RateTheRef

A shocker from the ever reliable Bjorn Kuipers to give PSG a penalty. What has he seen? He is so far off with that decision. VAR didn’t even have to look at that twice to overrule

He got caught in a bad position - suddenly playing right back for Man City - and got sold on the reactions from the PSG players. He has not taken any sh*t off of them since though.

Red card correct decision but this has been a very poor display from Kuipers

Aside from he might need an anatomy lesson as to where the arm is, that was an outstanding refereeing performance.  He didn't fall for any attempts by players to con fouls, and managed the situation with the sending off perfectly.

That would have been a very challenging game for a lesser referee but Kuipers experience and ability proved invaluable in game and player management.
My initial reaction to one of the fouls which drew YC when PSG lost their discipline was that it was of the orange variety for possible SFP but I suspect Kuipers was sensible to opt for the lesser sanction.

Well done City.  It's up to the other half of Manchester to progress to the Europa Final, hopefully without any protests by the fans.

Totally agree. He was experienced enough to ignore the attempts of numerous players to con him into giving fouls for absolutely nothing and he made it plain that he was not going to be conned.
I agree about PSG losing their discipline and testing his patience to the limit, however, he used common sense and was on top of everything.
In spite of lots of things going on he seemed to have a decent rapport with the players.

Didn't the AR give the penalty? My initial thought was that Kuipers wasn't going to give it and moved to run away, but noticed the AR flagging (admittedly off screen).

Might be wrong, but that was the impression I got.

I am a big fan of Kuipers but I don't think this was his most accomplished performance. While the game was never out of control I don't feel he ever had a total handle on proceedings and it was always close to boiling over, he wasn't successful in taking the heat out of the game and that made it nasty when PSG realised they weren't going to qualify. I thought could have been a little stronger with dissent, Zinchenko for example I think really pushed his luck by continuing to protest, very visibly, while being cautioned.

In terms of the penalty call, whether influenced by the AR or not Kuipers didn't seem totally comfortable and for good reason - it was a bad call. The positive being that the VAR intervention and OFR were handled efficiently and the right outcome was reached. I think after this though, his acceptance by the players went down.

The other big calls all came in the second half and in my opinion PSG could/should have had 4 red cards. And possibly the manager red carded as well.

The first was totally correct for the stamp by Di Maria. Very well handled and quickly too, very good job by the FO Sidiropoulos to intervene very quickly and calm tensions as best he could. Pochettino then enters the field, initially to pull back his players - technically he shouldn't do this and entering the field like this should result in a red card, however I think given he was helping to calm the situation at this point common sense would clearly dictate no action be taken against him. After this however he started to protest with Kuipers. IMO a manager who enters the pitch, game stopped or not and stays there protesting with the referee should be sent off. Would this have been the right action for Kuipers to take? Well it would surely have made things kick off at an already tense moment so I can understand his inaction and perhaps it is supportable. However, to save a major incident occurring, I think he sacrificed the level of respect he could command and I thought after this players behaviour deteriorated further (also of course PSG realising hope was fading).

Next Verratti pulled back his opponent and tripped him with the legs. While not quite reckless I think it comfortably fell into the SPA category. Was it one of those 100% nailed on no option other than to caution incidents? Probably not. If Verratti wasn't on a yellow already would he have been cautioned? Almost certainly IMO. I can understand why Kuipers wanted a nailed on yellow or even an orange card for a second yellow at this stage, however by the book Verratti was extremely lucky.

The next two incidents IMO should have been straight red cards - Kimpembe lunged in with a swinging kick aimed at his opponent. Minimal contact was made but for me this was not SFP it was VC. Yes the ball was there but IMO there was absolutely no attempt to play it, he attempted to kick his opponent with significant force. This should have been a red card and I also think it would have been fine for VAR to intervene here.

Next Pereira makes a knee high tackle, with studs and indeed makes contact on the knee. For me again this is a red card, admittedly the contact is glancing however being so high and far from the ball I think it is SFP. In this case though probably not enough  for a VAR intervention but a red card is fully supportable.

So all in all I think 4 red cards for PSG players would have been entirely supportable rather than only the one as was given. Now I guess the question is whether or not Kuipers should have issued 4 red cards and binned the manager? Well, I suppose this is the dilemma of top level refereeing, how far can one deviate from the laws for the greater good of the game. Kuipers decisions not to issue numerous red cards likely prevented the game from descending into a total farce but they also degraded his authority and control. I think this was an almost inevitable trade-off by the time we got to abut 65 minutes as Kuipers had failed to take the nasty undertone out of the game at that point. From then on he had little choice but to sacrifice some of his own authority and possibly sanction at a lower level than the law calls for in order to stop the game ending in a complete mess. This is the great challenge of refereeing high difficulty matches at the very top level and while Kuipers didn't ever let the game get totally out of control, his poor anticipation of the rising tension in the middle stage of the game, backed him into a corner towards the end.

On the whole, given the fact that at this level one must take decisions with the greater good in mind I don't think this can be classed as a total disaster from Kuipers. The average fan won't be talking about his performance (accusations of foul language aside) and to be fair to him, I think many referees without his immense ability would have totally lost control. That said, given the high standards of game management we have learnt to expect from Kuipers this will go down as one of his poorer performances. I'm sure he will recover and perform at his usual high standards at the EURO.

I find it fascinating how opinions can vary over a referee's performance.  Descriptions have varied from very poor to outstanding and excellent.
DublinRef offered "not a disaster" but "one of his poorer performances".  Is "disappointing" a suitable adjective?  For my part, I would label it "decent" but by no means perfect - and not just because of the handball errors.

One point from DublinRef's post I would highlight is:
"This is the great challenge of refereeing high difficulty matches at the very top level and while Kuipers didn't ever let the game get totally out of control, his poor anticipation of the rising tension in the middle stage of the game, backed him into a corner towards the end".

An excellent comment and highlighting again his earlier point whether the referee's prime role in this sort of game is to strictly apply the Laws or to seek to manage proceedings for the greater good of the game.  A dilemma referees like Graham Poll and Mark Clattenburg faced in the PL on occasions in the past, not always answered successfully some would argue.   

Not seen any view from Halsey or Hackett yet but I wouldn't be surprised if Kuiper's performance didn't split opinion among our current SG1 referees. 

A good debate though and contributions appreciated.