© EuroFootball.com
UEFA has decided that the 37-year-old German referee Felix Brych will officiate the Champions League clash between Madrid's "Real" and "Manchester United" teams on Wednesday evening.
In the match, which will take place at the "Santiago Bernabeu" stadium in Madrid, the appointed referee is described as someone who values discipline and is called one of the best European football referees.
F.Brych has refereed two matches for "Real" before. In last year's quarter-final match in Cyprus, where "Real" beat Nicosia APOEL 3-0, and two years ago in the match in Madrid against London's "Tottenham Hotspur" team, which ended in a 4-0 victory for the home team. In that match, the English club's striker Peter Crouch received two yellow cards within 14 minutes of the first half and was sent off the field.
He also officiated the "Manchester United" match in this year's group stage games, where the English side defeated "Braga" 3-1 away.
The German also refereed last year's Champions League semi-final first leg match in London, where Barcelona and the local Chelsea clubs played.
People who know F.Brych describe him as a typical German referee - very calm and always firmly in control. The atmosphere in the stadiums and the pressure from the spectators do not affect this referee, even in such important matches as the one that will take place on Wednesday at the "Santiago Bernabeu."
F.Brych is one of the young and very promising UEFA referees, to whom Italian Nicola Rizzoli and Bulgarian Viktor Kassai are also attributed. This is excellently demonstrated by the recent appointments of the German. Last year, he was entrusted to officiate in all knockout stages of the Champions League - in the round of 16, quarter-finals, and semi-finals. However, F.Brych has not yet officiated in the final stages of European or world championships.
In 2011, F.Brych was involved in a scandal when the police accused him of tax evasion. The referee's house was even searched, but the accusations were later dropped.
