Honestly, who is at fault?!

When I accessed the UEFA referee appointments for September's Euro 2012 qualifier matches, I was slightly wondering whether they had chosen the right man for the very important match between Scotland and Czech Republic taking place in Glasgow's louche Hampden Park. As one could observe a good perfomance by the Dutchman (coming from Gouda) in the UEFA Champions-League Play-Off encounter between Arsenal and Udinese, the initial surprise wore off a bit. However, what this referee showed throughout the whole match - but in particular in the last five minutes - can be described as a nightmare. A Scottish nightmare with regard to the close situation in Group I it would have been if Scotland could have won the match. The talk is of Kevin Blom.

After a solid first half with no bigger problems and a quite good approach, he noticeably lost track about everything occurring in the field. Many bookings were not reasonable at all, he should have sent Rezek off who commited two hard fouls in one situation (the 2nd foul should have been red); one time he made a very polemical and populist gesture after having booked a Czech for complaining. However, these are only some weaknesses; when watching the match, I was not content but not totally disappointed by Blom.
But well...a match has 90 minutes..let us consider the official last minute in a nutshell:

Darren Fletcher (l.) cannot trust his eyes when Blom (m.) cautions Berra for diving

- 90': Rezek (CZE) is entering the box and commits an obvious dive. Blom awards a penalty for CZE which is well converted by Kadlec (CZE).

- 90+3': Berra (SCO) is entering the box from a sharp angle and is receiving a soft touch at his tight from a Czech, he loses balance and falls. Blom cautions Berra (SCO) for diving. A terrible decision, even though it is a soft touch, it is a clear penalty.

No wonder that some Scots are more than just angry with Blom. Their manager Craig Levein said after the match that he "didn't confront blunder ref Kevin Blom because [he] would have exploded with rage" (taken from dailyrecord.co.uk).

Honestly, this perfomance was one of the weakest I saw in 2011. Honestly, the Scots reserve the right of attacking Dutchman Kevin Blom. But honestly, it is too easy to blame everything on Blom as well.

The Dutchman who was promoted to Elite group of UEFA referees prior to the last season should have been capable of keeping such an important match under control and what is even more important, he should have been able to take the correct decisions. At least on paper...

UEFA did not feel compelled to issue a statement on this topic and they know why. Naturally, UEFA did not coerce Blom into making these mistakes, but one really has to criticize the Union for their - to my mind - too strong "pushing" of referees like Blom. There have been previous cases, one of these was Bebek. High expectations, good appointments, noticeably decreasing perfomances, demotions...

In fact, a more experienced referee like Benquerenca or Rizzoli would have been more adequate for this match. UEFA overestimated Blom, UEFA underestimated the match importance and difficulty.

Of course, one can say that dives themselves have to be avoided and stopped; there are suggestions to ban dives from professional football (e.g. showing straight red cards). But at least we can suspect that this ideal will never be reached.

Roughly speaking: Blom is the idiot, he is the "fall guy". But the real idiots have to be searched in Nyon! I do not dislike Kevin Blom, I criticize his perfomance but I criticize UEFA.

Update: the following video shows both penalty situations, it shows that Blom fell for the - to my mind - pretty obvious dive (at least for AR1 Lobbert!) and the second situation which is still a controversy. In my opinion, we can say that there is a touch. The question is: what does this touch mean in this pace? To my mind, it means a foul, but perhaps I am wrong as well. But never a dive...