RefIADad
RefChat Addict
Its not about making mistakes, thats a given for any referee or player on the night
You are hand picked for that occasion not because you wont make a mistake ( although we hope you make few mistakes and minor ones), you are chosen because you have the ability, personality, fitness, and temperment for the occasion.
You have dietary experts, personal fitness coaches, psychological experts, 15 year top level experience, you have all the ingerdients required.
all he was asked to do was bake an edible, if not Bake Off winning, cake with them
he produced a rotten egg.
I go as far to say it was so rotten, it ended his career. He was a visible shambles in the matches he took charge of after that.
I think I even read him say that himself
right man for job, wrong night
To be completely fair to Howard Webb, I don't think any referee could have managed the Dutch that night. They were just out to hack away knowing they couldn't match Spain's talent and skill. Collina would have had a big challenge on his hands that night.
I also think that the 2010 World Cup was the first big tournament where FIFA was trying to get matches to end with 22 players on the field if at all possible. They were still dealing with some of the negative fallout (unjustified, in my opinion) of some of the games in 2006 like the Portugal-Netherlands game where Ivanov handed out 16 cards and the teams really didn't seem to have an issue. The game went sideways when Webb missed the De Jong kick, and he admitted that he missed that call. He didn't have a good look at it, and he wasn't going to send DeJong off unless he was completely sure. Now should one of his assistants helped him? Perhaps, but you better be REALLY sure you are right if you're going to advise your center over comms to send a player off in a World Cup final.
In our games, we don't have to worry about overriding instructions about things like "TV value", "entertainment", etc. We just go out and referee games. Like it or not, the professional and top-flight international matches are theater and entertainment as much as they are competitive matches.