If You’re Not The Ref, Lose The Whistle

Nothing perks my ears up like the laces of a soccer player’s cleats properly connecting with the ball. Over a decade of playing the sport has trained my ears to pick it up as if it were a family member’s voice. It’s similarly unmistakable and heart-warming, in this case because it means any combination of passes, tricks, shouts, and more have come together to create a moment where someone must risk something to change the game and, as a result, leave a team better or worse off once that ball flies away. Imagine my surprise when I heard that sound, and saw all the chemistry that preceded it, play out in the beta of Rematch.

A soccer game from the people who made martial arts action hit Sifu was bound to be an interesting experiment, but I was still taken aback by how well they captured the sport’s spirit. Similar to the aforementioned game, there is a genuine sense of risk and reward in each play. It’s not simply a matter of letting people shoot at the goals – Rematch requires the playmaking and quick decision-making that births champions. It demands that you actually aim when you pass the ball if you don’t want to turn it over and put your goalie in a compromising position. It forces you to understand positioning and pay attention to how a team morphs its shape throughout a game. Most relevantly, it rewards communication that brings teammates into alignment on how they’re going to score the next goal or defend their 1-point lead.

Rematch lets players communicate in the same ways many multiplayer games mechanically do, but its dedication to replicating soccer has made a couple of things stand out. First, it has the button-input choices that include the options “Sorry,” “We’ve got this,” “Good job,” and “Thanks,” as well as variations of asking for a pass based on where you are on the field. I couldn’t help but smile every time someone else used the “Sorry” line. It was not only often used in the right context, but also it was incredible to see how accountable people were quick to be.

The visibility of each mistake likely plays a part in that. While I’m not someone who watches team sports, or could even name a player who doesn’t appear in a TV commercial or Space Jam, one of my favorite things about them is that you can see everyone at any time. It’s hard to hide a mistake, and it’s especially hard to hide a mistake when your teammates are watching you just as hard as any referee. To me, this is part of the fun, playing in an environment where success often necessitates investing in your teammate’s performance and potential improvement, but another less-fun aspect of soccer that has bled into its realistic digital clone is the tendency for some players to act like a referee.

The other method of communication that happens in Rematch is voice chat, and players talk almost exactly like they do on the grass. I heard “What are you doing?!” and “Damn that was nice.” I heard “GOOOOOOOAAAAL!” And I heard a lot of “Pass already!” The unique thing about the latter is that in a couple of matches, it was followed by threats to report the ball hog. In case you’ve never seen a sport played before, usually only a referee has the power to expel a player from a match, not other players. To put it plainly, this isn’t just unnecessary on the would-be reporter’s part. This attitude is both at odds with the spirit of Rematch and reeks of the punishment-obsessed culture found in the United States.

Yes, ball hogs are annoying. Yes, they cost games in very tangible ways. Yes, a good coach will usually pull a ball hog if they’re losing too much or affecting the team’s morale. But no referee worth their whistle would ever expel a player for not passing the ball. It’s not illegal to be a bad player. Plus, sometimes a ball hog isn’t even really a ball hog, but someone who must finally put theory into practice and hold the ball a bit longer than usual. It’s not illegal to test things out either. So, to hear a random player threaten another with expulsion, in a beta that notably doesn’t have a referee and gleefully ignores other rules like offside and fouls, was deeply ironic. It’s laughable, but arguably also harmful. Acting like a ref is not just a matter of potentially making teammates turn off voice chat and missing out on info more valuable than a “We’ve got this!” It creates a hostile environment for mistakes, an inevitability in any game for beginners and experts alike.

This is especially out of place in a game like Rematch. The most impressive trick the game pulls off is that it reflects a scrimmage, a.k.a practice matches, more than an actual match. Scrimmages can be many things depending on a team’s needs, but before all else, they are a time to experiment. They are where you test out new formations, try out a move you’d been practicing solo for weeks, or run half a field in another player’s position to better understand it. They are often where people can play the game simply for the sake of the game. In a nutshell, scrimmages are fun! While they don’t magically make refusing to pass the ball any less grating, there is no better place to try and get away with it. And there is no worse place for a player who wants to play referee. They rule the fun out.

This mindset is even offensive when taken off the pitch. Depending on the context, referee here can be replaced with cop to describe those eager to overly punish people for actions within their rights. It can be seen when an elected official speaks outside the bounds of their role and calls for citizens to be deported. It can be seen when people give in to transphobia, hurting both trans and cis people alike in an attempt to enforce traditional gender norms. Anywhere you look, you can find someone who wants to twist rules or create them on the spot to get what they want. This isn’t to equate the stakes of scoring a goal and fighting against injustice, or the effects of a bad call between a referee versus a cop, but the same lesson applies: blowing a whistle you don’t own on someone willing to try is misguided at best, abusive at worst. This isn’t coming from a love for refs – I’ve been burned by many, many bad calls – but an understanding that no one is helped from severe overreach.

So if you ever find yourself in Rematch repeatedly calling for a pass from a teammate who is facing two defenders, and you feel your brow furrow when the ball is lost, be upset. Poke fun at them. Give them a tongue-lashing if you can be constructive about it. But don’t report them, or even threaten to report them. It makes you a loser even before the game ends.

———

Wallace Truesdale is a writer who loves games and the many things they come into contact with. When he’s not ruining himself with sweets, you can find him blogging at Exalclaw, or hanging out on Bluesky and Twitch.