It’s one of the great ones, coming as it did at the end of a final. Perth Now with the story:
PERTH Glory lost a scandalous A-League Grand Final after Brisbane Roar star Besart Berisha won a horror penalty in the 95th minute and converted the spot kick to seal a 2-1 victory.
Temperamental Roar striker Berisha was the hero for the Roar, scoring a late brace after Glory had led 1-0 until the 83rd minute to be within touching distance of a fairytale championship.
It was unclear whether Berisha simply lost balance after an air swing in the box, or blatantly dived in a cynical attempt to con referee Jarred Gillett.
Devastated Glory captain Jacob Burns blasted the decision, saying it was clearly not a penalty, while Berisha claimed he had been touched before going down.
“These knee-jerk decisions cost you cups,” a gutted Burns said.
“I feel like I’ve been robbed there with the decision, it cost us the Grand Final.
Apparently the referee was a 25 year-old, whose career is likely finished. If you want to read a deliciously snarky op-ed on the state of the A-League following the final, click here.
WOW… this is definitely one of the worst penalty calls I have ever seen. That is absolute crap and such a terrible way to lose!
Ahem.
Video. Replay.
Also, it’s a damn good thing I’m not good enough to be a pro. Those kinds of situations I’d either hit the ref or just stand right in front of the penalty spot so they couldn’t take a kick. Screw the inevitable red card and suspension, it’s utter bollocks and I wouldn’t be willing to stand for it.
Oh well, I guess I’m now a Perth fan.
What’s he doing lunging in like that and giving the ref a chance to screw up in the first place?!
Agree with Bill above. The defender puts a foot out, though clearly doesn’t catch him. And the embellishment of the dive almost makes me automatically know it was never a foul.
IDEA: Why not just have a goal line ref also call penalties? They aren’t just sitting there staring at the goal line. It seems refs always make these calls far too quickly. They need to either consult their fellow refs more, or just get another ref in there who can give calls for penalties inside the box. This is getting ridiculous.
Agreed 100%, they need help, simple as that.
I feel quite sorry for the ref in this instance and referees in general these days. Quite clearly no criticism of the penalty call came from the broadcast team until AFTER viewing a slow motion video replay, and to be honest although for me it didn’t immediately look like a penalty in real-time, it wasn’t until I saw it in slow motion that I was CERTAIN it wasn’t. I really hope that his career isn’t finished as yes its a bad penalty decision, but in the heat of a game like that with split seconds to make a decision after seeing a player lunge in like that and another go down, I could see how he’s given it.
All I’m saying is that referees need more help in this game (especially since we critique them with slow mo replays and blast them for not getting a decision right that it took us several of said replays to come up with a definitive judgement) and that his career shouldn’t be over, it was an honest mistake which big time referees make all the time (see Martin Atkinson, Howard Webb, probably even the great Pierluigi Collina).
Unfortunately to me, it looked like a penalty during the live shot. What a twat for the reaction.
Comments from A-League referee boss and former FIFA referee Mark Shield:
“My very first instinct was that it was a penalty … and while there were a number of inconclusive angles [on replays] there was one particular angle that shows there was enough contact to award the penalty,” he said. ”It was a split-second decision. We’ve watched countless video replays from countless angles. For some people, the replays prove it should have been a penalty, others say the replays show that contact was minimal, but Jarred obviously didn’t have the benefit of a video replay.
”In our view, we should also be applauding every referee who is willing to make the tough calls on big occasions.”
As a referee myself, this is exactly what erks me. It’s easy for everyone to sit at home and watch ten replays from ten different angles, in slow and super-slow motion, but the referee only has one angle in real-time. If it looked like he made contact from where he was, of course he is going to call it.
That live shot screams out penalty. If not for the reverse angle, I’d be fooled. Plus I totally buy the argument that Berisha made an honest attempt at shooting the ball. He was playing hard, and referee made an honest mistake. The cost, of course, is gigantic, but I can’t find excessive wrongdoings from either side.
This just goes to show how the game needs either video replays, or simply ADDITIONAL REFEREES!
And hopefully the poor referee’s career is not over. There are ways to improve quality of enforcing, but not through ending some 25-year-old’s career for a (most likely) honest mistake.
He whiffed on the ball and then realized that he’d made a fool of himself and fell over to cover it up. He’s a crap player, that’s all.
well he sold it pretty good after he messed up his own chance by hitting the ball with his left foot first causing it to bounce on him in which lead to his miss kick and he then “sells it” by going down after he already followed through with the kick and points to the defender as he goes down, and then runs around like he scored cause he knew what he had just got away with. zero to hero in a matter of a second
the defended that attempted the tackle tho appears to make contact with the shooters left foot which in return causes shooter to make contact with his left foot that pops the ball up but it wasn’t enough to call a penalty as he is still able to attempt the shot fully, and then he whiffed on it and quickly decided to go down cause he felt the contact.
People beat the living crap out of SPL, they might not have checked out the A League.