Meet the Referee: Roberto Rosetti

Chelsea v Liverpool (30/04/2008) - Meet the Referee Monday, 28th April 2008

Italian referee Roberto Rosetti will referee the second leg of the Champions League semi-final against Chelsea.

Born on September 18th 1967 in Turin, he is a hospital manager back in his homeland and can speak French and English. He lists tennis, movies and books as his main interests.

He has been on the FIFA list since 2002 and his first International match was on 11th January that year was between Tunisia and Cameroon.

It will be the second time he has refereed us this season, back in November he was in the middle of our 4-1 home win against FC Porto. He has also refereed Chelsea this season as well, in October he oversaw their 2-1 win in Valencia. In his previous 5 Champions League games this season, that Chelsea win was the only time the away side has won.
Last season he also refereed Chelsea and ourselves once each, in March Chelsea beat FC Porto 2-1 at Stamford Bridge and we beat PSV 1-0 at Anfield.

He was in the final ballot for World Cup referees in Germany, but failed to make the cut. However he was suddenly recalled after Greek referee Kyros Vassaras was sent home after one of his team failed the fitness test. This made Roberto the second Italian referee in the tournament but he became the only one after Massimo De Santis was sent home after he was implicated in the foot-balling scandal at that time the country.

Rosetti went on to referee 4 games in the tournament including Argentina's 6-0 demolition of Serbia and France's 3-1 win over Spain in the knock-out stage. In those four games he cautioned 16 players and sent-off former Chelsea striker Mateja Kezman. At over 6ft he was the tallest referee in Germany and had the second lowest ratio of cards per game in the tournament.

Roberto and his two assistants will represent Italy in this years' EURO Championship in Austria and Switzerland.

He was the referee last year when Croatia beat England 2-0 in the EURO 2008 qualifying match.

His assistants are Alessandro Griselli, Paolo Calcagno with Andrea De Marco as the fourth official.

Some memorable matches involving Italian referees and Liverpool.

12th Sept 1972 (C. Lo Bello) - Kevin Keegan and Emlyn Hughes scored to give us a 2-0 home win over Eintracht Frankfurt in the first round of the UEFA Cup.

10th Dec 1975 (C. Gussoni) - Jimmy Case scores all three goals as we beat Slask Wroclaw in the UEFA Cup.

16th Sept 1997 (G. Cesari) - Michael Owen scores his first European goal in a 2-2 draw at Celtic in the UEFA Cup.

26th Sept 2001 (P. Collina) - A single Jari Litmanen goal is enough to beat Dinamo Kiev at Anfield in the Champions League.

6th Nov 2003 (S. Farina) - Djimi Traore scores a brilliant goal in a 1-1 draw in Bucharest against Steaua in the UEFA Cup.

3rd March 2006 (M.de Santis) - Benfica end Liverpool's reign as European Champions with a 2-0 win at Anfield.

22nd November 2006 (D.Messina) - Liverpool claim top spot in Group C with a 2-0 win over PSV Eindhoven.

28th November 2007 (R.Rosetti) - Fernando Torres scores his first Champions League goals in a 4-1 win over FC Porto.