When a player’s sailing close to a red card

Game 42, 2021-22

“You wanted to kick me out of the game, didn’t you?” That’s not a quote from my latest match, but it’s one I’ve heard before. In fact, it’s from El Arbitro, a slightly dated but nonetheless absorbing documentary you can watch on YouTube that follows the now retired Spanish referee Miguel Pérez Lasa as he officiates a pair of La Liga games at the tail-end of the 2007-08 season. The words are yelled at him by Villareal’s defender Joan Capdevila when Pérez shows him a second yellow card in the final minutes of a 2-0 defeat at Sevilla. 

Capdevila could not be further off the mark. Pérez Lasa explains in the documentary how “I like to use the captains to warn players when they have a yellow card and are close to getting another one.” As the players are preparing to come out for the second half, the referee can be heard telling Sevilla’s captain Dani Alves to “calm [Federico] Fazio down”. The Argentine midfielder had already seen yellow and was looking like a candidate for dismissal. 

“A ref must know how to use the cards,” says Pérez Lasa. “You see the game heating up, so you have to calm the players down and let them know they have the wrong attitude.” Villarreal’s Capdevila first sees yellow in the 80th minute for a vehement, in-your-face protest about a penalty non-call. A few minutes later he’s lucky to avoid a second caution for sarcastic laughter and a dismissive gesture when Pérez Lasa awards Sevilla a penalty. And then he’s finally off for a blatant and deliberate handball in stoppage time that prevents a promising attack (Capdevila tries to claim it hit him on the knee). All unnecessary offences the player himself could easily have avoided, and nothing whatsoever to do with the referee wanting to ‘kick him out of the game’.

It’s pure coincidence that I watched El Arbitro a day after refereeing this men’s friendly. In the first half, there are four yellow cards, three of them in one go (with obligatory lecture) for a ridiculous brawl that’s part of a dispute about a… throw-in. The away team’s number 8 has already been booked for a meaty foul. Both he and the home team’s feisty number 7 – one of the players involved in the throw-in ‘debate’ – continue to act like they have the freedom of the field, and that the laws of the game have granted them an unspoken exemption.

There are no sin-bins in friendlies, so a second caution means they’ll be off. I not only warn the two men to calm down, I have a quiet word with both captains just before half-time that their respective players are sailing close to a red. My hope is that they’ll both be replaced at the break. The home team takes heed, and there’s no sign of the number 7 in the second half (I’d also heard a couple of team-mates complain about him). The away team, though, perseveres with number 8. On the hour mark he loses the ball on the halfway line and then chases back to receive it, and you can already see what’s coming – a reckless foul from behind that brings him his second yellow card of the evening. There’s not a murmur of complaint from anyone as he walks off the pitch.

The away team’s assistant coach is a genial bloke, so on our way off the field I ask him why they hadn’t subbed the number 8 out at half-time. “Ah, yes, the captain mentioned that you’d had a word with him about that,” he cheerfully admits. “But we thought he had himself under control. What a dumb foul!” It’s odd how different people read a game, and that his own coaches and team-mates couldn’t see where things were heading. 

I’ll admit there are times when I’m happy to dismiss a particular player when it   excludes them from further aggravating their opponents and stinking up the game. That only happens, though, when they’re not removed from the action by a savvy coach, or when they don’t listen to my warnings to calm down. It’s far more satisfying to manage a game well than it is to have to show a red card, which somehow feels like a disappointing admission of defeat for all concerned. 

Final score: 5-2 (5 x yellow, 1 x yellow-red)

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.