I did not realize I had not posted anything since February. Frankly a LOT has happened. But the main reason I did not post anything lately was something that happened in May. It was something catastrophic to my psyche but looking at it now that it is 5 months in the rear view mirror, it is something that can happen to anyone.
It was during a high school match. I thought I was having a fairly good spring high school season. It was the playoffs and it was a decent game. They went to overtime and without going into too much detail lest this somewhat anonymous mirror into the reffing world gets decrypted, I made a huge mistake when it comes to the application of the rules.
So yes, for a while, I was not taking many matches and let the shame wash over me over and over. I replayed the evening in my head thinking how I could have resolved this better. The truth is that I misread the rules of competition and where I thought I was right, I was not and was told that I was an embarrassment to the organization and felt like quitting right then and there.
But in spanish we say "La vida da revancha" which can mean that life gives you a rematch or revenge or something along those lines. A couple of weeks after this low, I was asked to do a match for this adult league where there are a lot of players that were quite good in their prime. A semi-pro league that had many good players, a lot of man management.
We arrive for the matches and the first match is the first semi-final of the league. Great game, 2-2 tie, goes to PKs. Then my match is starting and I see that they are setting up speakers and some sort of commentary booth and I later find out that the match is being streamed live on Facebook and that there are 35,000 people on the stream from all over the world. I won't go again into too much detail of who so as to leave this somewhat anonymous. They had a commentator streaming the game live and talking over the loudspeakers. There were about 200 people in the stands, something I was not expecting and then another several thousand over the internet. And I reffed what I though was one of the best matches of my life. I was everywhere along with my ARs. We worked fantastic as a team, I was able to man-manage situations where any other day, it would have gotten out of control quickly or with someone who reffed to the letter of the law and not to the spirit of the game. And when it was done, another PK shootout (one that I did not botch) and redemption.
To make matters more grandiose, it turns out that one of the players was the brother of a player who starts today for FC Barcelona in Spain. Again, won't say who because then it becomes very googleable but the brother was also a pro player back in the day. And just like that, I was back. After all the doubts, after all my beating myself up, I realized something that I learned the first time I ever did any sort of officiating.
Back before my being a referee, in 1994, I was a tennis umpire and the first time I did anything like that, I did a Davis Cup tie. The Davis Cup would send an impartial umpire that would call the match but would meet with the line judges and I remember this umpire from Cuba like it was yesterday. He said that if there is only one thing that you remember about what we spoke about that day, the first day I dipped my toe into the world of officiating at any level, was that the most important call was the next one. I have to say, that his comment helped me get through the rough time while I pondered whether to continue or not. Yes, the most important call will always be the next one.
