After twenty years, referee Byron Moreno and the match between Italy and Korea!
The much-talked-about referee of the Italy-Korea match recently gave an interview to the Italian sports newspaper “Gazzetta dello Sport”!
The referee who was the protagonist of the elimination of “Azzurri” in the 2002 World Cup tells this newspaper:
“One of my best competitions in my career, I did not influence the result. But I paid dearly.
The arrest? I was threatened.”
June 18 2002 was one of the most incredible days in the glorious history of the Italian national team at the World Cup. Italy-South Korea, the match where Byron Moreno forever linked his name to the Blues by a judgment that was disturbing, even for those who were not emotionally involved.
Almost twenty years after that match, the former Ecuadorian whistler gave an interview to “Gazzetta dello Sport”, where he certainly does not retract from what was seen on the field, even though the Italian side’s nervousness towards the injustice still continues today.
In Ecuador he is a bona fide star with people stopping him for selfies and autographs to immortalize for posterity on social media. He directs and manages his own television show, “El pito de Byron” (“Byron’s Whistle”) in which he talks about arbitration and runs an academy for young judges. So this is currently Byron Moreno, the referee of the Italy-South Korea match, the most disputed match in modern history by the Azzurri, dating back to the 2002 World Cup.
The defeat that cost Trapattoni’s team dearly, with its elimination, came as the result of macroscopic mistakes of the referee, of the Ecuadorian black jersey which Moreno himself denies even today. Except for one case, obviously marginal, but now Moreno admits it frankly. “After all those years I still receive insults on social networks from Italian fans. I have a clear conscience, I am calm.
That match is in the top 3 of my best refereeing performances in my career – he says. So twenty years after that date of June 18 and that cursed match, Moreno took the floor again and why after all that time he again never changed his mind about his judgment, on the contrary, self-assessing his proof, against everything and to everyone: “I would give myself 8.5”, he said proudly in this interview for “Gazzetta dello Sport”.
“That game is in the Top 3 I’ve ever coached, ” he continues. Q: Can you try again? – he answers: “FIFA has never discredited me, I was the one who left in 2002 at a certain moment. In December 2002 I was considered innocent, I had no guilt.”
Totti’s dismissal for a penalty foul that turned out to be simulation, Tommasi’s regular goal disallowed, Sun-hon Hwang’s non-sentence and refereeing behavior bordering on arrogance and hubris that everyone remembers well and will not be able to never forget There are some of these elements that made the whole of Italy discuss football for months, with the fans still cursing it today – according to Byron.
The same fans who are recommended to watch his sports program about (others’) refereeing mistakes, in which “he will soon be talking about Serie A” and the same fans to whom he launches his latest javelin, deadly: “I’m sorry for the elimination of Italy from the World Cup, here we don’t even know where North Macedonia is…”
From the North (Macedonia) to the South (Korea) the time span is not that long for those with a memory of short, it is Moreno himself who returns to those moments, episode after episode, reviewing as a feature film, to which he has nevertheless put his own filter on the reading. “Totti knows that the second yellow card was given to him right, he didn’t protest about it either, Di Livio and Vieri did,” the Ecuadorian points out, “he tripped and fell trying to simulate a foul. The regulation provides for a warning. Even in the first case, I did the right thing.”
Then, on Tommasi’s goal, it was disallowed for an offside position that still cries out for revenge: “It’s not my responsibility, in that case it was the Argentinian assistant Jorge Ratallino.
I never had the will to penalize or favor one of the two teams, Italian or Korean”. . On the contrary, Trapattoni, (who was already criticized by Moreno a few years ago), is the real architect of the Azzurri’s defeat because “he made a mistake by letting Gattuso come on for Del Piero: at that moment he lost the game”. However, “there is a worm that eats” Moreno’s nightmares.
Among the many accusations and mistakes, he admits only one case after years and that for the Italian fans is completely marginal to other indescribable decisions: not sending off the player in Korea for a foul on Zambrotta. An episode certainly not decisive for the result and the progress of the match, but which – according to him – weighs heavily on Moreno’s conscience, so much so that he should “cleanse” it: “Sun-hon Hwang interrupts Zambrott in the 72nd minute, forced to leave due to injury. This is the only situation that has made me think so much in recent years. If I were to go back, I would give a red card to the Korean.”
However, this was just one case, like a drop in the ocean of mistakes that Moreno made in that match and according to him the only mistake that he would not make again today, confirming the goodness of all other decisions made on the field. Even today after 20 years!
Who is referee Byron Aldemar Moreno Ruales
Became an international referee in 1996, Moreno was selected for two consecutive editions of the Copa América: 1997 and 1999, in which he officiated the semi-final between Mexico and Brazil. It was later also designated for the 1999 U-17 World Cup, the 2001 Confederations Cup and the 2002 World Cup held in South Korea and Japan. On September 21, 2010, he was arrested at New York’s JFK airport while trying to enter the United States with about 6 kilograms of heroin. The arrest was announced by the DEA. Moreno worked as a sports commentator for a radio and TV channel in Ecuador. On September 23, 2011, he was sentenced to two years and six months by the New York District Court. Paroled in December 2012 for good behavior, he was extradited to Ecuador, where he is being investigated for tax evasion.
Translated from “La Gazzetta dello Sport” / April 7, 2022
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