Best Soccer Referee
Ismail Elfath
No contest, really. The Moroccan-born Elfath has moved up from Austin rec leagues, to his first pro experience doing Austin Aztex games at House Park, to become one of the top refs in Major League Soccer and one of only six FIFA-accredited refs in the U.S. This may have been his best year, working at both the CONCACAF Gold Cup and the FIFA U-20 World Cup, where he was in charge for the Championship Final, earning the Austin Soccer Foundation's Lifetime Achievement Award, and ending the year with two MLS playoff games in the last couple of weeks.