"Two of the biggest dreams"

"I feel privileged," said Turpen, a father of three. "I have achieved two of the biggest dreams a referee can have. "I think it's important to believe that you have a star above your head, as we say, at the moment I feel like there is a whole set of stars above me!"

Turpen will be assisted by his compatriots Nicolas Dano and Cyril Gringor, while another Frenchman, Benoit Bastian, will be the fourth referee. The VAR referee was appointed the Frenchman Jerome Brizar, who will be assisted by his compatriot, Willy Delazzo, and two Italians, Massimiliano Irati and Filippo Melli

"We have been together for many years. "We are a family and, like any family, we have experienced good and bad times," said Turpen. "We are very strong together.

The beginning and the rout

He started refereeing when he was a young player and coach of children on his local football team. "I was asked if I would like to take a refereeing course, I thought 'why not?' and I started from there. I continued to play football until I was 19, one weekend I was a player and the other I was a referee. "The refereeing side was going well, so from there on, I decided to focus on becoming a referee," he added.

He eventually became a top referee in 2008 at the age of 26, the youngest referee in France at the time. In December 2009 he was the youngest French referee to become an international and, two years later, he was the first French referee under the age of 30 to "whistle" in the French Cup final.

Turpen was also a member of the refereeing teams in the finals of EURO 2016 and 2020, as well as in the 2018 World Cup. He refereed the football tournament of the 2016 Summer Olympics in Brazil and was the fourth referee in the final of the 2018 Champions League between Real. Madrid and Liverpool in Kyiv, before "whistling" in last year's Europa League final. He has been named in seven Champions League games since the playoffs this season, including the first quarter-final between Real Madrid and Chelsea.

Extreme situation management

Turpen describes refereeing at the highest levels as "managing extreme situations, extreme because there is pressure, there are a lot of emotions around you. The referee should make the right decisions, not necessarily the most popular ones. You need to be courageous and be able to reduce the intensity. Calmness breeds calm in tense and difficult situations. "A referee's life revolves around being ready to make decisions, having confidence."

The 39-year-old Frenchman will have his own "fan club" in Paris to applaud him on the podium tomorrow, his wife and three children, his parents, his brother and the man who was by his side when he first made him referee at 16 years old.