Referee365's Top Ten World Cup Moments

It doesn't matter if you are playing the most unimportant local friendly, or in the biggest football competition on earth, there still remains the likelihood that the referee, the chap with the whistle there to uphold the laws and spirit of the game, and the assistants, the fellas with the flag patrolling the boundaries, will do something which makes headlines. Rightly or wrongly.

There are plenty of big decisions made by officials every week of the season, which often draw widespread criticism for disputed validity, and are often the difference between three points and one, or one point and none.

This is big news when it happens in the Premiership, Serie A or the Bundesliga, but imagine what it's like when it's a vital World Cup match. Here are ten of the biggest World Cup talking points that officials have contributed to - correctly or otherwise.

10) Paul Gascoigne, 1990
Okay, you can say that too much is made of this incident because of the man's tears, but if you do, you have a short memory. When Wayne Rooney and David Beckham broke their respective metatarsals in recent times, it made front pages of newspapers and main headlines on TV Bulletins. Gazza-mania took off in 1990 because of someone taking the World Cup by storm.

Much like Michael Owen started World Cup 1998 in France on the bench then became irreplaceable, Paul Gascoigne was not necessarily a shoo-in for every game at Italia 1990 but a series of exceptional performances made his starting berth a certainty.

The thing is with the World Cup, it grips those who do not traditionally follow football. Some of these love the game but have no specific club allegiance, but others have four weeks (or two, or three depending how quickly we get knocked out) every two years where they wake up to the Beautiful Game. And these people love a hero. They love a character they can relate to. And, as Brits, we all seem to love the hard-luck story.

Obviously, as it turned out, Gazza's trip on Thomas Berthold which led to his second booking of the tournament, meaning he would miss the final, turned out to be irrelevant, as Germany began England's hate-affair with the penalty shoot-out and denied them a final place.

It was, for me, a very harsh decision, and one I've highlighted deliberately because I think it is a problem with some referees. I believe, and absolutely no offence is meant to these players, that if the offending player was Paul Parker or Steve Hodge, then no further action would have been taken. I think referees occasionally get a little pleasure out of booking or sending off someone with a big name or personality. Gascoigne had overrun a ball he was dribbling and lunged forward. It was a foul, but not a booking.

One of the most iconic moments of sport in the 90s. And I've only put it at number 10. Why do I sort of get the feeling Gary Lineker is behind me, pointing to his head and asking someone to 'have a word with me'?

9) Pele, 1966
Brazil came to England in 1966 as, quelle surprise, the favourites. They had won the previous two competitions, and were fancied to make the hat-trick. The wonderkid that had burst onto the scene in the 1958 victory was now 25, an age to be peaking, and it was exactly this piece of information that worried other countries into taking drastic action.

It was said that he wasn't given enough protection in 1966. (Pele was Catholic at the time so would have turned it down anyway). What is true is that Portugal and Bulgaria saw fit to niggle at, kick and stamp out the greatest to have ever played the game.

World Cups should be about the best players performing at the top level. This was ruined by some spineless refereeing offering no defence for Edson Arantes do Nascimento, who couldn't believe the decisions not going for him, and must have wondered how long they could keep it up. A sentence which would come in useful when he found himself fronting penile dysfunction adverts several decades later. Which must have been hard for him.

8) Jack Taylor, 1974
The 1974 Word Cup offered up a mouth-watering final. Two neighbouring countries, with no love lost for one another, one the hosts, and a real clash of styles. In the Orange corner, Holland, led by Johan Cruyff in his pomp, full of quality, and with an ethos to play total football. In the White corner, the host nation West Germany. Efficiency, effort and organisation their bywords.

And in the middle of it all, a British referee. Jack Taylor became the first, and so far only, official from our shores to referee a World Cup final. But how would he cope? Would he buckle under the strain? Would he bottle making big decisions?

After about 90 seconds he gave a penalty to Holland. The Germans were yet to touch the ball when Cruyff was felled, and Taylor never had a second thought. Stonewall pen in the first minute of a final, expertly converted by Neeskens.

Taylor would go on to award another penalty later on which allowed West Germany to level through Paul Breitner's spot kick, and it was a second star on the strip for the team that won its first Weltmeisterschaft in 1954.

7) David Beckham and Diego Simeone, 1998
A real 'heart ruling the head' moment for many people. Once and for all, the fact is the referee Kim Milton Nielson had absolutely no option other than to send off what was a younger, petulant version of the England captain we have now. Lying face down on the deck and then kicking out at someone is violent conduct, I'm afraid, and he should have known better.

I think we all realise that Becks learned from his pretty major mistake, and the joy on his face four years ago when he spanked that penalty in against Argentina spoke volumes. But on that night in St Etienne, the ref got it absolutely, 100% spot on...

6) Sol Campbell, 1998
...until this happened.

People with short memories who somehow think it is fun to have a dig at Sol Campbell now should remember that from the 1998 World Cup when he really stepped up to the plate until very recently, big Sulzeer was as good a defender as you would find anywhere in Europe.

All the great England sides have had a colossus at the back. From Jackie Charlton through to Terry Butcher, and now John Terry, the big lionheart is always in the centre of defence. Sol came along as the era of Tony Adams was in all essence drawing to a close, and a winning (golden) goal in the best game of the 1998 World Cup would have been no more than he deserved.

However, when he leapt to power a header from a corner into the Argentinian goal, Mr Nielson adjudged there to have been a push. He was right of course, except that I don't think Sol pushing Alan Shearer out of the way really constitutes a free kick to Argentina. Anyway, more pens, more tears, blah blah blah, out.

5) Schumacher and Battiston, 1986.
I must have seen this incident several dozen times and I am still at a loss to explain exactly how anyone could have not jailed West German goalkeeper Harald Schumacher for what he did, let alone not acknowledge any infringement on the park.

In the semi-final of the 1986 World Cup in Spain, Frenchman Patrick Battiston was running in on goal when the aforementioned German keeper began bearing down on him. Perhaps sensing danger, Battiston flicked the ball over the advancing custodian, but it went wide. Schumacher, though, hit the target. His backside, leg and full force clattered into Battiston in possibly the most horrific, well, assault, the competition had ever seen.

The referee gave a goal kick. Battiston was stretchered off unconscious and missing several teeth. Schumacher remained in goal and made vital saves in the ensuing penalty shoot out, which West Germany won to advance to the final. Thank goodness for Mario Tardelli and a few other Italians who bagged their third World Cup by knocking three past old Schumi in the German goal. His face was redder than his namesake's Ferrari.

4) Laurent Blanc and Slaven Bilic, 1998
Now as much as Schumacher should have missed the 1986 main event, there was no justification for France's central defender Laurent Blanc to miss out in 1998. For those who only saw the frankly washed up version which graced Old Trafford for a short time, you really don't know Laurent Blanc. The back four of Thuram, Lizarazu, Desailly and Blanc might just be as good a back four unit as you'll ever see. And Blanc was the leader of this.

In a campaign where France, in their homeland, swept all before them, it would have been fitting that Blanc would figure prominently in the final at the Stade de France. However, thanks to Slaven Bilic, this didn’t happen. For you see, France found themselves up against Croatia in the semi-final and Blanc up against Bilic from a set piece.

Hamming it up to an extent that even Hulk Hogan or The Rock might laugh at him, Bilic managed to make Blanc's slight brush of the shoulder looked like a Ricky Hatton upper-cut. Blanc got his marching orders, and although Fabien Barthez was delighted to win a World Cup Final 3-0, it can't quite have been the same for him that Laurent didn’t kiss his bald pate before the game.

3) Diego Maradona, 1986
Yet another England vs Argentina story and one I think we are all familiar with. The infamous Hand of God goal, which came in the same game as possibly the greatest goal seen in a World Cup, was a typical event in the atypical story of one Diego Maradona. A flawed genius, he managed to con the officials in 1986, if not the doping officials eight years later.

I still can't work out why Shilts didn't just catch it and flatten him, though. Would have saved us all the bother. Maybe he had backed the draw.

2) Pedro Monzon and Gustavo Dezotti, 1990
In thirteen previous World Cups, not a single player had been sent off in the final. This would change in 1990, and it changed with the old London Bus routine. Two came along in quick succession.

You might not be able to remember that the first player to be sent off in a World cup final was Pedro Monzon. You might, though, be able to take a wild stab at the player who went down to earn Pedro the rights to a rather inauspicious title. Yes, that's right, everyone's favourite gravitationally-challenged German, Jurgen Klinsmann.

Jurgen, fresh from getting Alessandro Costacurta sent off in a European Cup match at the San Siro, put in an even more extravagant performance to complete the training video that was later passed on to Slaven Bilic.

Another sending off occurred when Gustavo Dezotti faced the same fate as Monzon, and the West Germans lifted a third World title.

But they made Maradona cry, so they aren't all bad.

1) Geoff Hurst and the 'Soviet' Linesman, 1966
Do you know where the Tofik Bakhramov Stadium is? Of course you do, it's in Azerbaijan. And who is it named after? That's right, the Anglophile lino from the 1966 World Cup.

Look, it was never in, was it, and maybe all the bad decisions we've had against us (and rubbish penalty takers we have bred) are just karma from the fact we went ahead in extra time in 1966 with a goal which even John McEnroe wouldn't have argued about being on the line.

I've actually dug into the laws of the game, and there is a small sub-section which no-one ever reads. It says: 'For a goal to be scored, the whole ball must cross the goal-line between the goal posts... unless Roger Hunt is peeling away with his arms raised, in which a goal is automatically awarded.' There we go, case closed. Well done, Tofik.

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