Steven A. has made a few points about the officiating, and I thought I would open up a discussion on the refereeing.
First a comment and a war (literally) story. I was a certified official for several years in the early 1980s in Illinois. Coming from the playing side (I still was playing in leagues in Chicago), I had some definitive opinions on refereeing. They were wrong (the refs and my opinions).
IMHO, the first 10 minutes of the game make or break an official. During that time, you will either establish your credibility or cede the game to the players. A referee must be decisive, fair and right. Do this in the first 10 minutes and the rest of the game falls into place. No gamesmanship, no BS.
In mid-May 1982, I was assigned a game between two club teams; the English and the Argentineans. Look again at the date and look again at the clubs. I vividly remember the sinking of the British destroyer by an Exocet missile, because the game occurred less then a week afterwards. Within 6 minutes, there were 3 red cards and 4 yellows. During this time, a soccer game briefly broke out during a brawl. Taking the captains aside (who were friends incidentally), the three of us reestablished the game and it continued without incident (relatively speaking).
This was extreme, but my sense in watching the games this year is that a number of referees are ceding control to the players. Thoughts?
4 comments on “Hey Ref, Your Seeing-eye Dog is S***ing All Over the Locker Room”
Poor refereeing is a time-honored FIFA tradition. Why should this World Cup be different?
;=D
My dad, who has been refereeing most of my soccer career is of the same opinion on the first 10 minutes concept.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say they’ve ceded control to the players, it hasn’t come to that yet. I also don’t think any players are out for vengence of any kind, keeping themselves in check basically.
BUT, at the same time, I think the players are being overly kind to poor calls by the referees, most likely because they’ve come to expect it. Being so early in the tournament, its not necesarily a big deal, but as the tournament moves forward and games become more important these calls will start to be contested by players, and the referees better not make obvious mistakes or they will begin to loose control as the steam builds. We’ll have to see if the referees can keep up as the pressure of the game increases.
I think the worst officiating was in the Spain vs Ukraine match. But the referee Luis Medina Cantalejo, officiating the Poland Germany match was great. It could have turned ugly with all that emotion but he was firm and decisive. You have to be firm with every country but there are some countries that you pay special attention to- Italy and Argentina. Correct me if I am wrong.
SR, you are right when you say that a referee needs flexibility in dealing differently with different countries and players.
Face it, officials are like parents: they bring (or should bring) adult supervision to what would otherwise be a playground brawl with a ball.