Quick Referee Rating: Republic of Ireland v Croatia

I watched this game on fast forward looking for the offside incident so I only saw the first half and really only watched significant fouls or replays. Overall I thought Björn Kuipers did a great job at man and game management. He did not allow uninvolved players to approach him about calls and made the offenders actually come over to him and wait while he addressed the problem(s). I especially liked his handling of Ćorluka. Ćorluka put some elbows and shoulders in and Kuipers made sure he knew that wouldn't be allowed. I also thought he handled Ćorluka's slide tackle in the 25th minute well. Yes Ćorluka won the ball, but he dove in from a long way off and was airborne with no way of controlling his tackle. It was clearly a careless act (and therefore worthy of a foul) and may have even been reckless (and therefore worthy of a yellow card). He got lucky that he won the ball both for his sake (if he'd missed and caught the man more it could easily have been a red card, but it would've been at least a yellow) and for the sake of the opposing player who could have been seriously injured.

As for the offside decision. I understand that FIFA have defined what "Gaining an advantage" means, but I disagree with the wording and I think my interpretation is more in the spirit of the law. The relevant section of FIFA's interpretation of Law 11 is that a player gains an advantage if he "[plays] a ball that rebounds to him off an opponent having been in an offside position". Jelavić is in an offside position and, by a normal reading of the phrase, clearly gains an advantage by being there when Ward's clearance goes awry. No one bothered defending Jelavić because everyone knew he was offside. Plus the hectic ping pong ball that hits Ward doesn't really give anyone time to think "Oh Ward's controlled it so it's another 'phase of play' so I better mark him now even though just half a second ago he would've been considered offside if he'd played it then". The decision is correct in law and so Kuipers and his team should be commended for their correct application of FIFA's interpretations. However, the interpretations need to change. I understand FIFA want the laws to be applied consistently, but I don't think even Croatian fans could argue that Jelavić didn't "gain an advantage" by a normal reading of that phrase. I mean he scored a goal. If that's not an advantage I don't know what is.

Overall impression rating of the first half: Very good. Great man management. Great foul recognition. I wish I'd watched this game more around when it actually aired because I was feeling quite down about the quality of refereeing at that point. My only real complaints are with FIFA and their interpretations. Kuipers and his team applied the laws very well as per their instructions.