Half-time selfie from earlier this week
Today was finals day at Madrid Sur Cup, the most important day of the tournament, and all eyes were on the fixtures today. I was put in charge of the first match of the day: an under 13 boys final. I had the privilege of refereeing with a truly world class team, and they performed phenomenally. On the line, I had Sarah Grundy (eng) and Ryan Corno(eng), while Matthias Raeymaekers (Belgium) was my fourth official. I began the game quite nervous actually, it was intimidating to be refereeing a cup final with so much on the line. The game was quite harmless to begin with and I tried to play a minimal role. around the 20th minute, a striker went down just atop the penalty area after a very benign challenge by a defender. While there was slight contact, the striker (in true Southern European fashion) flung himself to the ground. There was enough contact that I was unable to punish the striker for simulation, but it was clearly not a penalty, and both assistant and fourth official agreed, the supporters and team however did not. The game began to escalate, but I was able to bring it back under wraps, and ended the half with one caution to a player for a reckless challenge, and the score was 2-0. The second half began very physically, as the losing team tried to level the tides, and I ended up issuing two more cautions throughout the course of play to each team respectively for unsporting behaviour. With about 10 minutes to go, the losing team got one to bring it to a 2-1 score, and it became very tense. Shortly after this, one of the winning team's managers after Matthias had warned the bench to tone down their outbursts, let fly with a particularly direct and confrontational string of actions and words. When Mathias came over to quiet him, he brushed him off to continue his verbal onslaught, waving his arms around in both of our faces, it was an easy decision to eject him from the match. He left pretty quickly after, and I expect he knew before partaking in this outburst that he would be ejected. The final score was 2-1, but not before I cautioned a winning player for delaying the restart, and then cautioned a losing player for dissent.
The one thing about the Spanish that I have learned this tournament is that they are incredibly sore losers, and will argue anything if you try and talk to them, thus our strategy during matches has evolved to pretending we do not speak a word of Spanish, and avoiding conversation all together. While this prevents you from man managing like I do in Canada, it allows us to avoid the protests and dissent. This is similar to how referees deal in the World Cup as opposed to local fixtures from their home country.
The other final I was involved in was the Under 17 boys final as a fourth official. I was part of a team comprised of Craig Simpson (eng), George Warren (eng), and Ben Judd(eng). Contrary to what I just wrote above, as fourth official, I need to utilize my Spanish and use it to cool and control the benches. For those of you who do not know, the fourth official's responsibilities and duties are to control the benches, manage subs, communicate added time, to fill for any injured referee, and to assist with the game management. Normally, fourth appointments are quite routine and are mostly sitting keeping stats, but today I was quite involved. Craig called a great game, and his style was very similar to mine, letting the game flow and only intervening when necessary while still keeping control. He managed the game extremely well, and had issued a couple of cautions in a 0-0 game at half time. Early in the second half, after going down 1-0, a player who was already on a caution was beat, and then lashed out with a very reckless, borderline excessive force kick at another player, Craig gave him his second caution and sent him to the stands, which then lead the player (a good foot taller than Craig) to come right up against him in a threatening manner. I believe that the player would have struck Craig had one of the offender's team mates not stepped in (thank god). The offender than went at the other team which created a mass confrontation situation. Unlike hockey referees, we are not instructed to actively involve ourselves, rather the ref and ARs enter the pitch and triangulate the incident, keeping players out and recording information of who to discipline. As the fourth official it is my duty to keep coaches and substitutes from entering the pitch. I had both team's coaches and one team's subs try and enter the pitch, so I quickly stopped the subs before they entered. While I was dealing with the one teams coaches, I saw the other teams coach half way to the brawl, I rushed over and settled him down and dealt with the incident. Craig had a great rest of the game, and all three referees were top notch and kept anything else from occurring, the game ended 1-0.
The top group of referees in the tournament are given the U19 final appointments, and it was a great match with which the referee team did phenomenal. 20 year old German national Patrik Feyer was in the middle, while British assistants Mike Ryan and Sam Anderson were on the line for him. The game was a great game, and ended up with a 3-1 final, with the losing team only having 9 men on the pitch after having one sent off for his second yellow for chasing Sam down the line with dissent, and losing one to injury with no remaining substitutions. Great game and its been great befriending these fantastic referees who are all joining me in Lisbon.
I can say with absolute certainty that the Madrid Sur Cup referees are absolute class, even Bongyi, the Hungarian who eagerly accompanies his breakfast with a beer and a smoke (he would always sober up before matches). Its been a fantastic time here, and I look forward to new pitches and players in Lisbon, and wish all the best to everyone I have met here.
Thanks for reading everyone!
Kevin
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