Eduardo Iturralde González (Bilbao, 57 years old) is a record holder with legs, a whistle and now a microphone. Between 1995 and 2012, when he was active, he has been the referee who has whistled the most games in the First Division. With that advantage, he is also the one who has drawn the most cards and the one who has awarded the most penalties. Today, retired from the fields, he has not disengaged himself from the controversy and now continues to stir up the fields with his opinions as a commentator on the Chain Being and other means. His popularity as a referee had its days of torment, today, from the microphones, with his very personal way of seeing football and life, he goes down very well.
Ask. Son and grandson of referees. No one can say that he did not enter his profession warned…
Answer. Yes, but you get into this for family or money…
Q. How do you say…?
R. Let me explain… At 15 years old and many start, you play two games on the weekend and you still get 70 or 80 euros to go out for a drink and you are the leader of the team. What family gives a kid that much money a week?
Q. Ah okay.
R. The key then is to differentiate between those who truly feel the arbitration or those who do it, well, for money.
Q. And did you feel it was a vocation?
R. Yes Yes. When you are on the field, you enjoy it as another way to get into football because, in the end, it is a sport, eh.
Q. What did you love most as a child? Rigor or justice?
R. Mine is curious… What I have always liked is anarchism.
Q. Your thing is to make him look at it, then.
R. Well yes, because I am in that contradiction. As an ideology I like anarchism, not as chaos, but as a way of conceiving individual responsibility. However, I have made my living enforcing rules.
Q. Strongly, too. You have been the one who has gotten the most red and yellow cards.
R. And the one who has called the most penalties! But I liked to talk a lot with the players. It’s a matter of character, we don’t all have the same one. Each player should study the referee in question so they are not surprised later.
Q. Did they know you well?
R. Clear! But they respected me more than feared me. I talked to them, but they knew I wasn’t going to keep the cards either.
Q. Is there some masochism in refereeing? Knowing that one is going to go out into a field to be insulted, I don’t know if everyone would like it.
R. Arbitration should be a branch of psychology. Decision-making comes to us very early and that creates a shell. When you leave it, that shell disappears and you think: Oysters! And me, how have I done it? You are not aware of everything that football shakes up.
Q. What moves football?
R. A bit of everything. Feelings, which is the worst. Why does calling or not giving a penalty generate those feelings? Enter the irrational. And we can’t do anything there.
Q. Have you thought about what it takes to be aware that you are going to be permanently insulted by a crowd and still continue?
R. You have to really like your job, try not to doubt yourself. Knowing that the path is what it is and the rest is noise. If you start paying attention to the noise, you are lost. But you have to accept what the fan cannot tolerate: that you are going to make mistakes. The most difficult thing is, for example, getting the player to accept that you fail.
Q. What is more difficult to hold in your head? The wait before a big game or the game itself?
R. The wait… When the ball rolls, you calm down, that knot in your stomach goes away. You walk in your midst, in the jungle that you dominate.
Q. What advice did your grandfather and his father give you?
R. Let it be me, what we were talking about about the noise and the road. Also to talk to people who know your language. Ask and seek advice from those who have been in your shoes.
Q. Now you can also ask the VAR.
R. The thing is that the VAR has been that great gift that we expected in kings and it disappoints us. We thought it was going to lead us to achieving zero error. But when the rules can be interpreted, that is not 100% the case. Especially when we don’t want justice, but benefits.
Q. In a field that is obvious. Also which players are honest and which are not?
R. Yes, well, in our way of being we can deceive.
Q. Isn’t football based on deception? What is it but a dribble other than making the opponent believe that the ball is going to go one way and take it another way?
R. Yes, but under a rule. One thing is deception through a dribble and another is cheating. Jump, simulate.
Q. Wasn’t it simulated more before, without cameras?
R. No, now it happens more, because they look for contact to throw themselves. They do it so well that it is pure theater. The problem is that the person harmed by this action is not the referee, but another teammate.
Q. How does a referee train?
R. As an athlete, many sprints and a lot of long distance running. Coming to the situation with a physical deficit causes you to fail. But what you have to prepare the most is your head, not your physique. And so…
Q. What hurts more? The mind or the body?
R. The doubts. A referee is a person who wants to make sense of the doubt. That torments you. Find the reason for that doubt. Why I haven’t seen it. When you see your mistake and think… I’ve been there and I haven’t seen it. These are questions that have no answers.
Q. Don’t fans sometimes give that answer?
R. In the field you notice whether you have failed or not as the murmurs grow louder or quieter. And this is how you must know how to resist, when due to the intensity of the murmurs you discover that you could have been wrong. That’s where you see a good referee, in that resistance to pressure.
Q. To what extent does abuse of authority destroy a party?
R. Very much. You must work on that. You will see who is better, when it comes to knowing how to manage the referee’s power on a field, which is total. In this country, anyway, anyone who wears a cap gets it on their head. You must know that the power does not belong to you. The regulation does not belong to the referees, it belongs to football. We interpret it, you should not seize it.
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