
He had a dislocated jaw at this point. I doubt that having that giant hang on his neck helped with that.
Nicola Rizzoli has lifted the lid on a confused Christoph Kramer and explained how he found out he’d be officiating the 2014 World Cup Final.
The Serie A official was handed the honour of refereeing Germany’s eventual extra-time win over Argentina in Rio de Janeiro, in a game that wasn’t without incident.
One of those in the first half involved 23-year-old Kramer having to be substituted soon after being caught in the head following a collision with Ezequiel Garay.
It was a change that as Rizzoli has revealed, came about after a bizarre exchange between official and player.
“Well, shortly after the blow suffered by Garay, Kramer came to me and asked: ‘Ref, is this the final?’,” Rizzoli has told the Gazzetta dello Sport today.
“I thought he was joking, he repeated the question and said: ‘I need to know if this is really the final’.
“At my ‘yes’, amazed, he concluded: ‘Thanks, it was important to know’. I advised [Bastian] Schweinsteiger and they replaced Kramer.”
From here, with more stuff about the referee
This is so scary/bizarre that I hope you'll forgive me for making it a post of its own. So, he played for about a quarter of an hour, with zeal that was lauded by the German commentator at least, without knowing what match he was in. And no one noticed.