Follow today’s live broadcast of England vs. Netherlands in the Euro 2024 semi-finals
The budding star at this summer’s European Championships only played her first match on Monday.
ITV referee analyst Christine Onkel interviewed Competitor Then set off for Berlin to participate in a media competition with the BBC. First, she’ll have a coffee with Jill Scott – one of the players she used to book as an elite referee and now a colleague – who will be on hand to cover England’s semi-final against the Netherlands on Wednesday. She was involved in all the matches and highlights during the ITV Championship.
It’s a miracle she found the time. Unkel is also the president of the Tampa Bay Sun, a new team that begins its first season in the USL Premier League in August, as well as a fitness app founder and litigation attorney. She is well known to US audiences, having been featured in football coverage on Fox, CBS and Paramount Plus, but Euro 2024 marked her breakthrough in the UK, where she has won widespread praise for her calm authority.
The 37-year-old is extremely intelligent and her contributions are often the most eye-catching part of ITV’s half-time and post-match coverage. Onkel is regularly challenged by pundits Gary Neville, Ian Wright, Roy Keane and Angie Postkoglu, who may be aware of football’s ever-changing laws but still dislike them all .
“That’s the whole reason I did it in the first place,” she said. “I encouraged them. Everybody would say, ‘I feel like they’re beating you.’ “Not at all! Ask me questions! If they as professional footballers are struggling with these issues, then the general public is struggling too.
“If I just wanted to collect a salary and go out, I might have daunted. But these are the opportunities I want. These are the things IFAB (International Football Association Board, the game’s legislators) probably need to hear from the football community dialogue.
“Their understanding of football is very high, but sometimes they don’t even know – and that’s a given – some of our nuances. You can look at the rules of the game, but the nuances or applications (what I call Case application) not included.
Winkel began his refereeing career at the age of 10. She was treated more kindly by the judges when she came on – she said she wasn’t sure she would have stayed in the game if she hadn’t – and when faced with any sexist abuse about her return to the kitchen, she was Critics were dismissive, hoping her critics would come up with something more creative.
First, she focused on becoming the kind of official she aspired to be as a player.
“As a women’s soccer player, people are assigned to our games but either don’t take them seriously or don’t think it’s a big deal,” she said. “It drives me crazy that people don’t care about our game – because it’s a women’s game. We still deserve fair treatment and quality and care and attention. Sometimes you just remember how good the referees were. I always hope So remembered.
Unkel discovered after college that there was little infrastructure for women’s professional soccer in the United States. Playing abroad was not an option when wages were still so meager. Refereeing was the best way to stay involved – even though early in her officiating career the pay was so meager that she would actually be losing money by giving up her day job.
Her goal is to be able to referee for teams such as the U.S. Women’s National Team. These are the most exciting games of her career “because they create the environment. I’m a referee and obviously no one comes to see me except my parents, but in a way you’re that tapestry a part of”.
Christina Unkel in 2014 during her on-field refereeing career (Stanley Chou – FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images)
She made her television debut ahead of the 2019 Women’s World Cup, playing 53 games for Fox Sports. She joined Fox the day before the lineup was announced. That meant giving up her role on the FIFA panel, a sacrifice she was keen to do more than criticize her former colleagues. That’s why “the role is so taboo,” she said, although that stigma is changing.
“Not many people are playing this role the way I envision it, which is to educate the public,” she said. “If the referee’s call is correct, let’s break it down: this is the game, this is the law, this is the answer that should be given. Officials rarely get the wrong result out of pure abuse of the law. It’s easy to explain, and it doesn’t Ruin an official. My job is not to score the referee; my job is to interpret the law.
“When I took on this role, it did exclude some people. Some of my friends disagreed. When CBS picked her to cover the 2020 Champions League, they realized what she wanted to do. This time The competition highlights that this is worthwhile work.
“It’s a bit enlightening for me to see so many people trashing British referees, but they are actually some of the best referees in the tournament,” Winkel explained. “The real goal is to inspire people so they make a more educated opinion or decision.”
At ITV, she has a full-time video operator to help her select clips for analysis; for domestic competitions, she adjusts the best angles herself. The pair treat her secluded studio booth “as if I had walked into a VAR room” Unkel was one of the first referees to receive VAR training in 2017, with Howard Webb as her coach, and the pair She was very helpful.
At that training camp, she sat in the video operations booth with a timer in the corner of the footage she was watching. “At 10 or 15 seconds it goes from green to yellow and then to red at about 30 seconds. So it really does feel like you’re in a spy movie that’s about to explode.” Here’s what she explained during the competition Three to five seconds of adequate preparation for the decision. “Sometimes I have to break down some of the things I’ve learned in 20 years. What’s one or two really important things that you want people to take away so they can relate quickly without having to take all the officiating courses I’ve done?
“You know what kind of exam is being reviewed. “This is what I need to look at and this is what I need to break down. “Once I get the answer, I always say: ‘Let me in! Let me in!’ If they let me in before I get the answer, I will comment while looking for the answer: ‘VAR is looking. this the specific angle that will be shown this.‘I’m basically putting the audience through the exact same mental protocol that happens live.
One of the most controversial features of this World Cup is the semi-automatic offside, facilitated by extra cameras and body tracking technology, which prevented Belgium’s Romelu Lukaku from scoring three goals in the first two games.
“As a striker, I could never accept that kind of offside,” Wright said after Belgium’s 2-0 group-stage win over Romania. Unker went on to outline how certain players may need to adjust their running style to comply with the law. Tottenham boss Postkoglu also criticized the current laws, which punish things that would previously have been ignored. “I don’t think that’s why we introduced technology,” he said.
“We were in that Goldilocks phase of figuring out how to use our technology to improve the game,” Unkel says now. “Everybody hates toenail offside. Players hate it. Referees hate it. Fans hate it. Coaches hate it.
“We’re seeing these toenail offsides because of the laws and the technology that’s provided: semi-automatic offsides and dropped lines. In MLS, even today, they can’t afford those dropped lines. We at MLS The issue of toenail offside hasn’t come up in Major League Soccer because when you do VAR in MLS, if the score is really close and you can’t really tell, you just leave it alone. It still does and no one is upset about it. They might be off by a centimeter.
“And here we are Know They are one centimeter apart. This is where it gets really frustrating. I kind of laughed and argued: If competitors and competitions got rid of the offside line, they could save millions of dollars. This technology is indeed expensive. What’s important (in experts’ opinion) is that now you can give someone the ability to visually say: Does this make sense? So should it be withdrawn or not? How close is that?
The report exposed a gap between expectations for the technology and how it works in practice. Unkel is keen to point out that every legal change is well thought out and detailed; debates at major European events can speed up changes to the law, but generally speaking, adjustments take several years to be approved. They work through the Technical and Practical Advisory Committee, FIFA Directors, FIFA representatives, players, coaches and federations.
“When people say, ‘I didn’t expect that,’ you or someone on your coaching staff needs to pay attention to that because it does have an impact on how you prepare for the game or understand what it means,” Unkel said. “You can comment before it’s applied so we have a better understanding of how it will play in the game, rather than commenting after the fact.”
With Winkle’s help, they might be able to do just that.
(Above: ITV)
