In a month, UEFA Super Cup will be played at Windsor Park, Northern Ireland. The contenders will be Champions League winner, Chelsea, and the Spanish side of Villarreal CF, after the success in Europa League.
After the end of EURO Championship, in a month the UEFA Super Cup will be played as official start of 2021-22 season for top clubs. This time the duel will be between a English and a Spanish side. Who could officiate the game? Let's make a short but exhaustive analysis.
One year ago the honor of this appointment was for Anthony Taylor, the English Elite referee was in charge of Bayern München - Sevilla in Budapest. This season referees from England will be out, due to Chelsea presence, and Spanish referees with the same preclusion for Villarreal.
Then, excluding the referees who already had this game in past years, the ones with a final reward in recent times and the names in my opinion unlikely to be appointed, I think we can come to this final shortlist: Slavko Vinčić (SVN), Artur Dias (POR), Ovidiu Hațegan (ROU), Sergei Karasev (RUS).
The Portuguese will be busy with Summer Olympics in Japan, so for this reason he must be excluded.
The Russian would get this game as reward after a good recover from a poor form with a positive participation to EURO 2020. But... the period of poor performances for him has been definitely too long, in order to get suddenly a final.
The Slovenian had a good EURO 2020 until the end of group stage, but then Belgium - Italy was not the best performance, appointing him for Super Cup is a valid option, but I think committee could make a different choice, because he can reach this target in future.
However, the strong name remains the same I predicted one year ago: it should be definitely time for Hațegan to be appointed in such a match. I think that in case of appointment of another referee, one should raise important questions about the reputation of the Romanian by committee. He seems to handle apparently good games with reasonable decisions, but for years something has already missed in terms of making a big step ahead. The incident in Paris didn't help, but now I think that committee can look at the future. Rewarding the Romanian for what he did so far would be a very fair choice.
So the final prediction is team Hategan, with maybe Italian VARs, as Hategan works with them.
Nevertheless, we shouldn't omit a special mention for Çakır, the Turkish would by far deserve this game, at least as consolation prize after EURO 2020... but... you know. Despite of his oustanding experience over the years for more than a decade very likely he will end with only one major final in his palmares, and that's surely unfair.
And you? What about your choice for 2021 Super Cup? Just let us know!
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