I agree, a holding call or such can completely change a game. How much does a team's reputation impact the ref's calls during a game? Ideally it shouldn't, but in reality it must make some difference. A ref will know the recent history of a team, and that's gotta play a bit into how they view the game - at least at a sub-conscious level. In my limited experience of being a ref in soccer games, the coaches from both teams would make sure to let us know which players on the other team were hacks so we could watch them more closely to make the calls. There's a reason coaches would do that, to obviously try to influence calls during the game. Back in Claey's tenur, we had a reputation for targeting, and refs seemed to be watching us more closely for targeting than the other team. Any close call would go against us, and that reinforced that reputation that we targeted, and the calls continued to go against us. Although it seems a little strange on the surface, I think Fleck's policy of having players always hand the ball to a ref makes a difference in us getting a bit more favorable calls during the game. It just shows a bit more respect towards the refs versus letting them pick up the ball or tossing it to them.
