Game Concentration

In this article, I would like to talk about the difference between game concentration and tournament concentration and game concentration in general. While in Beijing, during the games, I tried to observe the game concentration of me and my colleagues.

I personally find it difficult to concentrate on a game per week. The reason for this is, you don’t referee for a week and after a tiring travel (in my country the nearest game is 8 hrs by bus), you immediately start with a game. Sometimes the game is so easy that you may think refereeing this game is unnecessary. Imagine yourself traveling 16 hours by bus and the game ends with 50 points difference. Sometimes the game is so difficult; you can’t adapt yourself to the game for many reasons. It can be personal problems, health etc. And when you add not knowing the partners you are assigned with, the task gets even more difficult.

I prefer refereeing tournaments. Before going to an international tournament, a month or 15 days before, I start surfing the country and the city. If it is a country where English is not the mother tongue, I try to learn simple phrases and words of the language spoken. Like greetings or basic vocabulary you need in a country. For example before going to Beijing , I have learnt simple Chinese. Like “thank you”, “good game” etc. But what I want to emphasize is that you have to concentrate yourself not only to the game but also to the country you referee at. You should be able adapt yourself to the country as quick as possible like you have to do in a game. I believe my refereeing gets better after every game in a tournament. Because the more you referee, the more feedback you receive from your colleagues, supervisors, even players and coaches. It’s a continuous learning process for me. And if you can take these comments as positive and put more on your refereeing, the outcome is better concentration to the games and tournament in general. But sometimes when a referee has a bad game or when he is not assigned to the game he expects, he may lose his game/tournament concentration. Occasionally, you can see referees getting disappointed and frustrated. They sometimes protest their colleagues and supervisors and don’t act with the group. This is mostly true for referees who cannot be objective about their refereeing, who are not open to criticism or who believe the supervisor is not fair. Some referees tend to think they are the best referees and always have to referee the best game of the day. On the other hand, the supervisors have the responsibility to train new referees, or to see if some certain referees can handle a difficult game, even they have to consider yesterday’s and tomorrow’s games. Moreover, it is like a tradition to assign a referee from the organizing country to the final unless the organizer is playing it. These are some of the reasons why they say “Not the best referees referee the final!”

Every referee must learn to concentrate himself on the game. You can develop your own style of concentration to the game. We can talk about 3 stages of refereeing. Before, during and after the game. Every referee has his own way of concentration before a game. Some listen to music, some watch CDs, some train, some don’t even think about the game. During the game, you can have inner talk to motivate yourself and pay attention. After the game, you can talk about the significant points in the game with your colleagues and this is also a part of concentration for the next game. What I do is very simple. I have an imagery game in my mind. The teams run on the court in my mind and I go with them. I don’t think of any calls or violations but I just visualize I’m on the court with players and the game flows. During the game, if I observe myself or any other colleague not concentrated, I motivate myself or him with words like “come on, get in the game! etc.” I never try to get disappointed if I miss something on court because of loss of concentration. I just try to keep up with the game.

As you know, every country has general style of play and in the Turkish League the players play from the heart and the game can be very difficult if you cannot control the game. I find it very difficult to adapt myself to the league when I come from abroad. After a good tournament, when I referee my first game in Turkey, I’m fully concentrated because I have a lot of information and motivation. However, this may backfire because of the refereeing and playing style that is already in the league. You may draw negative attention both from your referees and participants. It is really difficult to balance the way you referee in and outside the country. In fact this point needs to be explained in a separate article.

As a conclusion, game concentration is a very important part of refereeing. To have a game with less problems, all referees on court should be fully concentrated on what’s going on the court.