“Collinas Erben” analyze SC Freiburg vs. VfB Stuttgart: In this game, the referee decides on a penalty for VfB Stuttgart, but withdraws the decision after he has looked at the alleged foul again. This review is of its own accord, which is unusual. It is only made transparent by a fellow referee.
After the final whistle of the game between SC Freiburg and VfB Stuttgart (2:0), a scene from the 34th minute was the focus of the game analysis. When no goals had been scored, Stuttgart’s Alexis Tibidi with the ball at his foot after several step-overs against Lukas Kübler entered the hosts’ penalty area and wanted to pass his Freiburg opponent on the left. But he got caught on Kübler’s right foot and fell to the ground. Without hesitation, referee Tobias Stieler awarded VfB a penalty.
However, it should not stop there. Because after an agreement with the video assistant Sven Jablonski Stieler ran to the edge of the field and looked at the scene on the monitor. It wasn’t long before the referee returned to the field and revised his decision. Instead of a penalty kick for the guests, it continued with a referee ball. That annoyed the people of Stuttgart very much. “Taking it back is unbelievable, completely insane,” said sporting director Sven Mislintat. After all, there was no clear wrong decision.
The arguments against a penalty weigh heavier…
VfB coach Pellegrino Materazzo saw it in a similar way. He would not have “said anything” if the penalty whistle had not been given in the first instance, he asserted. After all, from his point of view it was only “30 to 35 percent a penalty” – but that was enough not to consider the decision clearly wrong and to have to change it. That was the core of the Stuttgart reasoning: It might be that the foot contact between Kübler and Tibidi did not necessarily have to be considered worthy of punishment – so absurd that the VAR had to intervene, but the penalty whistle was not, found the Swabians .
In fact, one can argue about the decision. Kübler had already put his foot down before contact, not extended his leg and not attacked Tibidi. There was no classic tripping. On the other hand, the man from Freiburg went a little way down Tibidi’s path and didn’t play the ball. Whether you think that’s enough to hold Kübler responsible for the foot contact that caused the Stuttgart player to fall is ultimately a matter of judgment. All in all, however, the arguments against a penalty weigh more heavily because Kübler did not actively cause Tibidi to fall.
… but the penalty whistle wasn’t clearly wrong
So not giving a penalty was the better decision; Estimating the right to take a penalty at 30 to 35 percent, as Materazzo did, is appropriate. In a game at UEFA level, a VAR intervention would not have been an option in this situation because, to put it in somewhat simplified terms, the stipulation applies there: Only if no contact can be proven or the ball has clearly been played will an intervention take place; otherwise there is no clear and obvious error on the part of the referee. In the Bundesliga, on the other hand, the video assistants are required to deal with such decisions in a less schematic way.
But since the VAR is not there to help the referee to make the better of two possible decisions in Germany either, it is understandable that the Stuttgarters complained about the on-field review, which led to the penalty being withdrawn. Especially since there is a directive from the sporting management of the referees to the VAR to keep the intervention threshold high. When there is a clear error, it is often necessarily subjective when it comes to decisions on duels and handballs. However, if a consciously made decision is at least justifiable with a stomach ache, i.e. there is no complete error of perception, no intervention should take place.
Exceptionally, the review came from the referee himself
Measured against this, the intervention threshold for the game in Freiburg would have been rather low – if the on-field review had come from the video assistant. But apparently things were different, as referee Deniz Aytekin explained on Sunday in the talk show “Sky90”. He reported that his colleague Tobias Stieler had told him on the phone that he had initiated the review himself because doubts had crept over him after his penalty decision. After an exchange with VAR Sven Jablonski, Stieler ran to the monitor of his own accord.
The VAR protocol expressly allows such a procedure. The referee can carry out an on-field review of his own accord in situations that require a review – i.e. when it comes to a goal, a penalty kick, a red card or a mistaken identity – for example if he suspects that something important has been overlooked or misperceived . However, this rarely happens. Last season, as the sporting management of the Bundesliga referees announced at a media workshop in October 2021, only about five percent of the on-field reviews were initiated by the referee himself.
Transparency could have contained the anger
In around 95 percent of the cases, however, it was the VAR who recommended a review to the referee. This very unequal distribution is logical, because the referees only make decisions relevant to the game – and this includes the penalty kick – when they are absolutely sure. If, exceptionally, an impartial officer has doubts after such a decision, he can ask the video assistant to show him the scene on his own initiative. On the monitor, the referee re-evaluates them again, only changing their original decision if they are convinced that they were wrong.
That’s what Tobias Stieler did, replacing a decision that was questionable in several respects, but still acceptable, with a better one. In view of the rather unusual procedure in this situation, it might have made sense to make the process transparent in some way, at least after the game. It might have increased acceptance of the decision change on the Stuttgart side. And curb the anger.
Alex Feuerherdt