Kohfeldt: “Let the referees be masters of the field”

I didn’t see a foul in front of Joshua Sargent’s goal: Werder coach Florian Kohfeldt.
Imago pictures

There was one thing that was important to Florian Kohfeldt: He didn’t want to press charges. The Bremen coach said the referees didn’t get an easy time with it – he doesn’t want to blame the referees for it, although he “definitely doesn’t see a mistake” even when watching the videos.

Kevin Mohwald played the ball in the 44th minute after it was dropped by Mainz goalkeeper Robin Zentner. Shortly thereafter, Leandro Barreiro hit Joshua Sargent – the ball landed in Mainz’s goal, but the goal did not count because the video assistant informed and sent referee Marco Fritz into the review area. There the referee caught a mistake and reinstated Bremen’s alleged equalizer.

It was a logical decision for Zentner. “What you don’t see very well in the picture is that before he kicked the ball, he was kicking my right hand,” Mainz goalkeeper said of Mohwald’s knock, but he was totally alone with his vision. Even FSV coach Bo Svensson admitted to Sky that he could “understand” Bremen.

I will stick to it: let the referees be the leaders on the field to the fullest extent possible.

“This is not an obvious mistake,” said Frank Bowman, when he was shown pictures of the match after the match. What the general manager of Bremen meant: In his view, the video assisted referee (VAR) technology was not supposed to be on because Fritz initially gave the blow and made the right decision anyway.

Kohfeldt hates something fundamental

Even for Coveldt, the intervention was not feasible. Bremen coach said, “I always think that (video referee, editor’s note) should intervene as little as possible,” then addressed something fundamental: “I will stick with it: Leave the referees as much as possible, because a coach is on the field – and unfortunately they are no longer so in many times “.