The Europa League final referee has now been announced.
The Champions League final referee has now been announced.
I have done this a couple of times before, so have a look at my previous predictions: 2006, 2008, 2009.
I guessed both referees correctly last year (Busacca and Cantalejo), and they both had excellent games. Who will Uefa choose for their biggest matches this season?
Previous years
To get an idea of how Uefa is thinking when selecting the referee for the final, let us have a look at the selections previous years.
2009: Massimo Busacca: Quarter-final 2nd leg between Porto and Manchester United.
2008: Lubos Michel: Because he was injured a major part of the season his last match before the final was UEFA Cup semi-final 2nd leg.
2007: Herbert Fandel: Quarter-final 1st leg between AS Roma and Manchester United.
2006: Terje Hauge: Quarter-final 2nd leg between Milan and Lyon.
2005: Manuel Mejuto Gonzalez: Quarter-final 2nd leg between Bayern and Chelsea.
This data would suggest that the final referee has done a quarter-final in the Champions League.
This year
From this reasoning we have eight referees to choose from.
Felix Brych
Alberto Mallenco
Frank De Bleeckere
Nicola Rizzoli
Howard Webb
Stephane Lannoy
Massimo Busacca
Wolfgang Stark
Instantly we can remove Massimo Busacca from this list, as he did last year’s final. We can also remove the referees who has done semi-finals in either tournament (Benquerença, De Bleeckere, Busacca and Rosetti.) We are then left with Brych, Undiano Mallenco, Rizzoli, Webb, Lannoy and Stark.
While Brych, Rizzoli and Lannoy have done well in this season’s tournament, they are all quite inexperienced on this level. They were all promoted before the start of this Champions League season, therefore I find it highly unlikely that Uefa would appoint a newly-promoted referee to their biggest match of the season, no matter how well they have performed.
After removing Brych, Rizzoli and Lannoy we are left with Webb, Undiano Mallenco and Stark. With Bayern München and Inter in the final, we have removed Stark as a potential referee.
Then we are left with two referees, Alberto Undiano Mallenco from Spain and Howard Webb from England. Combined they have done less than 30 games in Champions League.
The last five Champions League finals have been populated by at least one English team, and therefore making it impossible for Uefa to give the final to an English referee. No matter how we look at the appointments, there will always be some political aspect in this appointment. I still have my doubts, but I feel Alberto Mallenco would be to inexperienced. Howard Webb was selected to go to Euro 2008, while the upcoming World Cup will be Undiano Mallenco first major senior tournament.
The verdict
Having seen at the previous appointments, and reduced the list to only eligible referees, I see only two clear-cut candidates; Howard Webb and Alberto Undiano Mallenco. From these two referees, Howard Webb is the most experienced one, and this season he has been solid in the Champions League. He is also a couple of years older than Mallenco, which appointment will come.
Prediction for the 2010 Champions League final: Howard Webb, England.
As I have now predicted the Champions League final, I will take a stab at the Europa League final. This is a difficult one. Uefa has surprised the most of us with their appointments in the final stages of the tournament (I am mostly thinking about the Cüneyt Cakir semi-final appointment.) Usually the final referee is coming from a quarter-final in the Champions League. As we have a German team in the Champions League final, Stark was not eligible to referee that, but I can see Wolfgang Stark getting the Europa League final. The one thing I can see going against that, is that Uefa wants someone who has dealt with the referee experiment before, and Stark has not refereed any Europa League games this season.
Prediction for the 2010 Europa League final: Wolfgang Stark, Germany.
Last year I felt very confident with my predictions, and it turned out to be well-founded confidence. This year however I am more uncertain. The predictions fit the previous years appointments, but the refereeing committee is almost impossible to predict. And, the way I see it, Howard Webb is not the best referee in Europe at the moment.
As always, feel free to join in with your comments below. Who do you think will referee the two finals?
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