A clip from the French Ligue 1 clash between Lyon and Marseille has gone viral because of it showing fans what the game is like from a referee’s perspective. Jerome Brisard was mic’d up for the tie, and his interaction with Leonardo Balerdi and former Arsenal teammates, Alexis Sanchez and Alexandre Lacazette, has done the rounds on Twitter.
Dubbed the Derby des Olympiques, both teams were hoping for a big result, with Marseille looking to cement their position in the Champions League qualification spots, while Lyon looked to end the season as strongly as possible. The tie finished 2-1 to Marseille following a calamitous own goal in added time, with Lyon dropping to eighth in the table as a result. But one of the other memorable instances in the match involved the referee’s words with Belardi and Lacazette, a conversation which has since been shared on social media. Clearly unhappy with both players, Brisard calls them over for a chat and quickly lays down his authority. Lacazette starts complaining, only for the referee to sharply say: “I’m the one who’s going to talk. Not you.” He then turns his attention to the Marseille players who are starting to swarm around him, including Lacazette’s former teammate Sanchez, who is succinctly told: “I don’t need you.” “Go back, I only want the two of them. We are wasting time,” he continues to say to another Marseille player, Valentin Rongier. “Move away please. I asked you to move away.” With the unnecessary players dealt with, he turns his attention to Lacazette and Belardi. “There are 12 minutes left, plus added time,” he says. “I need calm. There’s been no trouble since the start, I trust you both." As they back away from the referee though, tempers start to flare again between Laca and Belardi, something which Brisard immediately deals with. “Look at me,” he shouts. “Can I trust you? Are you sure?” A short remark to his refereeing team follows, but Brisard handled the situation superbly
It is not the first time a video of a mic’d up referee has gone viral, with Ligue 1 giving us an insight into a similar situation just weeks ago. L’Equipe reported last month that the French Football Federation are trialling the system as an attempt to modernize refereeing, something they put into practice in Lyon's match against Nantes. Before that, Australia’s A-League went viral for sharing a conversation between the on-field referee and the VAR team when awarding a penalty kick.
Source: GiveMeSport