Ovrebo catapulted from obscurity to notoriety

SIDELINE CUT: Wednesday night's drama merely confirmed the lot of the modern referee is an unenviable one.

FOOTBALL REFEREES are going to be jumping to officiate at Chelsea games after this. Who needs a death wish when all you have to do is get on Didier Drogba's goat? It seems that you are better off insulting the Cosa Nostra than falling foul of the players and fans at Stamford Bridge; the Norwegian referee Tom Henning Ovrebo joins Sweden's Anders Frisk on the list of officials who have received death threats after failing to meet the Blues' standards of fair play and true justice.

Ovrebo found himself in an extraordinary situation in London on Wednesday evening and as he stood there trying to avoid the naked rage of an assortment of Chelsea millionaire footballers, football fans around the world must once again have asked the question that such flare-ups will always raise; what compels people to become referees?

Think of how bizarrely Ovrebo's life has turned. Before last Wednesday's semi-final, he was living a normal life, working as a psychologist in Oslo and pursuing his interest in football officiating at a respectable if obscure level. He may well have been in the therapy room, perhaps trying to persuade a respected Norwegian concert pianist that there was no real danger of his Steinway turning to water during his performance, when his telephone rang to inform him that he had been chosen to officiate at Chelsea v Barcelona, leg two.

It was a surprise to learn Uefa give referees just two days notice of their appointment. Still, it must have been a hectic and exciting 48 hours, what with his uniform to be pressed, whistles to polish, pencil to sharpen and all the rest of it. Flying into London, booking into his hotel, inspecting the ground and maybe spending an hour wandering through the National Portrait Gallery or enjoying the sights in Trafalgar Square, Mr Ovrebo was just another visitor in London on Wednesday afternoon. By midnight, though, he had become a figure of notoriety.

The best a football referee can hope for is to perform in front of televised audiences of tens of millions and remain utterly unnoticed. In a strange way, the referee is the mortal representative in the galaxy of superstars that make up the world's best football teams. Mr Ovrebo was in charge of a match featuring Messi, Iniesta, Drogba, Ballack, Malouda, Essien; names that are in bright lights across the world and supreme athletes as well as football players.

Mr Ovrebo, fit enough to keep up with the play but beefy in frame and heavy in his running style, gave thousands of couch fans an idea of what it might look like if they themselves were out there, playing among the best football players on earth. Maybe that is the thrill of refereeing at the elite level; the sense of moving through the highest standard of the game and facilitating the flow by keeping the stars in line, by communicating what will and will not be tolerated; the conductor of the orchestra - except that afterwards, nobody applauds you.

Being a football referee must be a lonely business; temporarily he exists in the same bubble as the most feted young stars in the game but his reality is not theirs. The players are the stars, the ones that the crowd have come to cheer and adore and, whether in victory or defeat, they have the security of not only their individual skill and fame but the sense of belonging to a team.

That is why the sight of Didier Drogba pouring scorn and anger down on Mr Ovrebo looked so disturbing on Wednesday; the argument was utterly one-sided. Ovrebo's final attempt to restore order through his role as referee, when he flashed a yellow card at the incandescent Drogba minutes after the match had ended, looked so futile that it became a pathetic gesture. But what else could he do, besides engaging in a full on row with the player? Drogba had on his side his finely-honed persecution complex, his ample frustrations and a stadium full of emotionally charged Chelsea fans, a small number of whom might well have taken their lead from the behaviour of their stars, in particular Drogba, who abdicated all his professional responsibilities in the heat of the moment.

On some level, the exhibition of wanton, apoplectic rage as expressed by Drogba and Michael Ballack was understandable. It must seem to players that referees are put on earth mainly to foil their paths to greatness, as irritants. Playing at Stamford Bridge, the Chelsea players might have expected to get whatever breaks were on offer from this novice official. In the aftermath, it was forgotten that Mr Ovrebo had sent Barcelona's Eric Abidal to the line with 25 minutes remaining. Instead, his decision to wave away three Chelsea penalty claims of substance became a source of increasing distraction and anger to the home team as Barcelona continued to probe and look for weaknesses in the blue wall. There was a peculiar exchange minutes before the furore, when Barca coach Pep Guardiola put his arm around Chelsea's Gus Hiddink and said something which caused the senior man to smile appreciatively.

It looked like a sporting admission of defeat but in retrospect, it looks like a sucker punch. For the match was not quite over. And about 100 seconds later, Guardiola was smiling, careering along the touch line in madcap joy while Hiddink stood stunned and stony faced. As Mr Ovrebo pointed to the centre circle and recorded Iniesta's late goal, he must have known he was about to face unpleasant music.

Deep down, he must already have known that he had botched several penalty calls - perhaps caused by his determination not to be swayed by the swelling of the Stamford Bridge roar with every challenge on a player in blue.

Three years ago, Anders Frisk felt compelled to go into retirement following the repercussions of his handling of a Chelsea-Barcelona game, after then Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho insinuated that the referee had invited Barcelona manager Frank Rijkaard into his dressing room for a half-time talk. Frisk was something of a showman, one of those officials sufficiently fond of themselves to be deluded into thinking they are part of the entertainment, but was alienated enough to leave the game.

Ovrebo must have been cut from a different cloth. It was mad stuff, watching him alter his course as he tried to leave the pitch in order to try and avoid the accusations led by Drogba. It could be that his day-time job as a psychologist helped him to understand that Drogba was not really railing against him personally, that he was just another figure in black who stood between the egos and ambitions of an elite football team bred to believe that the world is theirs for the taking.

By the time he got back to the relative sanity of Norway, he must have been a tired man. It is unlikely he will feature in the Champions League again but he has become a reluctant star in a match that will not be forgotten around Chelsea for many years.