I don’t know if it’s because they believe it or because they fear it, if they really think that Mateu Lahoz he is one of the best referees or if, by affirming it, they try to appease his fury. He said that Xavi Hernandez in the run-up to the derby against Espanyol (“I like it because it talks, says what it feels and tells you why it whistles what it whistles& rdquor;) and it has been repeated, throughout his career as a referee, by prominent figures What Mourinho or Ancelotti, who came to affirm that he was the best in the world. In fact, unlike other haughty referees, Mateu Lahoz could militate on the side of the tolerant, of the dialoguing. One of the characteristics that define him is that he treats footballers like you. I want to say that addresses Neymar as Ney, to speak of one, because, in fact, his philosophy as a judge is concentrated in this maxim: “If I can, I help; I am a person who is working with other people & rdquor ;. He has that perception of football as a spectacle or as a generator of emotions. The players and the referees, seen as operators who manufacture illusions, all as one. The difference is that some play and others command and whistle and impart, let’s put it that way, justice. That is, the relationship is not balanced. And that’s when all of a sudden The face of ‘Mr’ Hyde appears in the mild-mannered Dr. Jeckyll. Thinking about the show, Mateu Lahoz puts aside camaraderie and good vibes, his natural tendency to sentimentality, and becomes a real crazy machine to show cards, as if he were a textile salesman. He has just broken a world record: in the last two games that he refereed, he showed thirty-two, which is a real refereeing outrage. Two far from trivial games, like the quarterfinals of a World Cup (Argentina-Netherlands) and the Barcelona derby on the 31st. When does this happen and when, furthermore, the display of yellow and red is concentrated in the final stretch of the match, then the feeling is that the referee has lost the papers. In Qatar, he outraged each other. The Argentines complained of partiality and the Dutch too, and Messi confessed that they were already afraid before the game (“Because we knew what it was like & rdquor;) and later reduced it to ashes: “It is not up to the task & rdquor;. If the two opponents speak ill of the referee, there is a theory that says that it is a sign of his good work, but it could also be that he enters into a loop of judicial despair that makes him the protagonist of the show. Sometimes, without even being aware of the madness and foolishness. When the Barça coach reproached him that the game had gotten out of hand, without control, Mateu Lahoz replied: “Do you think so? Really? & rdquor ;. It was Xavi himself who, in a fit of his own, he had hugged and kissed a few minutes before, in an unusual gesture.
Acting as a referee is not easy and perhaps that is why it is understood that tension can cause temporary dementia. because it turns out that Mateu Lahoz is a sensible and calm guy, that lives in Algimia de Alfara, a small Valencian town of just over a thousand inhabitants, with Roman and Arab vestiges, near Sagunt, surrounded by friends who They call him Tono. He says that he worked as a seasonal worker for the orange to be able to buy some sports shoes and that he played as a midfielder, when he still had a shock of blond hair and not the bald head that now defines him, with the Estivella CF. This is the origin of a circumstance that marked him as a young man. Intending to bring home money, he decided to go harvest olives instead of showing up to play on the field. It was a Sunday afternoon. His father, Pepe, reproached him for this lack of responsibility and they fought. The next day, Monday, his father died suddenly. That episode was initiatory, that is, Mateu Lahoz understood, since then, bitterly, that the commitments were sacred. Perhaps for this reason, too, and for that lack of sentimentality that we mentioned before, when a game that he referees is about to start, when the cameras sweep the protagonists from right to left, he always winks: an intimate message to his mother, Mrs. Lola, to tell her that everything is fine. Everything is going well until the monster of the cards is unleashed, in a kind of animal drive. Mateo, the one who gets emotional and cries, the one who talks and gesticulates, cannot avoid the clamor of the jungle. Not even he himself is aware of the bewilderment and chaos. Like a curse.