So, they give this guy to officiate important game like yesterday. What a joke!!
08:08, 25 June 2024
For stealing Ronaldo's goal, he sacrificed his friend. Now Croatia hates him
DANNY MAKKELIE (41), a police inspector from Rotterdam, has been one of the most hated characters in Croatia since last night. The fans of the national team consider him the biggest culprit that Croatia failed to beat Italy (1:1) in the last match of the Euro group and thus practically dropped out of the championship.
Croats claim that he was the best player of Italy. Italy, on the other hand, scored the saving goal to advance to the knockout round in the last, eighth second of stoppage time. The players, coach and fans of Croatia, as well as numerous journalists, are convinced that there was no justification for such a long extension. Except, of course, the Dutch judge's affection for the Italians.
Croats point out exactly that and state that this is evidenced not only by the excessively long overtime, but also by the criteria of the referee during the match. Makkelie is accused of allowing rudeness and dirtiness to the Italians, and sanctioning it to the Croats. But this is not the first big stain on the career of the Dutch judge. More precisely, there are much bigger ones.
Ruined the semifinals of the last Euro
Makkelie is the actor of two big stories in world football in 2021, which are also the biggest scandals. The Dutch police inspector ruined the semi-finals of the Euros that year by failing to disallow a goal scored irregularly by the Danes from a free-kick in the 30th minute of the match between England and Denmark (2:1), and then in the 103rd minute he awarded a non-existent penalty for England. , after which the hosts scored to win at Wembley.
The fact that there was no penalty is obvious to anyone who watched the game, and football fans around the world, experts, analysts and independent referee experts agree with that. Nevertheless, VAR gave support to the referee, who confirmed the penalty for England without additional checking, or rather watching the disputed situation on the screen.
It was performed by Harry Kane. The Danish goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel saved his penalty kick, but the ball bounced off him to the foot of Kane, who put it into the net on the second attempt to send England to the final.
It seems incredible that UEFA's elite referee, who already refereed 46 matches that season, including Dynamo in the Europa League against Villarreal, failed multiple times in one of the biggest matches, while he officiated as many as four matches at the Euros.
However, the inexcusable hiccups of the heavyweight referee in the semi-finals of the Euros, who also had seven assistants, who did nothing to help him, are clearer if we remember what he did four months earlier in Belgrade.
In the third minute of stoppage time, with the score 2:2 in the match between Serbia and Portugal in the World Cup qualifiers, Cristiano Ronaldo beat Marko Domitrović. He sent the ball to the goalkeeper of Serbia, who ran out of the goal, into an empty goal.
The ball clearly crossed the line with its full volume, but Stefan Mitrović with a sliding start prevented it from going further and shaking the net, so the head referee Makkelie and the assistant on that side Mario Diks did not see that Portugal had scored a goal.
Ronaldo was already celebrating the goal, and Mitrović brilliantly saved Serbia on the line once again after Bernardo Silva's shot. He picked up the rebound, which the Serbian defender took out of the goal, and shot from ten meters. However, everyone's attention was focused on Ronaldo, who first celebrated the goal, but then went crazy on Diks when he saw that the referees did not recognize the goal. There could not be a VAR check either, because video technology and that assistant referee are not used in the World Cup qualifiers.
Ronaldo was furious like never before
Ronaldo was furious. He flailed his arms, yelled at Diks and Makkelie, took off his captain's armband and threw it onto the field, to end his display of outrage on the field by "signaling the end" of the game and demonstratively walking off the field into the Marakana tunnel, even though the game was still going on.
Makkelie, on the other hand, went to the dressing room of Portugal after the game to apologize to his coach and players for the big mistake and said that he should have conceded the goal. However, that didn't make Ronaldo happy, and stealing an obvious goal from the biggest soccer superstar is a huge blow to the reputation of any referee, especially the one who wants to go all the way at the upcoming Euro.
10 years of FIF
