England’s friendly with Uruguay was marred by some farcical refereeing on Friday night, not least one incident in the second-half at Wembley that recalled Graham Poll’s infamous mistake at the 2006 World Cup.
Englishman Poll famously issued three yellow cards to Croatia’s Josip Simunic in the Croatia vs Australia match in Germany. Poll booked Simunic in the 61st and 90th minutes but failed to send him off, only issuing the red card after a third yellow in stoppage time.
This time it was Uruguay’s Manuel Ugarte who got lucky, with the Manchester United midfielder already booked for an early challenge when he was shown another for dissent at German referee Sven Jablonski, in the final 10 minutes of the match.
Ugarte had been remonstrating at the awarding of Ben White’s goal, but somehow Jablonski failed to show him a red, with the fourth official later attempting to cover the baffling gaffe by insisting that the second yellow had been ‘rescinded’.
Wisely, Uruguay manager Marcelo Bielsa quickly substituted Ugarte a few minutes later.
Poll was immediately referenced on ITV, with co-commentator Lee Dixon joking: ‘Graham Poll was having a nice evening before that!’.
Manuel Ugarte was shown a second yellow late on in Uruguay’s clash with England but somehow stayed on the pitch
The Uruguay player was quickly whipped off by his manager but farcical refereeing later found him to have no yellow cards at all
After the final whistle, Ian Wright was among the voices to criticise the refereeing display, following a second statement from the refereeing team and VAR that stated that it was instead Jose Maria Gimenez who had received the first yellow card believed to have been given to Ugarte.
‘We’ve been told Ugarte was shown two yellow cards and the second one was rescinded, which is new one (for us) us,’ Harry Maguire attempted to clarify after the final whistle.
‘Now we’ve been told the first of those yellow cards for Ugarte was actually for Gimenez. So rather than two yellow cards, Ugarte got no yellow cards.’
‘They’re making it up as they go along,’ Wright argued. ‘It’s like we didn’t see what we saw.’
England boss Thomas Tuchel had already been furious with Jablonski’s leniency, notably when Ronald Araujo hacked down Phil Foden, injuring the Manchester City player and forcing Tuchel to take him off.
Foden walked gingerly to the touchline and was given a consolatory hug by Tuchel on his way back to the bench.
‘How is this not checked by VAR?’ Tuchel wondered after the match, before adding that he did not believe that the penalty which went against England late on should have stood.
‘A definite red card,’ Maguire added. ‘You should never see tackles like that not getting a red.’
Emma Hayes, the USA women’s manager, said in ITV commentary that Barcelona’s Araujo ‘could have broken Foden’s leg, it was a clear red.’
