In the evening, the Croatians will fight for a place in the round of 16. Just like 15 years ago at the 2006 World Cup in Germany. At that time, however, the English referee provided the legendary Gaga highlight in the game against Australia. To this day, his action is unsurpassed.
It never got boring with Graham Poll, the referee from England. Back in 2002, he made headlines for having reported Welsh international Robbie Savage for a particular offense. In fact, the Leicester City professional had dared to use the toilet in the referee’s booth at the time. Of course, he was caught promptly. Graham Poll not only reported the actual crime to the English Football Association, but also packed a few delicate details. Savage is said to have neither locked the toilet door behind him nor used the flush and, to make matters worse, not washed his hands afterwards. An outcry of disgust went through England!
Savage was then immediately suspended from his club for the next two games and had to apologize personally to Graham Poll for this naughtiness. However, you have to jump into the breach for Savage. Because it shouldn’t have been intentional. Rather, one has to suspect that his natural urges simply did not know better. After all, his colleague Alan Birchenall once said of him: “If the brain were made of chocolate, Robbie Savage wouldn’t even have enough of it to fill a single Smartie.”
“… long since landed at the stake”
But back to Graham Poll – because he was to write even bigger headlines in the same year. And what is more, his action should mean that after the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea, he will no longer have booked a vacation in Italy so quickly. Because at that time he denied the Squadra Azzura against the Croatians in the second preliminary round match. Among other things, he denied the Italians two completely correct goals. At the time, Paolo Maldini said, visibly frustrated: “If an Italian referee had whistled that, he would have ended up at the stake long ago.” Respect for his spontaneous and pointed response to the criticism of the Italian Christian Vieri, who had implied Poll that he had whistled like a village referee, has to be paid to the then FIFA media director Keith Cooper. With his reply he took some wind out of the sails: “I know some very good village referees. Maybe it was a compliment.”
But now to the climax of Graham Poll’s career. It was June 22nd, 2006 when Croatia and Australia fought for a place in the round of 16 in Stuttgart. When things got more and more hectic towards the end of the game because the game was on a knife edge, the English referee suffered a legendary mishap – about which FIFA Media Director Markus Siegler was supposed to say afterwards: “That’s a bit much”.
And so the headline on the next morning in the colorful pages was logically: “Referee sees yellow – and Simunic too!” However, the Croatian Josip Simunic not only saw one yellow card that day, but even three (!) After 93 minutes of it. Because three minutes earlier, Poll had simply forgotten that Simunic had been warned for the first time after just 60 minutes. When he pulled out the yellow box for the second time in the 90 minutes, he should actually have sent the Croatian off the field with yellow and red. But Poll missed it – and so the accident took its crazy course.
Like Simunic, Poll is thrown out of the tournament early
Ben Redelings is a passionate “chronicler of football madness” and a supporter of the glorious VfL Bochum. The bestselling author and comedian lives in the Ruhr area and maintains his legendary treasure trove of anecdotes. For ntv.de he writes down the most exciting and funniest stories on Tuesdays and Saturdays. More information about Ben Redelings, his current dates and his book with the best columns (“Between Puff and Barcelona”) can be found on his website www.scudetto.de.
Because Simunic obviously didn’t care about anything that day either. When it finally became clear to him that there was nothing left to be won, he grumbled at Poll so aggressively that he had no choice but to send the Croatian off the field with the third yellow card. Shortly afterwards, however, the World Cup was over for both of them. For Simunic, because his country did not qualify for the next round, and for Poll, because the FIFA officials were not really enthusiastic about his legendary performance.
By the way: The distribution of yellow cards can also turn into a real spectacle in other ways – as the German referee Thomas “Django” Metzen clearly demonstrated in November 2008 during the game between 1. FSV Mainz 05 against FC St. Pauli. When he showed a double yellow against Miroslav Karhan and Florian Bruns after 43 minutes, he did so in a special way. Metzen held two yellow cards in the air at the same time!
An exclamation from Metzen when entering the square shows that the action may have been planned well in advance. He is said to have already called out to both teams: “Let’s go, cowboys!” St. Pauli professional Ralph “Felgenralle” Gunesch was enthusiastic afterwards: “It had something from Terence Hill. I’ve never seen anything like this, that you can distribute cards synchronously. I would say: It is efficient and economical – keep it up!” And the then Mainz manager Christian Heidel couldn’t help but smile in disbelief: “I felt like I was at Bonanza.” You can be sure: Graham Poll would also have liked Thomas “Django” Metzen’s little show.
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