World Cup Story Feed / 世界杯事情流
World Cup Story Feed / 世界杯事情流
At the SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, the United States crushed Paraguay 4 1. The score was uneventful. However, a ruling in the 53rd minute thrust a 50 year old Madrid man, who was over a thousand kilometers away at the Dallas Convention Center, into the spotlight.
At SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, the United States crushed Paraguay 4-1. The scoreline was uneventful. But a decision in the 53rd minute thrust a 50-year-old Madrid native, over a thousand kilometers away in the Dallas Convention Center, into the spotlight.
USMNT captain Tim Ream fouled Paraguayan winger Miguel Almirón, and Dutch referee Danny Makkelie produced a card. The free kick was taken, and just as the match was about to restart, Makkelie's earpiece buzzed.
On the other end was Carlos del Cerro Grande. For this World Cup, all VAR officials were not assigned to match venues but were instead stationed together in an air-conditioned room at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas, monitoring the pitches of 16 cities via fiber optics. Del Cerro stared at his screen and spotted a detail Makkelie had missed.
He instructed the Dutch referee to review the footage at the touchline. The reason was highly unusual: mistaken identity.
After viewing the screen, Makkelie directly overturned his original decision. Ream's yellow card was rescinded. Almirón, previously the victim, instantly became the player booked — for diving, receiving a yellow card.
The same action. Both the recipient of the card and the nature of the foul were completely misaligned.
BBC pointed out after the match that this was the first time in World Cup history that VAR had intervened for a "mistaken identity" ruling. Del Cerro's call directly exploited a blind spot in FIFA's rulebook.
The original "mistaken identity" clause was designed to prevent cases where "the referee has clearly penalized the wrong player," for example, showing a card to Player A when Player B committed the foul. But it didn't explicitly cover an extreme scenario: the penalized player indeed didn't commit a foul, but the actual offender committed a different type of offense. Does a mismatch between the carded player and the nature of the foul count as mistaken identity?
Del Cerro insisted it did, and Makkelie agreed. The ruling was enforced.
The bureaucrats in Zurich were alarmed.
After four matches, a headline from The Sun broke the news: FIFA quietly changed the rules. No press conference, no press release. Finding their own rules had a loophole exposed in a real game, the rulemakers had to issue a patch overnight. MSN's follow-up report called it an "interpretation shift of the rule." IFAB's official text didn't add new words; the phrase "the referee has clearly penalized the wrong player" remained, but its connotation was forcibly expanded. FIFA squeezed the grey area of "mismatch between the carded player and foul nature" into the official definition, providing legal cover for VAR's post-match reviews.
One operation by a Spanish VAR official in Dallas forced a patch to football's rulebook.
But this was essentially the only impact Spanish referees had in this World Cup.
The 2026 World Cup referee squad saw a major expansion, with the total number surging from 129 four years ago to 170. There were 52 main referees, 88 assistant referees, and 30 VAR officials, belonging to 50 member associations. The 170-person list included four Spanish names — main referee Hernández, VAR official del Cerro, plus assistant referees Naranjo and Sánchez. The numbers couldn't disguise the hollowed-out core: Spain lost its spot for a top-tier main referee.
Four years ago in Qatar, Mateu Lahoz could still officiate a quarter-final. That fiery Argentina vs. Netherlands match saw him publicly criticized by Messi after the game; FIFA took the opportunity to send him home early, and he retired after the season. Now, Spain's only top-level main referee is the 43-year-old Hernández, assigned to the Brazil vs. Haiti match in Philadelphia on June 19. The Samba squad wrapped up the game 3-0 in the first half, with Matheus Cunha scoring in the 23rd and 36th minutes, and Vinícius Jr. adding one in stoppage time. Hernández ran for 90 minutes, issuing three yellow cards, all to Haitian players: Alcénat, Pierrot, and Jean Jacques.
A completely one-sided blowout. In an era where VAR centralizes core power in Dallas, the main referee, no matter how hard he runs on the pitch, increasingly resembles a flesh-and-blood enforcer with a whistle.
For this World Cup, del Cerro was assigned two VAR tasks: serving as main VAR for USA vs. Paraguay and backup for Belgium vs. Egypt. Both were completed in front of a screen at the Dallas Convention Center; he has yet to set foot on any of this World Cup's pitches. This tournament's entire VAR team was uniformly stationed in Dallas, using the fiber optic network at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center to remotely review all 104 matches.
Of the four Spaniards, two assistant referees ran the sidelines in Philadelphia with Hernández; del Cerro watched two matches on a screen in an air-conditioned room in Dallas, and one of his decisions forced Zurich to rewrite a rule overnight. Hernández officiated for 90 minutes under the Philadelphia sun; the Haitian players received three yellow cards, and no one discussed his rulings after the match. A main referee might run his legs off, but it still can't compare to the one second of pressing the Enter key in front of a screen.