Man In The Middle (Episode 1) takeaways
E1 follows some of European football's top officials as they adapt to the introduction of VAR, giving their frank assessments of some of the most-talked-about decisions following its adoption in 2019.
My takeaways…
Clément Turpin likes to have good balance between the excitement of international refereeing and the quiet of home living in the countryside of France.
“We have to focus on details and if you don’t have a person to help show you what these details are, it’s very difficult.” Having a mentor is extremely important in this sense. Someone with a lot of experience and a good spirit to help you achieve your goals.
Clement’s preparations are organized into topics: tactical, set pieces, offside situations and player behavior. Gives him a perfect view of both teams.
When properly motivated with matches, training (especially by yourself) is easy!
There’s a crazy scene (12:46) where the referee is watching a replay on VAR on the side of the field and multiple Manchester United staff are behind him and yelling about what they think the decision should be. Crazy!
Damir Skomina: “What is our duty. We’re not there to be popular. We’re there to make decisions and sometimes those decisions are not popular.”
Björn Kuipers: “If you want to learn something about the LOTG, learn them yourself. If I learned one thing in 30 years of refereeing, it’s to give people trust. If you don’t have self confidence or are not able to make yourself strong, you can never win. So it’s very important to work with the right people who you trust.”
“The best referee performance is one when they’re not mentioned at all. Very low key, keeping things going, doesn’t want to be the center of attention. Just wants to get on with it.”
Know a soccer ref? Feel free to share this with them 💙