h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I think the Robben/Puyol situation clearly illustrated why no player should ever attempt to stay on their feet in the current refereeing climate.

Put bluntly when the stakes are high (penalty/potential red card) no Ref is ever going to call things back if a player has tried to stay on their feet.

The clear message of that (and to be fair loads of similar incidents including in the EPL) that that if you think you have been fouled go down as you ain getting anything if you stay on your feet.

FB

About the Germany - Uruguay game, I was wondering whether we really need the 3rd/4th place play-oof.

Does it add or detract from the whole tournament?
What about play-offs to decide 5th, 6th, 7th etc place?

It would be different, FB, if the referees booked them for diving, as they should.

> that if you think you have been fouled go down as you ain getting anything if you stay on your feet.<

Well yes and 99% of the time they do at the merest brush of the shirt and lots of times at the caress of a breeze, producing marvellous gymnastics. It's quite startling when it doesn't happen. Refs being human chappies having to make sense of the beautiful game as played by forwards in the penalty area, might easily mistakenly think nothing untoward had happened.

I think the message has been received for years. Robben must have had a fit of brain fever.

By the by, does anyone know why someone would choose to be a referee at the highest level? Like big tournaments or the Premiership? Is it cos they like being on tv? They don't get paid huge amounts do they? And they are surrounded by the super rich, schooled by super rich managers to con them at every opportunity, and then have bile and oppobrium heaped upon them regularly for trying to do the best they can. I believe the Dutch are very bitter about the way things went for them at the hands of Webb, and in a few weeks we will have the pleasure of seeing the post match Premiership interviews with managers, whining like you wouldn't believe about various refereeing mistakes, blunders and incompetancy.

Players and managers treat you with total contempt and show zero respect for you.

Surely you'd have to be totally mad to do it. I just don't get it.

The fact is that the third-place play-off is often a good game, because both teams want to win, but don't feel the pressure that they did before. Admittedly, the fact that in 2002 and 2006 the hosts were involved has also had something to do with it, but I gather this one was good as well.

Little Hitler syndrome.

swl

But that doesn't quite add up for me. I don't see a lot of sign of adoring subservience and hero worship going on from anyone, but I'm probably missing something.

I think the crisp, starched shorts swing it for most of them.

And of course people actually speak to them when they have their snazzy outfits on and their little whistle. Granted, it may be 50,000 people screaming "Who's the in the black", but it's a degree of human contact they don't get in their everyday lives.

Why be a refferee, given everything you've pointed out? From what I gather, it essentially the triumph of hope over expectation. "I know they're going to ruin the game for me, but maybe if I try really hard, I can make it go properly after all..."

Maybe it just kind of takes over their identity and like most people they just want to reach the top of their profession.

I played football in my teens and early twenties. Although a women's league, all the referees were men that usually refereed men's leagues. Of course they were all amateur, but I got the strong impression that most of them were decent people who really enjoyed the actual skill of it; we certainly appreciated them giving up their time. It was the same with the hockey umpires in the hockey leagues.

So maybe if you start off like that and really get into it, you just kind of find some way of dealing with all the ers. Still can't fathom it myself. And it seems like players and managers fans forget that without that person they treat like shit, football simply couldn't happen.

There's one answer to the question of why refs become refs in a fantastic song called 'The Referee's Alphabet' by Half Man Half Biscuit. A quick google will lead you to a youtube video, I'd imagine.

Sample lyric:
"The G is for the Gnarled face of someone who's on 90,000 pounds a week and reckoned he should have had a throw in"

I heard an interview with Howard Webb about half-a-year ago where he said that, honestly, he just tunes out the abuse. He said he watched a match he had refereed once, and was shocked by how much foul language there was that he simply didn't remember!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/world-cup-2010/teams/holland/7884779/World-Cup-final-Dutch-media-mourn-traumatic-defeat-to-Spain.html


AD Sportwereld - Oranje lay blame on referee

"The Dutch national team perished in the World Cup final - thanks largely to a chump of a referee

"It was a riveting battle, emerging through the tension but the Philistines were helped by Howard Webb, a controversial referee from England.

"He hopped across the pitch, handing out cards, each time preceding the act with an irritating address of the culprit.

"The teams deserved a referee in top form but that was certainly not the case with Webb.

"Spain's winning goal was understandably celebrated passionately by the Spaniards but the blunder by Webb which came before - he missed an obvious corner for Holland, took the shine off it, at least for the Dutch."

"He hopped across the pitch, handing out cards, each time preceding the act with an irritating address of the culprit. "

What, he actually addressed the person he was speaking to? Shocking behaviour.

Although here's an alternative interpretation from someone on the same side of the fence

http://www.goal.com/en-gb/news/2890/world-cup-2010/2010/07/13/2022941/world-cup-2010-dutch-legend-johan-cruyff-criticises

He also criticises Webb. I must though that I entirely agree with his assessment throughout the article.

I became a ref because people asked me to.

I knew that games couldnt take place without an independent arbiter of the rules/laws and as I love the game I thought "If not me, then who"

It's really easy to call it little Hitler syndrome when you're on the wrong end of a well deserved telling off and much easier when you're getting an undeserved red card, but we, like the players are only human and capable of mistakes though the role is infalible.

Howard Webb did a reasonable job. I mean within parrameters of reasonableness he was OK. He could have sent off two Dutch players with little argument from me, but what he actually did gets little argument from me too.

Now any of you and any one-eyed Dutch fans can pick over re-plays but none of us were chasing after elite athletes and a ball that travels faster than any human can and making split second descions with the help of one person in each half of the pitch. So in this respect we can pin-point and think about any moment in the game while not having to react to what is going on with the other 20 players. We can sit and think about what the repercusions wer of not giving an early red whiole sitting at home instead of running around on a big pitch in a big stadium in the biggest game of football we've ever been involved in.

Well said Badger.

Personally, one of the biggest turn offs of modern football is the manager (and players) who FIRST point the finger at the referee and NEVER seem to see the short-comings and the cheating of their own players. The managers of one of the Manchester area and north London teams are amongst the worst.

That said, there is a certrain amount of enjoyment to be had at chanting at the referee from the terrace. And the linesman. And the stewards. And the opposition keeper. Especially the opposition keeper.

Passions are at their peak on the terraces. The ref is at his best when your team are winning. Not that we are at all blinkered of course.

PP

Agree broadly with Blicky bar one minor point - Van Bommel an elite athlete?

Yeah, haven't you heard him singing You Got The Style?

B