Top referee Felix Brych sees increased demands on the referees in the ever faster professional business. “In today’s high-speed football, it’s impossible to see everything. I whistled my biggest decisions into doubt,” said the former world referee of the German Press Agency. “Some things you have to feel and decide based on other parameters or indicators. The better the preparation, the better my feeling for the situation.”
The doctorate in law reports on his life as a referee in his book “From a short distance”, which will be published this Thursday. “We make about 220 decisions per game. If I just work through all of that, I won’t make it. And by no means all decisions are 100-0, because there are also decisions in the gray area. The teams have to have the feeling that I’m making them treat the same,” said Munich. He has been in charge of Bundesliga games since 2004 – and he plans to do the same for the new season. Internationally, the multiple European Championship and World Cup referee is no longer in action.
Brych attaches particular importance to game preparation. In addition, there are many small things that can decide on the success or failure of the referees outside of the rules. “A referee wins games with the things you can’t see. The first moment in the dressing room is very important, how you stand there, how you face the players,” said the 47-year-old. “The decisions have to be right anyway. But you win the really big games with the things you can’t see.”
Brych rates the training for referees in Germany as good. But that alone is not enough for everything. “If you as an individual athlete, and that’s how I see the referee, want to reach a special level, you have to do more than the everyday,” said Brych. “I like to take Olympic luge champion Georg Hackl as an example. He also tinkered with the sled night after night to get the decisive tenths out of it.”
Homepage Brych Brych at the DFB Referee at the DFB Information about the book at the publisher Contact Bavarian Football Association with Felix Brych
