n their excellent book on soccer refereeing titled "For the Good of the Game," authors Robert Evans and Edward Bellion related how Eddie Pearson would describe the disintegration of a soccer match. The former Director of Officials for the old North American Soccer League (a precursor to Major League Soccer) discussed the referee’s role as a five-fingered exercise. To illustrate his point, he would hold up successive fingers on one hand as he worked through the steady descent of a game that was spiraling out of the referee’s control.

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