After having asked for the opinion about the main referee to be appointed for the final match, I don't want to influence more our readers, also because we have an open game with predictions. However, we can focus on VAR. The argument has been discussed on the blog and many readers have shown to be interested, therefore it will be interesting to point out some data.
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| FIFA VAR Room in Moscow: a view from above |
Considering also this evening's game assigned to Makkelie, these are all the appearances of main VARs in the 62 games played so far.
Massimiliano Irrati (ITA) 13
Danny Makkelie (NED) 11
Felix Zwayer (GER) 8
Mauro Vigliano (ARG) 7
Daniele Orsato (ITA) 7
Mark Geiger (USA) 4
Clément Turpin (FRA) 3
Artur Soares Dias (POR) 3
Paolo Valeri (ITA) 2
Bastian Dankert (GER) 1
Sandro Ricci (BRA) 1
Szymon Marciniak (POL) 1
Tiago Bruo Lopes Martins (POR) 1
FIFA had originally confirmed 13 officials with VAR duties at this WC: not all of them got matches as main VAR. Indeed, Wilton Sampaio from Brazil, Pawel Gil from Poland, Gery Vargas from Bolivia and Abdulrahman Al Jassim from Qatar never worked as main VAR, they only got matches as either AVAR1 or AVAR3.
Mark Geiger, Clément Turpin, Sandro Ricci and Szymon Marciniak, originally appointed as main referees, worked as main VAR, coming from countries in which the system is already used, or however being expert.
In my opinion the two candidates for the final are Massimiliano Irrati (ITA) and Danny Makkelie (NED). The Italian has a very high number of matches at this WC (13), he has been a big surprise, because I thought that originally a name like Orsato could have been ahead, given the domestic experience. He was not expected to get all these games, at least if you ask me. Very likely, the 39 years old from Tuscany had shown more than good and appreciated performances as VAR in serie A and this led him to gain a very good experience. However, for sure Danny Makkelie can be seen as even more expert, because we can consider him as pioneer of VAR introduction in Europe, thank also to a very good work done by Dutch federation in improving this technology. FIFA is for sure aware of that, and also for this reason they consider the Dutch as a very strong name.
Both Irrati and Makkelie got a semifinal, this very likely means that one of them will get the final while the other one maybe the third place. Now it's your turn. Please vote our poll. Who is your favorite VAR for the final?
