France Cheated by Bad Calls and Non-Calls by Ref at Euro Final 2016

After an electrifying win against arguably the best side in football, France suffered a subpar performance in the Euro Final against Portugal. Of course, Portugal deserves credit for being a huge part of that with a tough, defensive style. My brother described it with the perfect word that fit the occasion: this was a real buzzkill.

Still, I will say this: I feel that the better team did not win this game. Unfortunately, it also seems to me that the referees, who the broadcast announcers in this game suggested at the onset had really done a spectacular job, essentially failed on this day, and really helped to decide it with both bad calls and non-calls.

No, I am not just saying that because I am French. 

First, let's discuss the play on the field. Any objective party watching yesterday's game would surely agree that France produced the better scoring chances for the 90 minutes of regulation time. They actually sowed offensive potential, while the Portuguese side looked like it was content to essentially kill off the clock and kills France's offensive attempts, and just wait until some penalty shootout. They did not create many scoring opportunities, although they had a handful, here and there.

Unfortunately, one of those was the goal by Eder that actually beat French keeper Hugo Lloris, who otherwise had a great game and made some terrific saves. Now, before I get to how that goal should never have happened, let me take this opportunity to blast the French defense, which was one of this side's weak points through this tournament. There were about three or four guys on Eder, not to mention the goalkeeper protecting his net. Yet, instead of closing in on him, or pressuring him to take a bad shot, they seemed to chase him, and gave far too much time to operate. He is not known for scoring a ton of goals for Portugal, but he certainly scored one of the most important - if not the most important - goal in Portuguese football history.

Now, here's my main beef with that particular goal, and why I feel that it should have have happened to begin with. The whole reason that the ball was on that side of the field, allowing Eder to score his goal, was due to a horrendous and, unfortunately, a decisive missed call by the referee. Had their been some kind of a video replay, it would have taken all of five seconds for everyone to see that Koscielny did not touch the ball, and that it was Eder's hand that came into contact with it. If this is not the best case for bringing some form of video replay to this sport, then I do not know what is! In such a tight contest, with so much at stake, a truly terrible call should not have figured so prominently in deciding this game. I'm not even suggesting that France would have won. For all we know, France may very well have lost on penalty kicks. But the way that they lost, with the very guy responsible for the hand foul scoring the decisive goal, leaves a bad taste in the mouths of the French. It is not just that they lost. It was the way that they lost it, and the fact that Eder himself scored the goal was like salt to the wound. Seriously, with the technology that we have today, bring in the video replay! If you are worried about time constraints, then make a strict time limit in which to review the play. Perhaps make it like tennis, or like American football, where each side gets a maximum of one challenge per half. The fact that this was not an option, and that Portugal got a goal after a clearly bad call, is just unfortunate, and I would have said the same thing had it been France to score the winning goal after such a lousy call. 

It was one of numerous calls and non-calls that the referees continually seemed to miss when it was Portugal committing the foul. Képler Laveran Lima Ferreira - better known as Pepe - played dirty. He was responsible for a lot of fouls against France, yet he and some other Portuguese players seemed to get away with their excessive roughness time and time again, as the referee stubbornly kept a blind eye to it all. It was almost like he was watching another game entirely. There was one point where Quarsma put a French defender, Laurent Koscielny, in a headlock. Nothing was called. The worst also probably also involved Koscielny, and it involved that hand foul that the referee penalized him for with a yellow card, even though video replay clearly showed that the hand foul was actually the fault of Portugal's Eder. The referee missed this entirely and instead blamed it on the French guy, who never actually touched the ball! 

Eder was also involved with another bad call against France. Eder jumped up for the ball and went very high, but Frenchman Blaise Matuidi happened to have the misfortune of being underneath Eder, who fell on his face from a tremendous height. It looked bad, but Matuidi actually did nothing wrong. He was not responsible for Eder's fall, but just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Still, he received a yellow card. Another bad call. 

Now, all of that said, let's give credit where it is due: the very best player on the field yesterday was Portuguese keeper Rui Patricio, who made one unbelievable save after another! 

There was only one time where Patricio really looked beaten, right at the end of regulation, when France's Andre-Pierre Gignac got it past Patricio and came within a couple of inches of what would have decided it, and earned France the 1-0 victory. 

Alas, it was not to be. 

 

Now, I do not think that the goal that Portugal scored should have been, and I have explained why. However, let me make clear that I do not believe that France would have been guaranteed the victory, even if that goal somehow had not happened. They had some great shots on goal, but again, Patricio just took his game to another level. Also, France did not play especially well. The defense was weak at times, most notably towards the end of the game, when they appeared noticeably fatigued. Finally, there was the lack of substitutions made by coach Didier Deschamps. This strategy of not using up substitutions might have worked had the game remained tied, but having only used one substitution with ten minutes to go in extra time left little time for the subs to use their fresh legs, when there was so little time to work, and France finding itself down 1-0. This was a case where it seemed to clearly work against them. I see the logic behind it, particularly if there are injuries. However, almost all of the French players had been out there for almost two full hours of play by that point, so it's only natural that they were tired.

Still, this game was not particularly memorable, and to me, it feels tainted. Maybe the broadcasters were right when they said at the beginning that the referees had been truly magnificent in this tournament, but that certainly did not apply in yesterday's game. The referees missed far too much. At one point, those broadcasters suggested that every ball was bouncing Portugal's way, and they had a point, but I would go further and suggest that every call and - perhaps as importantly - non-call, went Portugal's way as well. And in a game with such incredibly high stakes, it truly is sad that the referees played such an important role in deciding this game.