IF ONLY THEY WERE ALL LIKE HIM

If, as the old adage goes, the sign of a good referee is that he goes about his business unnoticed then Pierluigi Collina is the exception that proves the rule. Having just been voted the world's finest for the fifth successive year, he is as distinctive on the field as many of the players he clearly admires.

"There are wonderful stars in football nowadays," says the man who refereed last year's World Cup final.

"In Italy we have very good players as well as Totti and Del Piero and also Nesta. Great players.

Beckham is super, absolutely. Raul is another. Zidane. I can mention many, many players. I have a chance to share some times with some of them, even off the field, and they are very good men. Very good guys."

His real life is as a financial consultant working for a bank in the coastal resort of Viareggio, north of Pisa, where he lives with his wife and two young daughters. Collina, like all Serie A referees, and unlike those in the Premiership, is not professional.

He lost all his hair at the age of 24 – in just 15 days – to alopecia. Unlike the swimmer Duncan Goodhew, whose fall as a child caused a reaction, he does not know why it happened. His appearance merely accentuates his clear blue eyes which fix on to you while he talks. On the field it also makes him look sterner, angrier although his humour is obvious. His website includes a section for the "bald-headed club". Not that he is not serious about his job.

That preparation includes studying individual players – "their techniques, their abilities" – and even managers. "Different tactics can create different behaviour by the players and also by the referee. So if I know before the match it is easier for me to read," says Collina.

As such there is no 'style' of refereeing he follows. "You cannot say I will do it this way because you are not a protagonist," he explains. "Every match is different from another one. You cannot approach it in the same way. You must read the match itself because every part is different. So the ability is to react very quickly."

So what does he think of British football? "The characteristic is the will of the players to play. They are interested to play – come on, play, play, play. This is one of their characteristics so when you referee a match in England you must let the play flow. You cannot stop the game for small fouls because the players wish to play, you can see. This is a typical English characteristic."