Champions League: Ooooh a German Referree!
By: Martha | May 22nd, 2007
While everyone at both clubs is being disappointingly quiet about the appointment of Herbert Fandel — concert pianist and music teacher, when he’s not running around in short pants — to oversee tomorrow’s match, it’s clear the people at Liverpool are doing so only through impressive self-control, because they’ve not only never won a match over which the German has presided, but also scored only one goal in the three games. Hee. Milan, meanwhile, have never lost under Fandel’s watchful eye — they’ve won all five games and only conceeded one goal.
You may recognize Fandel’s name: The last Champions League match he officiated was Roma’s 2-1 home defeat of Man U, before they went to Manchester and just got utterly destroyed. After the match — during which the musical referree gave Paul Scholes two well-deserved first-half yellow cards — Sir Alex Ferguson took his usual class route of blaming the loss on the officials, describing his team as playing “with 10 men, mostly against 12 men for an hour,” and complaining his team “didn’t get a decision all night.” Rio Ferdinand, meanwhile, described Fandel’s decisions as “laughable.” Whiners, the lot of them.
Er, or not. The German has a history of sending off players (at least those playing for English clubs and wearing red) in the Champions League: In addition to Scholes, he showed Roy Keane the exit against Porto in 2004, and dismissed both Lauren and Patrick Vieira in 2005 against PSV. Of course, none of those players is exactly a shrinking violet, so it’s sort of hard to tell if Fandel is an uptight, card-loving Nazi or simply a guy who is called upon to oversee troublesome games and keeps them under control.
Either way, I think it’s best someone keeps an eye on Rino.
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Tags: AC Milan, Champions League, Herbert Fandel, Liverpool, Rumors -amp; News, Serie A, Sir Alex FergusonSubscribe
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No fear for a Rino red card at all. Though he can be menacing, angry, and occasionally a bit dirty he has only been sent off twice in over 15,000 minutes in a Milan uniform. Fandel has been hard on Englishman in the past but is chosen by Fifa becuase he is a quality referee who can control a game even if it is with a red card.
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