Liverpool players be warned: UEFA appoint card happy referee for Champions League clash vs LASK

Liverpool may have been beaten when Manchester City visited Anfield on Sunday, but Andoni Iraola's team have no time to stew on that result. The Reds are back in action on Wednesday night, taking on LASK in the Champions League.

Having come from behind to beat Atlético Madrid 2-1 last month, Dominik Szoboszlai and Alexis Mac Allister the scorers, they are looking to make it two wins out of two in the league phase. Ahead of this visit to Raiffeisen Arena, UEFA have appointed their match officials, but should Kopites be concerned?

LASK vs Liverpool: Refereeing team

• Referee: Tobias Stieler - Germany

• Assistant referees: Lasse Koslowski & Jonas Weickenmeie - Germany.

• Fourth official: Matthias Jöllenbeck - Germany.

• Video assistant referee: Tomasz Kwiatkowski - Poland.

• Assistant video assistant referee: Lukas Fähndrich - Switzerland.

Tobias Stieler will be the all-important man in the middle in Linz on Wednesday evening. The 45 year old has been a Bundesliga referee since 2012, added to FIFA's elite list two years later. Thus, he is vastly experienced, but does like a card.

Across five matches to start this season, Stieler has brandished 24 yellow cards, including seven during both of his outings in September. Last season meantime, in 30 games, the German produced 108 yellow cards and seven reds, almost four cards per 90 on average. Meantime, in 15 of his last 28 matches, five or more cards have been shown.

Around a year ago, Stieler was at the centre of a controversy north of the border. Kelechi Ịheanachọ had an equaliser disallowed by VAR for handball, despite no clear evidence that the ball had touched the Nigerian's arm, as Celtic would go onto lose 2-0 against Braga in the Europa League. Whether the centre official or those in the VAR are to blame, well it is hard to know.

Let's hope nothing like that happens in Linz on Wednesday. This though will not be Stieler's first Liverpool match, so how have the Reds fared in the past with the German in charge?

Tobias Stieler's previous Liverpool matches

• 29 January 2025: PSV 3-2 Liverpool - 5 yellow cards & 1 red; Andy Robertson, Tyler Morton and Harvey Elliott booked + Amara Nallo sent off.

• 1 November 2022: Liverpool 2-0 Napoli - 3 yellow cards; Trent Alexander-Arnold, Ibrahima Konaté and Darwin Núñez booked.

• 1 December 2020: Liverpool 1-0 Ajax - 5 yellow cards; Georginio Wijnaldum, Jordan Henderson and Sadio Mané booked.

Liverpool did actually win the first two times Stieler oversaw their matches, before losing the last one. The German sent off Amara Nallo on his senior debut during a 3-2 defeat to PSV Eindhoven, albeit this was a dead-rubber for Arne Slot's team, hence why he heavily rotated.

So, while we should not read into that, we know that this referee is not afraid to produce a gluttony of cards, hence why Iraola's players must be careful.

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