Meet Jacopo Tomadini, who refereed his first match ever last weekend

Jacopo Tomadini is 17 years old and live in Italy. He has played football as a goalkeeper for 7 years and now started as a referee, last weekend he had his first match ever. We found Jacopo when he reached out to us and also bought one of our watches. 


- Hi Jacopo. Let us know who you are!
- I'm Jacopo Tomadini, im a 17 year old guy that started to play football as a goalkeeper and i played for 7 years as a goalkeeper and i later found that my passion was vanishing as the time was passing. On my spare time i play videogames and when i have to i train with other referees. In the future i wanna be a coach bus driver.

- First match ever for you as a referee. Right?
- Yes! As i passed my exam on the 23 of december i was very excited about starting and having my first match, I started to do some training sessions with other referees on the 17 of january, we are followed by a trainer. The day before the match I was preparing all my stuff, I was very excited, at the time i was going to sleep i started to think about all things, some offside situation, some situation that could happen and so on. Not gonna lie I actually shaking a little. I started by preparing all my things such as my two watches, my whistles, my pens, my notebook and more.

- And the match then. How did it go? Take us through the match. Was it like you expected?
- The match honestly was quite easy, the most difficult part was that i I had to check the documents, on the way to the pitch i realized i left my coin in the locker room and that was a little bit embarassing. I missed some offside situations as my tutor said to me after the match, i showed up a yellow card for showing dissent after i told the same player to stay calm the first time. Only one of the teams was attacking and the other team didn't make a single shot. The match ended up 5-0.

- You have played football? Right? What was your feelings and thoughts towards the referee then?
- As mentioned i played for 7 years as a goalkeeper. I always tried to be as respectfull as possible and I never showed dissent or so, I was like in a neutral position at that time.

- You bought a Spintso watch. Was a helpful tool? 
- Yes. The Spintso Watch is such an amazing product and im glad that i buyed it, it helped me so much as a referee, could for sure focus more on the match.

-  Last one. What are your goals with being a referee?
- I will try to get as high as i can as a referee, as a young referee my goal is to grow up mentally and physically to improve my decisions and be a better referee.

Thank you Jacopo! We hope you enjoyed being a referee and will and you will reach all your goals. Good luck!