Saturday, July 24, 2010

The Referee

Martin Hansson is one of the best referees in the world and as luck would have it, he did everything right and still missed a crucial handball that propelled the French team into the 2010 World Cup. In an additional stroke of fate, a Swedish TV show was filming a documentary on the life of Hansson and they have some great footage of what life is like behind the whistle.

RĂ„TTSKIPAREN / THE REFEREE [2010] from Freedom From Choice AB on Vimeo.



I can't help but watch this and feel...
  • ...my heart break when I hear Martin describe his reaction in the dressing room after he finds out just what went wrong in the France vs. Ireland qualifying game.
  • ...that the sooner FIFA embraces technology and/or additional referees as an official policy the better. It's just not fair to the teams or to the referee to hold them up to a level of perfection they cannot live up to.
  • ...that I might want to move to a small village in Sweden and referee some of the best games in the world, spending my spare time fishing.
  • ...that I'm not the only guy who wears capri sweat pants every once in a while.

4 comments:

pele1410 said...

I believe I read somewhere that they will use the 5 referee system in the Champions League this season. Don't have a link handy though.

FIFA also delayed the talk on goal-line technology till their October meeting. By then most of the world will have forgotten about it.

Unknown said...

That's correct. The FIFA announcement for this is found here..

Anonymous said...

Excellent recommendation Blue Blade! Thank you! A very good documentary about the soccer referee profession. Just wish it was longer. Felt like 15 minutes.

Unknown said...

Thanks for the video. I'll take that job in Sweden as well...nice open land with a small boat for fishing during down time...don't believe it could get any better.