Oh dear, it's Undiano...

Sunday, 27 June 2010

Matches led by Undiano usually get out of hand, players being very unhappy with his decisions. It's hard to understand why this man is still an international referee.

Holland will not be too happy about the referee for tomorrow's match against Slovakia: Alberto Undiano from Spain. The Spaniard is terribly quick with his yellow cards, already booking 15 players in two games (Germany-Serbia and North-Korea-Ivory Coast) this season and sending off one.

With six Dutch players having a yellow card to their name, chances are that a large number of Dutch players will be suspended for a possible quarterfinal against Brazil.

It is very questionable, Dutch media think, that mister Undiano is allowed to feature at this World Cup at all, and why he hasn't been sent home after he ruined the Germany-Serbia game.

After Undiano had ruined Germany vs Serbia, the Germans were furious with the way the Spaniard had refereed the game. "He gave a yellow card for every foul," German defender Arne Friedrich said afterwards. "There's few players who weren't booked." The second given to Miroslav Klose, which resulted in his dismissal and an automatic one game suspension, was so laughable that even the Serbian players were surprised.

Undiano has also ruined matches of Dutch teams in the past. He never refereed a game of the National Team, but in 2006 he led France-Netherlands at the U21 European Championships. In that perfectly friendly semifinal he managed to book 11 players and send off one...