The VAR referee in the 2022 World Cup final reveals what was the most difficult phase for him

The final of the 2022 World Cup was undoubtedly one of the most spectacular in the history of the institution, while the many stages also brought refereeing, mainly from the French side, into the discussion. In addition to referee Simon Marciniak, Polish referee Tomasz Kwiatkowski, who was the VAR referee of the grand final, also spoke about the stages of the final.

Speaking to Polish sport.tv, the Polish referee referred to the phases that he had to analyze and stressed that the most difficult was the phase of Markus Thuram, when he tried in vain to win the penalty when Marciniak gave him one Yellow card for theatre.

The VAR referee of the World Cup final said this in detail: “There were six goals, some of which resulted in close situations in the main attack phases. Simon (ss Marciniak) whistled three penalties correctly. I had two instances of a possible red card and a super difficult feint from Thuram and I remember sometimes the feint is balanced with the penalty“.

What was the most difficult decision: “Definitely Turam’s pretense. The VAR referee often relies on first instinct. In this situation, it was either a penalty or a feint. From the moment Simon showed it was theater I told him the game had to be paused so we could check the phase.

Luckily I could see from the first picture that it was correct. The second just confirmed it to me. So it means that the decision made was correct. We checked everything pretty quickly. It wasn’t an easy phase from the VAR side“.