It is inevitable that at some point in your soccer career, you’re going to have personality conflicts with referees. Even if you’re the most laid back player in the world and you have the best, most professional referee you could possibly have, personality conflicts will happen. As people, we all have different personalities, and they will occasionally clash. Nowhere is this more evident than when players deal with referees.
I’d like to start out by giving a lot of credit to the officials in any sport. They are in the thankless, difficult position of having to objectively sort out all the myriad rules of soccer, some of which are quite subjective, and keep the game under control, all the while dealing with frustration and abuse from both teams. These teams inevitably feel like the other team is getting preferential treatment. It is a difficult job that not many people can do, and most referees try to be as objective as possible.
Occasionally, as human beings, referees do let their emotions interfere with the way that they call the game. Just like everyone else, they have their own biases and feelings, and sometimes they let these things affect their calls. However, for the vast majority of the time, most referees try to call games as fairly as they can. The purpose of this blog post is to discuss how to respond as a player when you start getting frustrated with the officiating of the game. The following are steps you can take as a player to remain focused and unfazed despite frustrations with the way a game is being called.
1. Take a breath! – If a call goes against you and you are frustrated, take a deep breath and count to 5, then exhale. Now obviously you can’t just stop play to take a deep breath and calm down, so make sure you are in good position and not giving up tactical advantage before doing this. However, at the first possible opportunity, take a moment to breathe deep and remember that you need to focus on playing your game, not worrying about the officiating. One of the things that can make or break a player is the way they respond to frustration. I’ve played with brilliant players that would lose their temper and their focus, and with it, their ability to play the game well.
2. Don’t talk back – I struggle with this one a lot in games. Sometimes it feels really good to argue with a referee and plead your case. However, you need to remember that arguing with a referee will never change a call. Once a call is made, it’s made. There is no going back. All that you will do by arguing is make a referee mad at you. This is a horrible strategy, as even the best referees have a breaking point where they begin to lose objectivity and let their feelings affect the way they call the game. Do not turn a bad situation into a worse one by talking back to a referee. If you have to, get as far away from him on the field as possible while still playing your position.
3. If you’re confused, ask a question – There is a difference between asking for clarification and talking back. If you are genuinely confused about what you did wrong when a call goes against you, feel free to ask the referee for a clarification. However, once he clarifies what you did wrong, thank him and walk away. Do not argue with his clarification. Once again, arguing with a referee will not change a call, but it can change the way he treats you for the rest of the game. Feel free to be respectful and inquisitive, but do not be argumentative.
4. Get back out there and work harder – A lot of the time, it feels like your team is not getting fair treatment from the referee. Sometimes this is true, usually it is not. However, you need to remember that what is going to go down in the score book is not if the referee treated you fairly, but who scored the most points. If you have a call go against you that you feel is unjustified, use it as motivation to work even harder. Don’t allow your frustration to cause you to make foolish mistakes, but instead tell yourself, “I just had a setback. I can let it drag me down, or I can push through it.”
5. Apologize – Sometimes in a game, people get frustrated, tempers get out of control, and stupid fouls happen. Know yourself, and have the self-awareness to know if you did something that was against the rules. If so, apologize to the player that you inflicted the foul on, and if the referee is in the vicinity, apologize to him as well. Wait until play has stopped to do this. However, if you and he are in the same vicinity and play has stopped, just tell him real quickly that you know what you did is against the rules, and that you’ll try to not do it again. You’ll find this goes a long way towards helping an official develop a good mental image of you. This can positively affect the way calls go for you for the rest of the game, and it’s also the right way to act.
6. Use the buddy system – sometimes you need to know yourself well enough to know that in the heat of the action in the middle of a game, you may not react to a referee the way that you should. If you know you’re going to struggle with this, talk to a friend on the team and ask him/her to help calm you down if things become too heated. In this case, two heads are better than one, and your friend could help you avoid major problems during a game.
In closing, I’d like to leave you with something my dad, a longtime coach, told me. He told me that “You can’t affect the way a referee is going to call a game. Stuff is going to happen that you can’t affect. However, what you can affect is the way you respond to those things, and your response is what will dictate whether you win or lose.”
How have you struggled with officiating in the past? How did you respond to things not going your way? If you don’t like the way things turned out, what would you change? Tell me below in the comments.
