The Invisible Game

Part IBuilding Your Situational Awareness

Every dedicated sports fan can name a referee's decision that did not go their way. In some cases, they will insist that even the best high-resolution, slow-motion video evidence was not definitive. So how do professional referees succeed in making high-pressure judgment calls with reasonable accuracy? After all, the pressure on them to ‘get it right’ in the moment is immense.

Bill Belichick, who has won a record six Super Bowls as head coach of the NFL's New England Patriots, once praised the officials’ decision-making skills: ‘There's no doubt those guys – all of the officials – they have such a hard job to do. I know we look at the replays and analyse them millisecond by millisecond and everybody has all of the answers on what it should be and what it shouldn't be. These guys are out there trying to do it live and at full speed. They make so many amazingly good calls and some of the plays are just so close that it's less than an inch or … not even a split-second.’¹

What applies to American football also applies to soccer, the sport also more commonly known as football. Let's go back to an event that caused an international controversy in June 2004. The scene was the quarter-finals of the European Championship. With one minute left in regulation, soccer powerhouses England and Portugal stood deadlocked at 1–1 in a tense, winner-take-all match in Lisbon. Urs Meier, a world-class referee from Switzerland, awarded England a free kick ...