If the ref is the reason you lost, you were close enough to lose for a lot of other reasons too.

REFLECTION

WHAT THIS MEANS

A single call only decides a game that was already a coin flip. Everything that made it that close is also on the list: the chances missed earlier, the slow start, the lead you let shrink. Blaming the official is tempting because it is tidy and external, and it removes forty other moments from review. Those moments are the only ones you can do anything about.

After the next bad call, give yourself one minute of complaining and then name two things from the first half that put you within a whistle of losing. Work on one in practice. The referee will not improve for you, but that margin can.

A QUESTION TO SIT WITH

Besides the officials, what else nearly cost you that match?

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