There is a maxim that is often repeated in the world of football and in sport in general: when the referee goes unnoticed in a match it is a good sign. The leadership should fall on the teams, although this is not always the case. Today (7:00 p.m.), at the Príncipe Felipe de Cáceres stadium, Javier Alberola Rojas (Ciudad Real, 1991), designated to lead the Cacereño-Girona team in the second round of the Copa del Rey, will not get rid of.
It will be the first time in seven months that the Castilian-La Mancha referee – in the First Division since the 2017/18 season – will hang his whistle around his neck in an official match after having left behind a series of health problems that forced him to underwent surgery twice and remained hospitalized for a month. That "scare", as the referee recently described in a video broadcast by the Federation, almost cost him his arbitration career... at the very least.
During the preseason in Segovia, Alberola Rojas, a muscular man and in apparent good shape, failed the physical tests. He “had a very swollen arm. I saw something was wrong." He quickly entered the hospital, where they detected the obstruction of two veins in the clavicle area. “Fortunately the blood circulation was cut off to the area of the arm and not to the heart or head. If so, we would now be in a totally different and serious scenario.
The doctors removed an accessory rib and he went home. Three days later, he was admitted again because the operation had caused a pneumothorax (a collapsed lung).
With a fever, he went to the ICU and had to go on complete bed rest for a month. He thought that he would not play sports again and, therefore, his dream of refereeing would end. Then he began a slow recovery process. “I couldn't even put my shoes on,” he noted.
Surrounded by family, friends and professional colleagues, on December 8 he saw the light at the end of the tunnel. He whistled a friendly between Getafe and the Mexican Chivas. A week later, he passed the physical tests as one more in Las Rozas and received the approval of the Technical Committee of Referees. He is out of danger.
“There were moments of great uncertainty. The worst is over ”, he explained, released at the Federation headquarters after that setback from which he came out “very strengthened mentally and maturely ”. “Now I have the feeling of enjoying things more. Life is one and you have to live it”. The last match he refereed dates from May 5, a Levante-Real Sociedad match corresponding to matchday 35 of the League.
