Nothing compels a man to referee at the level of theChampions League.
But put yourself in the shoes of Peter Rasmussen, the reffor the big game on Tuesday night in England between Manchester City and AjaxAmsterdam. The pendulum swung both ways, as first City made mistakes thatinvited the Dutch to steal two goals, then the home side, encouraged by afrenzied crowd, scored once, twice, and then went flat-out for a match winnerthat would keep the team in the tournament.
If you are the ref, two more times City screams at you.First there is the claim that Sergio Aguero scored a third City goal, but you,and your linesman, ruled it offside.
Then, in the last seconds of added time, perhaps as youglance at your watch, City’s Mario Balotelli falls to ground in the goalmouth.His shirt is pulled by the Ajax defender Ricardo van Rhijn, but perhaps you didnot see that, or possibly you saw that Balotelli also had a hand thrust intovan Rhijn’s neck? Or maybe, for all anyone watching in the stadium or via TVknows, you had decided that time was up anyway, before they got to grips withone another.
Anyway, your line judge and the extra assistant refereepositioned beside the goal post did not signal a penalty infringement. So youblow the final whistle, and mayhem breaks out.
Balotelli, built like a heavyweight boxer, is in your face.Other City players are shouting abuse at you, quite possibly in a babble oflanguages that nothing in your job as a salesman in Denmark prepares you for.
The players of City are enraged, but then their coach, theItalian Roberto Mancini, strides onto the field and waves an admonishing fingerin your direction. “The referee and the linesman,” Mancini later said, “theyare very bad. I did not see that Mario was held, but I told the ref it was agoal by Sergio, and not offside.”
The wrath of players and coaches, in a moment of a failurethat is likely to prove hugely costly to their careers, is a menacing sight.Give Mancini a cold shower, or half an hour to cool his ire, and the chancesare that he will rationalize that even the costliest of players, just likereferees, make mistakes.
The defeat that City suffered in Amsterdam two weeks ago,coupled with the 2-2 draw, almost certainly means that Mancini’s team will beeliminated from the Champions League. It has two games to play in the group stage,but it would have to beat Real Madrid in Manchester and then defeat BorussiaDortmund in Germany to stand any chance of qualifying.
“It’s over for us,” Mancini concedes. “We cannot qualify.”That is failure, given the hundreds of millions of dollars pumped into City byits owner. The inability to overcome Ajax, a side built at a fraction of thecost, will be taken into account “ and the two goals scored after corner kicksby the Ajax captain Siem de Jong were examples of City’s unpreparedness to defendadequately.
