Euro 2016: Meet Szymon Marciniak - the former player so aggrieved at being sent off he became a referee

As the referee showed him the red card Szymon Marciniak told the official what he thought of the decison, using language unprintable in a family newspaper/website. The referee had a simple reply. ‘If you think you can do better - you try it.’ So he did.

This evening the Pole will be the man in the middle for the Euro 2016 match between Iceland and Austria having risen to the top of his new career. It is a remarkable rise for a man who admits he ‘was not the referee’s best friend’, and has been assisted by retired English referee David Elleray.

“During a match the referee sent me off”, the 35-year-old Marciniak recounted to Uefa Direct. “I didn’t agree [with his decison] and said so in not very popular words. I said he was one of the worst referees I had ever met. He said: ‘OK, if you think it is an easy job, you try to do it.’ I told him I would and a couple of weeks after that I started a refereeing course.

“I met the referee who sent me off a few years later, when I was refereeing in the Polish second division. I apologised to him because, to be honest, he had made the right decision. Now we are very good friends. He was even fourth official when I refereed an under-21 match after joining the international list.”

Elleray, who now has a training role at Uefa, has been, said Marciniak, ‘a mentor to me - he taught me so much.” At a time when the English game is struggling to persuade ex-players and rejected apprentices to convert to refereeing Marciniak’s status shows what they could achieve if they put their mind to it. Said Elleray: “It was clear right from the start that Szymon was a young man who was very keen to learn.” The Harrow School housemaster added: “In that sense he’s a great role model for young people because of his willingness to absorb and adjust, which is why I think he has done so well.”