Christina Unkel is the one everyone looks to for explanations. In the soccer world, refereeing decisions seem to dominate the discourse. Who got it wrong? Who got it right? Was your club fleeced? Is there an agenda? Unkel is the one charged with explaining it all every week.
For Unkel, CBS Sports on-air rules analyst, it can sometimes be a little tiring.
"There is a miscommunication and a misconnection from the high level of football all the way down to the grassroots," she tells GOAL. "My job here is to create visibility - I hate using the word transparency, I think that's politically charged and it sounds like you're also hiding something."
But she also understands how important her job is. With so much vitriol directed at officials, she is often the lone voice in the room offering a referee's perspective, something that is often clear when she's brought in on Champions League matchdays to provide valuable insight. CBS will broadcast, and Parmount+ will stream, Barcelona vs Inter in a Champions League semifinal on Wednesday at 3 p.m. ET.
"Nobody thinks about the referee until it matters," she says. "Nobody knows what goes into getting the decisions correct in the first place. If we give visibility into this world, I think more people would want to referee."
Of course, VAR is always the hot topic. There are enumerate contentious decisions across global football every day, if not every game. Everyone seems to have an opinion. Unkel, a former MLS referee, was around when the league was first trialing the technology. She knows how difficult it can be to operate.
"You're taking all of those things that you feel as a ref, and now you're sitting in a room somewhere far away in a center... and it's cold and it's dark, and it's you and a video operator," she adds.
She's one of the few in the media sphere who can speak to the issues with any real authority. Although referees are becoming more involved in broadcasting, they still tend to be outside of the mainstream. Unkel, in her own way, is speaking for all of them.
The rules analyst talked about VAR, referee transparency, former players becoming officials, and more in Mic'd Up, a recurring feature in which GOAL US taps into the perspective of broadcasters, analysts, and other pundits on the state of soccer in the U.S. and abroad.
NOTE: This interview has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity