We now look at the two men who have a great amount of influence on a game without even kicking the ball - coaches and referees. These two individuals can turn a game around by the blow of a whistle or the mere wave of a hand.
Over the years I have seen referees become more liberal on their interpretation of the laws of the game. This has(for some unknown reason)suddenly been changed by FIFA for this World Cup and one has to ask‘why’?
When I was a player you could not raise your hands to pull a shirt or to stop an opponent from beating you fairly. However over the last few years we have seen a decline in what is‘fair play’，what constitutes a foul and what doesn‘t.
For example - when a team is on the attack and wins a corner - we will see the big men come up for this. Within every league，especially in Europe，there is the shirt pulling，the wrestling，and the shoving that has become part and parcel of the game. Now we see referees going back to the rules which state a player cannot use their hands.
All of a sudden players are getting booked for fouls that they have gotten away with over a number of years. Why has this been lax for so long and discounted?As a winger and a small player these rules were to my benefit but over the last few years the smaller player has been handicapped by referees letting these sort of fouls go unpunished.
So as far as I‘m concerned it’s great to get back to the correct interpretation of fair play.
The Coaches
We see on the TV the coaches who really kick every ball with their players by the way they behave on the bench. They‘re up and down like pedantic madmen - shouting，talking to the 4 officials，screaming and looking harried to all and sundry. Not in my day!Coaches were very quiet and the only time you would hear from them was at half-time. Now you hear every word every second of the game. They are the people who make the changes and have to live with the consequences of what they call. Some times they’ll come off the hero and other times they‘ll be the worst villain the country has seen that season. Unfortunately when things hit a low we know the eventual outcome is’sacked‘。
We are now over the first round of results and we have as usual a number of shock results .and by the end of the tournament some Coaches will be looking for another job some will leave a country never to return. Who would ever want to be one of these officials and never kick a ball its beyond me.
John Deegan