Ľuboš Micheľ

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Ľuboš Micheľ (born May 16, 1968 in Stropkov, Slovakia) is a top-level Slovak football referee.

Micheľ became a FIFA referee at the age of 25. One big milestone in his career was refereeing the 2003 UEFA Cup Final between FC Porto and Celtic. He also appeared at the 2002 FIFA World Cup and Euro 2004, refereeing the quarter-final between Sweden and the Netherlands. Micheľ was ranked the world's third best referee in 2005 by the IFFHS, second best in 2006 and third best again in 2007.[1] He was also selected as a referee for the 2006 FIFA World Cup. He refereed the 2008 UEFA Champions League Final between Manchester United and Chelsea.

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[edit] Trivia

Micheľ is a manager, and was previously a teacher. He speaks English, Russian, German and Polish in addition to his native Slovak. He founded the society Talent to support young Slovak football players. Micheľ has been a Member of National Council of the Slovak Republic since 2006.

[edit] History Maker

When Micheľ took charge of the Paraguay v South Africa game at the 2002 FIFA World Cup, he became the first Slovak to referee a FIFA World Cup Finals match. (Three Slovak referees Martin Macka (1958), Karol Galba (1962,1966) and Vojtech Christov (1982,1986) count to Czechoslovakia).

[edit] 2003 UEFA Cup Final

He was also selected to referee the 2003 UEFA Cup Final in Seville, Spain, between FC Porto of Portugal and Celtic FC of Scotland. Controversy arose after a hard fought match in which Porto won 3-2 in extra time. Micheľ was accused of poor officiating[who?] after sending off Celtic defender Bobo Baldé for a second bookable offence. Celtic manager Martin O'Neill, who faced a UEFA inquiry because of his complaints about Micheľ's performance,[2] felt the match official tolerated an inordinate amount of time wasting.[citation needed]

[edit] 2004 UEFA European Football Championship

Micheľ officiated at Euro 2004, taking charge of 3 games, during which time he issued 16 yellow card's and 0 reds. At an average of 5.33 cards per game, he was placed sixth on the cards per game table, behind Lucílio Batista (10), Urs Meier (7), and Manuel Gonzalez, Valentin Ivanov and Mike Riley (5.5).

[edit] 2005 UEFA Champions League

After their semi-final second leg match against Liverpool F.C. at Anfield in which the visiting team lost 1:0, Chelsea F.C. manager Jose Mourinho complained bitterly that referee Ľuboš Micheľ and his assistant referee, Roman Slysko, had been wrong to award Liverpool their victory, with what amounted to be "a goal from the moon".[3] A Sky Sports computerised 're-enactment' suggested the ball had crossed the line, but in a manner that Micheľ would have been unable to see it from his angle. Computer-generated images produced by Hawkeye and commissioned by ITV News indicated most of the ball had crossed the line. A motion expert also concluded that Ľuboš Micheľ had made the correct decision after all.Michel also recently stated that had he not awarded Liverpool the goal, he would have had no other alternative but to award them a penalty and send off Petr Cech for a foul on Milan Baros.[4]

[edit] 2006 FIFA World Cup

Micheľ was selected as one of 21 referees for the 2006 World Cup in Germany. After his performance in the first two rounds, FIFA chose him as one of twelve referees to officiate the final eight games of the tournament. Micheľ has handed out the second highest number of cards per match (8) of any referee in the tournament. The only person with a higher tally is Valentin Ivanov, who has handed out an average of ten.

Micheľ matches have been considered tempestuous. In the group stage he took charge of the game between Portugal and Mexico; the game ending 2 - 1 to the Portuguese. He issued 8 yellow cards, sent a player off for diving, gave two penalties, and rejected a claim for one in the second half.

In the Round of 16 he took charge of the Brazil-Ghana match, won by Brazil 3-0. Controversy arose when his assistant failed to call an offside on a play that led to a Brazilian goal. He sent off one Ghanaian player for diving and ordered the Ghana coach, Ratomir Dujković, to leave the field after the coach argued with him about the offside goal. The Ghanaian coach accused Micheľ of bias, but those remarks were reproached by Brazil national team coach Carlos Alberto Parreira, who said that the protesting of the sort that Dujković did is what "losers" do.[5]

Micheľ refereed the quarterfinals loss of Argentina to the hosts Germany, which was tied 1-1 and went into extra time and ended on penalty kicks. He handed out seven yellows during the match. Micheľ gave a red card to Argentina's unused substitute Leandro Damián Cufré for kicking Per Mertesacker during the post-game melee involving the two teams and some members of their coaching staffs.[6]

[edit] 2008 UEFA Champions League Final

Micheľ was selected to be the referee of the 2008 UEFA Champions League Final, the match between Manchester United and Chelsea. The match went to a penalty shootout which, after much excitement, was eventually won by Manchester United. Micheľ became only the second referee to give a red card in a UEFA Champions League Final when he sent Didier Drogba off in extra time for a slap at Nemanja Vidić's chin. Match report

[edit] Euro 2008

Michel is selected to be the referee of the Euro 2008 Group A game between Switzerland and Turkey.

[edit] References

  1. ^ International Federation of Football History & Statistics iffhs.de
  2. ^ UEFA may discipline O'Neill over comments RTÉ News 22 May 2003
  3. ^ The world according to Mourinho BBC News Online 31 October 2005
  4. ^ Motion expert says Garcia's shot did cross the line The Independent 5 May 2005
  5. ^ Ghana coach says ref was biased BBC News Online 27 June 2006
  6. ^ Ugly scenes mar Germany triumph BBC News Online 30 June 2006

[edit] External links