After an eight-month break, back to foul play and hot tempers

Game 23, 2020-21

First game for eight months, a boys U19 friendly. The pandemic's second wave is over, while the third one (driven by the Delta variant) is not forecast to hit Germany for another two months. It's been humid and in the mid-30s all week, the worst kind of weather for outdoor sport. The back-end of June seems an odd time to be re-starting play. But these are odd times. It's still the 20-21 season, but really we're preparing for 21-22. In the meantime, I've been 'training' by watching the referees in the European Championships, who - aside from being too lenient on dissent - have been doing an excellent job.

The home team wants to play three halves (2 x 45 minutes, plus an extra 30 minutes) because they have so many players. It's okay with me, but their opponents, with a squad of 16, say they'll decide after the 90 minutes are up. That makes sense, given the weather. Kick-off is delayed because the German FA's software won't accommodate more than 11 subs. When that's finally sorted out, I start the game and soon we're back to normal - two yellow cards in the first seven minutes. The first is for a tactical foul, the second is when the away team's goalkeeper up-ends a home forward who's about to score. At half-time, the home team's assistant coach wants to know why it wasn't red. "He made an attempt to play the ball," I say. He doesn't think much of that explanation. Some rule changes can take years to seep through into the consciousness of players and coaches...

Want to read more? Click here to order Reffing Hell: Stuck In The Middle Of A Game Gone Wrong by Ian Plenderleith (Halcyon Publishing), published on August 8, 2022.