Barwegen pads officiating resume
LOCAL SOCCER OFFICIAL QUALIFIES FOR INTERNATIONAL DUTIES
For Micheal Barwegen, it all started as a 12-year-old calling soccer games in Coaldale. Now, the soccer official is ready to take on the world. After calling games at the national level since 2012, Barwegen received word that he can now call the shots at the international level, having been named a FIFA referee last week.
“It’s a great opportunity and not something everybody gets a chance to do,” said Barwegen. “There are 17 international officials in Canada for next year. So there aren’t many that can do that. You take the opportunities as they come and hopefully things go well and you continue doing it.
“I knew the possible opportunity was coming and I had known for a little bit. I found out a bit before (last) Wednesday. So the phone call came and it was like ‘I want to be the first person to congratulate you.’ And I thought ‘This is crazy.’”
It all started as a youngster in Coaldale who took more to the officiating side of the game than the playing side of it.
“I started when I was 12 years old,” said Barwegen. “I started as a child who wanted that part-time job and a way to get some extra cash and extra responsibility. That went well. I enjoyed it. So growing up as a teenager I took to refereeing more than I did play. There’s just something about it that drew me toward it. Being in Lethbridge, there are some opportunities for some higherlevel soccer with the college and university. So as a teenager I was given some opportunities through local individuals. I did well enough and they kept me around. In smaller communities there are more opportunities.”
Six years ago, Barwegen began calling games at the national level, refereeing Major League Soccer games.
“You work your way up in the province and do your upgrade courses,” said Barwegen. “Then your province nominates you and you go to a tournament and the people at Soccer Canada watch you for a full week’s tournament. From there, they evaluate you and assess you and at the end of the tournament they tell you (if ) you can join their national list of officials.”
However, it isn’t just on the pitch in the heat of the game that the official is graded.
“Fitness is a huge thing,” said Barwegen. “You have to do a complete fitness test three times a year. You’re constantly working and on the go that way.”
After six seasons calling games at the national level, Barwegen’s name was put on a list of Canadian officials submitted to The Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) referees committee.
“They have so many allotments of spots. So Canada gets to submit their list of guys that they want,” said Barwegen. “Those individuals look at the nominations and the assessments and the games they might have seen you on.”
Last year, Barwegen had the opportunity to travel to Dallas for the Generation Adidas Cup, a tournament hosted by FC Dallas of Major League Soccer.
“The new head official of CONCACAF referees was down there and watching,” he said. “He saw myself and another referee out of Vancouver. We both had a wonderful week. It was a gruelling week doing two games every other day. He sees you and from there the nomination goes through and the committee has to approve or reject and now I’m there for one season. Nothing is set. You work hard and hopefully it keeps going there. You just want to stay at the top of our game going forward.”
Having achieved his FIFA qualification, the possibilities and opportunities increase for Barwegen, although nothing is set just yet.
In February, he will head to a training camp in the southern States.
“So that’ll be the first opportunity to showcase my fitness for the year and make sure everything is ready to go,” said Barwegen. “From there, it depends. It’s a World Cup year, so there are some international dates. Those teams that aren’t qualified, there are some that might want to have a friendly and some sort of match. But for myself going into the season, it’s just to have a good year, show up at that first training camp and showcase what I can do and then hopefully have a good season going forward and take the opportunities as they come and make the most of it. It’s more work and a lot of possibilities, but it’s a great opportunity.”
Back home, the feedback from Barwegen’s family, fellow officials and employer alike has been overwhelming.
“My fiancée (Carmel) and family is proud and supportive me of me going forward,” said Barwegen. “I couldn’t do what I do without them. It’s a lot of weekends away.”
The referees he worked alongside are also firmly on board with Barwegen’s next venture.
“All of the officials in the province and in Lethbridge, as soon as they found out they were ecstatic,” he said. “(They said) ‘I’ll be watching on TV. Let me know when your games are,’ all of those kinds of things. The number of phone calls and texts, everything that was coming in was overwhelming. There was a lot of stuff coming through. There’s a lot of support.”
His employers at Palliser Regional Schools have also been supportive in Barwegen’s FIFA endeavours.
“I got hired the same year I joined the national list of officials,” said Barwegen, a high school math teacher in Coalhurst. “They’ve been supportive. As the news was coming down, I was already in contact with central office saying ‘This is what this could potentially look like.’ They’re proud and supportive and without them I couldn’t do it. It’s as much a team approach as anything else.”
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