say for sure. 

3- Germany's equaliser came from a correctly awarded freekick (though Czechs were maybe a bit unlucky that the referee didn't order the taking of it 'on the whistle'), but the golden winning goal (95') also forced a ruling from the same duo Pairetto-Nicoletti. What happened is this: Kuntz in the centre of the ball followed the flight of the Bierhoff deflected and then mis-parried shot 'carefully', running parallel to the ball but not towards it. As the ball struck the post, in an act of celebration once it was clear that the richochet off the post would take the ball over the line, Kuntz ran towards the ball. It is said that Nicoletti raised the flag before putting it down again, but without video evidence (what a relic of past times and a reminder of how different to today it was!) of what happened, one cannot censure the linesman. Offside interpretation is a tricky topic but I believe personally the Italian duo -- Pairetto after a short while had a 'conference' with Nicoletti, running out to him, before 'validating' the goal -- to have decided correctly. UEFA said: 1) the goal was correctly given (clear situation), and, 2) both referee and linesman behaved correctly individually (ie Nicoletti was not wrong to flag, it was then up to Pairetto to determine the offside was inactive, which he correctly did). With a cleverer use of the then novel buzzer flag, the drama could have been avoided, but the nuance of that piece of technology had not been trained back then. Much of the comment at the time revolved along the lines "it probably was offside but the Germans had already run onto the pitch celebrating, so the referees had no choice but to award the goal" - in my eyes that is a bit unfair, and off the mark. However, it is certainly apt to say that the game ended on a 'shroud' of controversy that both the Italian crew and UEFA would have much rather avoided. Some images to convey the sense of minor chaos follow below. The sporting nature of both the German and Czech delegations should be underlined, nowadays (or even four years later!) this would be impossible to envisage.

Managing the Game

To a certain extent this text is a bit irrelevant - the game was not difficult to handle, and Pairetto generally did fine. However, contrary to the Scotland-England match where he very visibly made an effort to be proactive, the Turin referee impressed less and I would describe his work as being a bit "sloppy" in the final. I would say that his style (for this game) would have worked better was it an 'equality' of the teams being equally focused on playing football - that was not really the case here. Bearing in mind, to underline it, that in the bigger picture there was no problem in this regard, some criticism: firsthalf, too 'lenient' approach to sliding tackles, and (Czech) dissent; secondhalf, missed conflict(s) due to lack of concentration and not the best positioning at midfield; extratime, harsh booking to Ziege compared to previous offences. The game was a 'weird' one, often feeling a bit flat for a final. Perhaps that showed in the performance, but in any case Pairetto's handling of this match was not as authoritive as it might have been. 

Conclusion

'Inauspicious' is a word already used above, and it describes very aptly in my view the performance of Pierluigi Pairetto in the final of Euro'96 - a bit sloppy, and in the occasion of awarding the Czech Republic penalty, definitely mistaken. He was rather fortunate that Germany went on to win, and especially that game didn't finish 1-0 with the converted penalty being the only goal. If fortunate there, then the Italian referees were definitely unlucky that a situation of extreme difficulty (back then!) presented itself with the golden goal by Bierhoff. UEFA had stressed before the tournament that referee-linesman cooperation was a key area for the referees committee going into the competition, and in this episode they were supportive of how the officials handled it. Unfortunately for us, the whole sequence happens completely off-camera, so it is hard to make any sure judgement about it; however, the first two images above do not present especially well for Pairetto. A pity for him then that his pinnacle match did not go fully to plan, but it was certainly far from a disaster too (as Germany won, and the penalty was an 'understandable' error).

As outlined in the review, this tournament left more questions than positive answers with regards refereeing - and in this respect, the last act of Euro'96 was probably a befitting finale.

Matchsheet

Pierluigi Pairetto - 5 Donato Nicoletti - 6 Tullio Manfredini - 7 Marcello Nicchi (assessor: marko)	Czech Republic 1-2 Germany (after golden goal) Sun 30June 7pm, London Final
Cze  Horňák (47') - Tackle	Ger  Helmer (62') - SPA (Challenge)  Sammer (69') - SPA (Holding)  Ziege (91') - Challenge

Thank you(!!) to everyone who read, and especially to Eric, Xabi and Mohamed for their comments, I hope you enjoyed this look back at a classic tournament. All being well, it won't be such a long wait for the next Euro/WC blog - and hopefully some news about that will follow in the not too-distant future.