FIFA Announces Four Referees For World Cup 2010 Quarterfinals
Friday's 10:00 a.m. Eastern match between the Netherlands and Brazil will be officiated by Japan's Yuichi Nishimara. Nishimara's presided over three other World Cup matches: Uruguay-France, Spain-Honduras and Paraguay-New Zealand. He has given out 12 yellow cards, with Nicolas Lodiero being shown a red in the Uruguay-France match after picking up two yellows. In that Uruguay-France match, he showed seven yellow cards.
Friday's 2:30 p.m. Eastern start featuring Uruguay and Ghana will see Portugal's Olegário Benquerença refereeing. The Portuguese has reffed Japan-Cameroon and Nigeria-South Korea, with six yellow cards (and no reds) shown between the matches.
On Saturday, Uzbek Ravshan Irmatov will call the 10:00 a.m. Eastern game between Argentina and Germany, an affair that is expected to be highly contentious. German stars Bastian Schweinsteiger and Philipp Lahm have each been critical of Argentinian behavior (here, here), with concerns stretching back to the team's meeting in the 2006 quarterfinals (won by Germany). Irmatov has presided over England-Algeria, Greece-Argentina, and South Africa-Mexico in this tournament, handing out eight yellow cards.
The last quarterfinal (2:30 p.m. Eastern, Saturday) will feature referee Carlos Batres of Guatemala calling Paraguay-Spain. Batres has officiated Alergia-Slovenia and Italy-New Zealand, showing eight yellow cards and one red, to Algeria's Abdelkader Ghezzal after the Algerian accumulated two yellow cards.
