The Backroom Staff - VAR & EVS Operator: Rodrigo Besteiro

VAR & EVS Operator: Rodrigo Besteiro

Replay responsibility, VAR and world travel for football with EVS operator Rodrigo Besteiro.

Football is the most watched sport on TV and one of the best (and most taken for granted) things about watching football on TV is access to replays! Rodrigo Besteiro is one of the people responsible for making this crucial part of football entertainment possible - live!

Shortly after leaving UCFB in London where he studied football coaching, Rodrigo started freelancing as a VAR operator with Mediapro. He’s worked extensively in football but also volleyball, basketball, padel and more. His work as VAR and now as an EVS operator has taken him to stadiums all over the world.

Rodrigo’s enthusiasm is contagious and it was fascinating to hear about a job that I basically didn’t know existed! Hope you all enjoy this interview.

The interview has been condensed and lightly edited for grammar and clarity. 

How did you get into video editing? 

In high school, I did a programming specialization. Then when I was 18, I started working as a programmer straight away but realized that was not what I wanted to do with my life. Back then, I was a very avid football fan - I had season tickets at my local club and went to every match! I really wanted to do something within football, I wanted to coach.

So I went to the UK, and started studying football coaching and management at UCFB Wembley. I was working, studying and coaching a team during the weekends. I loved coaching but I didn’t particularly enjoy the university courses! Then Covid hit, I came back to Portugal, stopped my studies and dropped out.

I was coaching goalkeepers when I got back which was really cool. Then, an opportunity appeared to work on VAR and this is where I started actually getting paid to work within football.

Mediapro and Hawk-Eye are the two big companies within VAR. Everything at the World Cup or Euros - that’s Hawk-Eye, Mediapro does a lot of stuff in countries where it’s harder to go - we do a lot in Africa, we have the Conference League too.

Hawk-Eye is more established, especially with tennis and goal line technology but they are still innovating too, if you look at their site, you’ll see they’re hiring a lot of programmers because they are making their own software.

Mediapro is good at doing a lot with less - if something goes wrong, we are able to fix it. In (far away) places like Africa, some things will go wrong eventually and you know, the Portuguese way is to find a solution somehow!

What’s it been like at Mediapro so far?

I traveled so much with VAR - especially with UEFA, I’ve been from Iceland to Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan was my first trip! It was really interesting, you work with different referees that all have their own style. Although they follow the same rules, they have different ways, different (referee) education. So a Portuguese referee won’t interpret the game the same as a Dutch one for example.

Mediapro really liked the way I worked and had a need for EVS operators too - the people that actually do the replays for live TV. I said I’d give it a try and once they ‘stole’ me, they never gave me back (to VAR)! So that’s what I mainly do now.

I do a lot of work within the Portuguese league but this year, for example, I started the season with the UEFA Super Cup in Greece and ended it with the Europa League Final in Dublin - so that was really cool, really amazing. It’s a big privilege to work in these settings.

We are trying to create stories for the viewers at home, to show and give real emotion to the match. It can be a really stressful environment, the people we work for are really demanding - which just makes us better! It’s been a big learning experience and there are times that are very hard because it’s so high pressure and happens so fast (it’s live!). (for example) When there’s a goal, it’s bam, bam, bam going through the cameras! When you make a mistake, everyone sees it.

Mostly I do EVS for football but we do other sports as well like padel, tennis, basketball and volleyball. 

I’d actually never heard of an EVS operator - can you tell me what you actually do? 

(Rodrigo shares his screen and shows the UCL Quarter-final first leg between Man City & Real Madrid) 

For example, this is ‘live’ (showing the build up to Bernardo Silva’ freekick goal). Right now the master camera is on and the director is choosing the cameras. Here’s camera 2 and 3. We're trying to tell the stories.

The amount of cameras can vary from production to production. Usually there are about 4 cameras per EVS, it's not only one person that does all the replays, every person is getting like 4 different cameras or more, it all depends.

In this situation, a freekick, you always start with the player taking the freekick - obvious right? It all depends though, if a goal comes from a counter attack and I’m doing EVS 1 - maybe I believe the loss of possession was really important - so the first video that I show from the wide angle is going to be before the other team loses the ball (to show who actually makes the mistake).

Then, every subsequent replay has to be a lot smaller because we already took a lot of time (with the first replay). We want people to understand the play, we want to show the emotion and all of that. In football, it’s really hard with the timing, we have to be fast and precise - especially the director. Our objective is to never show replays while the ball is in play but we also want to fill the time where the game is stopped, we don’t want (the viewer) to just wait for kickoff or the game to restart, we want to fill this time.

Of course we are always doing highlights during the game to show when there’s a break, we can roll another replay, or we also do the highlights for the show at halftime.

How does the director decide which angle(s) to use?

(Rodrigo ‘role plays’ an example - keep in mind this happens in seconds after something happens on the pitch (!) ) 

*event happens on the pitch

• Director: ‘EVS 3, what do you have?’

• EVS 3: ‘I have this angle and this angle’ 

• Director: ‘Okay, I just want this one’

• Director: ‘EVS 4, what do you have?’

• EVS 4: ‘I have this one and this one’

• Director: ‘Okay, those two, one from here and one from there’

• Director: ‘Replay! Video 1 in - roll!’ 

• Director: ‘Video 3, now - in!’

• Director: ‘Reactions, Video 4 in!’

—^interviewer’s note: communication and quick decision (and maybe memory) making seem to be the key skills here 

So basically, you're quickly cutting the last, like 5 seconds from the camera feed or what is actually happening on the technical side?

This is the machine we work with. 

You can see A, B, C, D (top left) - those are the cameras. So we have a monitor with 4 signals right on top. Then we have 2 on the bottom, which the 2 on the bottom are the ones that we are actually controlling.

We have the preview and the PGM. The PGM is what we are sending to the director and the preview is one we can take to set up more than one replay. And so basically we pull back on the knob here and then adjust the speed here - e.g. if it’s super slow motion, it should be in the middle - that’s basically what we do!

It gets to the point where we are not looking at the machine - just like when you’re typing, you don’t look at yo ur keyboard anymore. So when the director asks for a clip, I have it and boom, it’s live!

So, if you're responsible for the reactions, does that mean you're watching e.g. Pep Guardiola the whole game?

We only get what the camera people shoot - so if they don't record something, I can’t show it, that’s just part of it. The bigger the match, the more EVS’s we have and the more separate your job is. In the Europa League Final, for example, we had a guy that was working on the reverse cameras that were always shooting the coaches, one for Atalanta, the other for Leverkusen, that’s it.

There is a camera (for us, usually camera 2) that really focuses on protagonists. So if a player takes a shot, I’m going to come to that really fast so the director can show the reaction of that player.

It becomes really detailed once we have a method and it varies from director to director as well which is very interesting too.

Do you always work with the same team? 

No, maybe in some companies but my company doesn’t work like that. Of course everyone’s different, has different qualities and faults but we all work under the same method so it’s possible to switch and work with new people.

What are the different roles in the team? What is the hierarchy like? 

First, you have the client or the customer - the representative from the channel that we are sending the footage to (think Sky or DAZN, etc). They have a person there to check if we’re doing what they paid for, which is completely understandable. If they paid for 10 cameras, there has to be 10 cameras and not 9!

Next, there’s the producer - the person that calls everyone, makes sure everyone's there and everything is there. Taking care of the logistics basically. 

Then the director - together with the producer, they are in some sense the ‘bosses’ of the venue. The director in the sense of creativity, the producer in terms of HR, let's say it like that. 

I (and the other EVS operators) work in the OB van (the truck outside the stadium). Now we have really big, majestic ones - which is really cool. This van is probably more expensive than any house you'll ever buy! 

Also in the van, there’s a CCU, who makes sure that all the images look the ‘same’ - matching color, brightness and stuff like that. And of course, the technical director, who is making sure everything in here works because there’s a lot of different systems we’re working with.

Operating the cameras themselves are the camera operators and the assistant camera operators. They are inside the stadium and recording - every camera has a specific job. (e.g. the master camera is the camera you always see live - then there are cameras for close ups, etc) 

Do you get requests for specific highlights (like a nice skill that doesn’t lead to anything)? Who makes this request?

Yeah without a doubt! That’s the director always. Nothing goes on the air that the director doesn’t approve. As EVS's, we are like the second pair of eyes - it depends on the director, sometimes we can offer but it’s their power to approve or not.

Sometimes, for example, if one of the camera operators captures a great reaction - like a person crying in the stands - but we have to go live again, we might not show the reaction right away, even though it’s really strong, the viewer might not understand it. Instead we might ‘save it’ and then when the team scores the winning goal - boom! It’s really important to understand what's happening on the pitch and what's the story that we are selling right.

How is the quality of your work assessed?

Right now, in my situation, the best ability is availability - that’s so important.

I have made and still make a lot of mistakes, especially mechanically but I understand what we do and I want to (always) be better. I want to grow with it. You might find a ‘good’ reaction but it wasn’t ‘great’, I could be like ‘whatever, I don’t care’ and you can do this and not make mistakes (and just do a ‘good’ job) but then you won’t become better.

And then, of course, how are you doing everything else - for example, setting up - are you actually helping people set up their cameras or are you just next to the van smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee? That’s a big part of it, being a people's person is so important.

Although it’s high pressure and we’re freelancers, they are not like, ‘you made a mistake, we’re going to stop calling you’ - no, no, you can make a lot of mistakes and they will still call you. So there’s a lot of respect for human nature in that regard too.

Are all your colleagues football fans too? 

There are people that truly love football like me, but there are also people that prefer padel (or another sport) and there are people that don't like sports at all! 

Sometimes, it happens where someone doesn’t know what the director is asking. For example, let’s say the director says, ‘give me Bukayo Saka’ - in England, probably everyone knows who Bukayo Saka is - but maybe in Portugal there will be a camera operator (who isn’t a fan) that doesn’t know him and might show the wrong player!

But even if you don’t like football, you can find a way. If you're a great cameraman and you have an eye for artistic value, you can still give great value. 

What is your schedule like - how often are you traveling? 

I work during the week with EWOR doing video editing and then on weekends, when there are matches being played, I get ‘called up’. I travel a lot and right now, I’m starting to say no sometimes because I’m sick of airplanes! 

Here you can see how many countries I’ve been to with Mediapro. Iceland - I loved it there - and Kazakhstan I mentioned but also to Qatar - not during the World Cup - for tennis. South Africa for basketball. This one is Lubumbashi in DR Congo. Angola, Nigeria, Algeria, all of the Portuguese islands - which are great, completely recommend - the US. The only places I'm missing are Asia, South America, and Australia.

So I've been traveling a lot! It’s really cool to get paid to travel but also being away so much and being in airplanes all the time, I’m getting a little sick of that. Sometimes, I don’t get to see anything - just the stadiums, airports and hotels, that’s it. But still, I’m traveling and meeting people while working - by working with people in all these different countries, you get to learn a bit about the culture in a different way.

How far in advance are you scheduled for a match? 

It has happened where I get added to a WhatsApp group and they send me plane tickets for next week - they didn’t even ask if I could go! 

But usually, it’s about a month in advance (for international trips) and shorter for national jobs. 

What does progression look like in EVS? 

Progression depends on the company as well. The way I see it right now is you go to either the technical side or the creative side. On the technical side, the crème de la crème is TV engineer, broadcast engineer or broadcast director, their job is to make sure everything’s working for the creative people. The ‘top creative’ is the director, the person who decides what goes on TV.

Personally, I do want to be a TV director. I don’t believe there's anything wrong at all with people that enjoy their work and prefer to stay where they're at because they are really good at it. I need something to look forward to, to work towards though. I don’t ever want to get too comfortable, I always want to improve.

Before I become a TV director though, I want to become a really good EVS, I don't want to skip steps. I want to be the best at what I do and then I’ll jump when there’s a new challenge.

Before you started EVS, you were doing VAR - how did you get into this? Can you tell me about this? 

For a VAR match to happen you need at least three people. An engineer to make sure everything's working right. The RA - the person that sets up everything on the pitch and is basically the problem solver inside the stadium. And then the replay operator.

I was the replay operator, so basically, I was next to the VARs (video assistant referees). They’d say, ‘show me this contact’, ‘do you have another angle for this?’ or ‘show me the best camera angle for this’.

Usually there’s 2 video referees (the video referee and the assistant) and for example, maybe the video referee is like, ‘I don't know, is it (a foul)?’ Then the assistant (gives their opinion) might say, ‘for me, it's nothing’. Then we keep going! It all depends on the situation. If there’s (VAR for) offsides, there are two different machines and two operators, one working only on fouls, penalties, etc and one only on offsides.

We want to be as fast as possible without compromising the truth. Always the most important is the truth of the sport. If it’s a penalty, we have to show it’s a penalty. That’s it.

How does the IFAB VAR certification work? 

The referees need to have the certificate for VAR as well, while they’re doing it, they also do the certificates for the operators. I can’t remember how many matches you need to do to build up your experience. If it’s a real match we will be in a separate room or a separate van doing it with another pair of referees to practice in game situations. You need the certificate to do official matches.

Obviously VAR is a subject of much debate - what do you think about this? 

Listen, it's as simple as this, people are always going to complain about the decision of a referee when it's against them, and when it's for them, they're always gonna love it. It is what it is. 

I’ve been there, I understand - at the Euro’s with Portugal there was a guy pulling Ronaldo (inside the penalty area) into the showers and I was like, ‘okay VAR, I mean it’s clear!’ 

And that’s the thing, I understand, always it’s going to be humans making the decision and we kind of have to accept that VAR is there specifically for clear mistakes from the referee on the pitch. (but it’s also hard to define ‘clear’!) 

But ultimately, people are always going to argue, especially when the decision is against them, it’s also understandable. 

Do you have any insight or predictions on the future of VAR - are we getting automated linesmen or referees soon? 

I'm not really sure. It all depends on the speed of the technology. With AI, there are possibilities and at a certain point there might be a time where everything can be automated. 

At the same time though, being unlucky is a big part of sports, although it’s annoying, it just is! 

For example, (Manchester) City has all the best players, the best coach - everything but still might concede an unlucky goal and lose important points. That’s part of the sport - or else the only thing we’d see is City winning every match and you know, that would get annoying too! 

Sometimes it’s annoying, sometimes it’s undeserved - for example, Portugal won Euro 2016 with a goal from Éder! That’s not supposed to happen ever - and now it’s history forever, that’s part of football. 

Seems like your background in programming and football is super relevant for this - If someone is interested in working in this industry, what skills should someone have to get started?

People that work with cameras, people who went to school for broadcasting, stuff like that. It’s a good stepping stone to get into television because (TV) is usually a really closed off market. So you need to get yourself out there, you need to get to know people, you need to be a proper, decent person, because networking is important. 

There are people that never get the opportunity and they should, and that really sucks. But you know, get on Linkedin, start talking to people, call people, maybe go to a stadium and search for the broadcasting staff! 

I’m always the kid, I’m the youngest. (when I started) people I was working with would ask, ‘who’s your father?’ but my father doesn’t work in television! That’s the thing, I actually sent my CV, they were like, okay he’s a programmer, speaks multiple languages, lived abroad, studies football, let’s give it a try. And I grabbed the bull by the horns! Now they know how I work, I’m a goofball but when they also understand I’m very passionate about my work, I’m open to feedback and criticism and that I want to be the best. 

Of course, we’re talking mostly about football but we work a lot in other sports too - each has its own little caveats. Just because you want to work within football doesn’t mean you’ll get the chance straight away or maybe you won’t get to the 1st league anytime soon. Especially because football is, whether we like it or not, a really closed space everywhere in the world. People need to see you, you need to be available and helpful. As long as you work hard and are there for people, you’ll get somewhere. 

Follow Rodrigo on Twitter and let him know you enjoyed the interview!

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