The European Football Headquarters has appointed a young but promising referee for a key international match in the UEFA Conference League tournament. The 30-year-old Jeremy Müller from Luxembourg, who has only three years of experience in international matches, has been chosen to lead the game between Lithuanian Žalgiris Kaunas and Bulgarian Arda from Kardzhali.
The specialized website Referee Abroad notes that Müller is among the talented young referees that headquarters is closely monitoring. His assistants will be Rafael Morim and Danny Diaz Balsha, also from Luxembourg. The Video Assistant Referee (VAR) system will be controlled by Austrian referees - the main VAR referee will be Christian-Petru Ciochirca, with Harald Lechner as his assistant.
The first match is scheduled for August 7 (Thursday) at 19:00 at the Darius and Girenas Stadium. An interesting fact is that on this stadium, the Bulgarian national team recorded a 1:1 draw with their Lithuanian counterpart on June 17, 2023, two years ago.
For the return match on August 14 at 21:30 at the Arena Arda Stadium in Kardzhali, UEFA has appointed a referee brigade from Croatia. The main referee will be Ante Čulina, assisted by Ivan Mihaljević and Kristijan Novosel. The fourth referee is Antonio Melnjak, and the VAR officials are Mario Zebec and Fran Jović.
The Bulgarian team Arda has already secured participation in the second round, after eliminating Finnish HJK after an extremely contested match - 0:0 in the first match, 2:2 in regular time and extra time, and finally a victory on penalties. Žalgiris, for its part, eliminated Valur from Reykjavik, Iceland.