Live Bar November 15, almost all children want to become C Ronaldo and Messi, but 13-year-old British boy Freddie Fraser wants to become Michael Oliver.
The Athletic organized a unique video interview with 13-year-old young referee Freddie Fraser and Fraser's idol, Premier League veteran referee Michael Oliver.
Oliver will hardly be interviewed, so this chat is a rare opportunity to get to know Oliver.
VAR can only be a good thing
OLIVER: VAR can only be a good thing, I'm pretty sure, and it's improved this year.
People think everything has to be perfect, but that's not possible because you'll always have a subjective field. But with VAR, you have a greater chance of getting things right.
As a referee, you can only see one perspective, you won't always be in the best view, and sometimes you have to make a solid guess based on 95% of the information. So VAR can only be a good thing, but there won't be utopias, it won't be a situation where everyone agrees on one point of view. I also don't want that to happen, I think it would be boring.
I'm a Newcastle fan
OLIVER: Craig Bellamy is incredibly difficult. You will find that teams are difficult to entangle, because at any level of competition it is the same, it is impossible for one team to win before the game, and all the teams are not used to losing, and their level of frustration will gradually become higher. But if there's one player alone, it's Bellamy.
I watched him play for two or three years because I'm a Newcastle fan and you want him to be on the team you support because he's a winner. But for the referee, he's a nightmare because he argues about everything. If you tell him it's black, he'll tell you it's actually white.
Referees should be humble and must accept that they may be wrong
OLIVER: You have to retain a certain level of humility and accept the fact that you may be wrong.
Because if you look around and keep saying, 'I'm right, you're wrong,' you lose respect. Especially when you get to know the players, that helps a lot. After enforcing more than 300 Premier League games, everyone knows you and you know everyone.
You say with humility, 'It's not necessarily right, but it's my decision, this is why I made this decision.' If it ends up being wrong, I apologize. Similarly, every time they say 'I'm sorry, I might be mistaken' in an argument, it has a negative impact because it means they start to lose trust in you. So it's about timing when you're making those less necessary decisions, a ball 90 yards out of bounds that nobody really cares about. So when a player is arguing and says to you, 'I'm sorry, your decision may have been wrong,' it's not a bad thing.
The first thing to do when I get home is to review
OLIVER: The first thing I did when I came home from the game was to look for the video of the game, and you know there are some important things to confirm. The ball was 90 yards out of bounds and I wanted to blow it right, but even if it was wrong it didn't bother me very much because I had more important things to worry about. For example, if someone orders the ball in a game, then I will verify this point. At the same time, our evaluation system will go through all the blows, and I came this afternoon. After checking the important penalty, if there is any small problem, I will go back and look at it.
A game with 50 fans is harder than a game with 50,000 people
OLIVER: You have to learn to deal with it. It's harder to blow a game with 50 fans than to blow a game with 50,000 fans because you can hear every word the fans shout. And at Old Trafford, you just think of it as a background sound. Unless they sing the same song en masse, that's just sound. At the same time, you are at least 15 to 20 meters away from the fans, so you can't hear the specific speech of one of the 75,000 people.
Once you start questioning your decisions, mistakes come one after another
OLIVER: If the fans start chanting, it's because something is not working against them, or they don't think they're getting what they deserve. When the fans start singing, your sentence may be right, but the human mind automatically assumes 'I must have made some mistake'. At this time, you have to have the mental strength to stop this thought, you have to be clear about what you see, why you are doing it.
Fans are usually not educated about the rules of the game and they will certainly want their home team to have more vested interests. But if you let that affect you, then your next sentence will be flawed, with songs and shouts and your doubts about yourself constantly pouring into your head. You'll feel for yourself that a lot of times when you award corners and free kicks, you say 'that could be wrong' and then you pray that they don't score because of this corner or free kick, but nobody cares about your prayers. The most important thing is that you have enough strength to make sure that you don't make a second or even a third mistake in a row afterwards.
Besiktas' pitch is probably the loudest
OLIVER: It's harder than blowing the league, you don't know the players, the players don't know you. All of them speak English, but they speak better English when they want to talk to you, not when you want to talk to them.
I remember four years ago unless Besiktas vs Olympiacos, the match was played in Turkey, and Besiktas led 2-0. We had earpieces that fit perfectly to the ears, but I had to have ear cotton in my other ear during that game, otherwise I wouldn't be able to hear the sound in the headset. It's probably the loudest pitch I know, and you really can't hear what people are saying to your ears.
The referee must "market" your decision
OLIVER: When I first started refereeing, my dad came to see me and he always said , 'You've been whistling for too long'. If you raise your hand to your mouth, it gives the impression that you're not quite sure, as if you're a player or a fan or coach. Now that my performance is closer to the subconscious, you have to get used to making your movements faster and have to "sell" your decisions.
I love the most important games, the greatest pressure gives me the greatest satisfaction
OLIVER: I watched the game on TV and Clattenburg did a great job, it was a really great experience. There were no interruptions in this game, it was the best Premier League football and a lot of things happened in the game. For me, I like the most important races because it gives me the most pressure and at the same time you get the most satisfaction from them. For example, at the Manchester Derby last Saturday, even though I didn't do much, you can say you did.
I've had the privilege of blowing two FA Cup finals, which is the match I think unless. Last week I was chatting with my boss, Mike Riley, and we talked about adrenaline, and he knew it was the thing I needed most to push me forward. There are a lot of difficult situations in a game, maybe you still have to blow a half-hour game after making a mistake. I've blown the Liverpool vs Manchester City game, it's at liverpool home and the atmosphere at Anfield is always great. You can feel the pressure constantly and I think I need that adrenaline on race day.
(Shirakawa)