Monday, October 27, 2008

Season wind down

This coming weekend will be the last for this season except for a late November tournament that I will be participating in. I have six matches scheduled between Saturday and Sunday so it promises to go out with a bang. I am going to post total number of matches and other details once the season is officially over and hopefully, there will be some activity during the winter months as well but if not, I will resume once things start to move again in spring.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Rain, rain, play anyway!

In my last post, there were concerns over the weather this weekend. It was supposed to rain a fair amount on Saturday and it did. In our area, I would say at least 3/4 of an inch. However, when I got up at 7:30am, I checked the local website, expecting to see all the fields closed and noticed that the turf fields were open. I was not sure if I was on the turf fields (I was pretty sure I was not) but when I checked my email, I realized I was.

The first match, a close 1-1 match between two U10 teams was centered by one of the senior referees. He gave a lot of tips on when to call offsides, positioning, everything. I was certainly glad to have worked his game.

The second match was much more waterlogged and even the turf fields were ponding. I was really hoping for some thunder so we could just call the games but, no! It came down but no thunder or lightning in sight. The second match was a more monotonous affair, with both teams having to play a man down due to the fact that one of the teams did not have any subs. They ended up losing 5-2 but it was a good time at least where I could joke a bit with the team's parents.

Finally, it was my turn to center and the assignor was one of my ARs. I did an ok match given the circumstances (downright downpour). I missed an offside call on the other side of my AR, where the trail AR (the assignor) had to point it out. But it was the rain and everything else that made it interesting. In the end, I called only a couple of fouls, like 4-5 offisides and it was a 1-0 game decided in the end of match by a relatively tame ball that trickled through the hands of the goalie. Now my hope is that I can get more travel matches close to home. We will see.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

So much for that!

They are calling for a big chunk of rain starting this Friday and into Saturday, so I will probably not be doing the games on Saturday. Too bad too, because it seems like it would help with getting more games closer to home.

Only time will tell but from the reports tonight, things look like they will be very wet (and canceled) for Saturday.

Monday, October 20, 2008

Blowouts and bow outs

Well, I am going to take a break it seems for the next week or so, as I will be busy doing other things this coming weekend, most probably. I have a birthday celebration I need to take care of on Saturday and Sunday has us traveling over an hour and a half for a match in Frederick, MD. There will probably be no reffing this coming weekend and probably no posts either.

The other weekend (Nov 1 and 2) should be interesting though as I am going to be doing a center for a U15 girls match and then two ARs for U16 and U19. I am excited about that as I will be centering my first set with full ARs. I am ready, I think...

As for yesterday's match, it was a complete blowout, the visiting team camped out in the home team's half the whole time and racked up 6 goals in the process. I called one offside, one hand ball and one or two fouls, tops. If all games could be like that!

Well, I am editing this post because right after I posted this, I get a call from the local rec league assignor who said that he wanted me to center and AR for him and the league's travel assignor this Saturday morning. So much for not having to do much this weekend. It will be a fun weekend after all! More to come later in the week or this weekend.

Saturday, October 18, 2008

(AR)e we there yet?

What a long set of matches! I had 4 AR positions today and it seemed like one match droned on to the next. It was quite tiring, cold and windy. I did get to see some good Centering in the first couple of matches, but the matches themselves were mostly blowouts.

The last two matches were much closer but the Center left a lot to be desired. He arrived late, had no flags, his whistle did not work, etc. Still the matches were much more intense as there was a 3-0 match at the half that ended 4-3 for the other team for the first match and then a well played 2-1 match with the tallest U12 player I had seen in my life (probably a little taller than me and I am 5'9").

Tomorrow I have a U11 Girls from the travel so it should be fun.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Realization

Today, on my way to work, I came to a realization that I had not been paid one penny for my work up to now. Everyone appears to have a different system, but in the end, they all take their sweet time to pay.

One league states that they pay twice in the season, at around mid season (of which I think we are around that time) and the others do not have a clear policy, but when I added up my games up to now, I am over the $500 mark. Not that it is a ton of money, but it is decent change for paid exercise.

Anyway, I thought it was funny. In the end though, I feel I am well organized as I have a spreadsheet with all my games and another spreadsheet with my travel related expenses. I also have a folder where I keep all my purchases related to soccer, which are around $300-$400 at this point. So if you think about it, I will have only made $200-$300 after expenses this first season (but I should be able to deduct all the soccer expenses at tax time - I hope!).

This weekend, I have 4 AR matches in the U10 and U12 local rec league and then one Sunday U11 girls center. I want to get some more ARs with the adult league but I am not sure my wife will be happy with all that reffing when this past weekend it was all I did. I will update close to the weekend.

Monday, October 13, 2008

Weekend Work

It was a interesting, fun-filled weekend. I had four games scheduled for the tournament, two U9 games and two U10 games. At the same time, my son's team was playing in another U9 bracket.

I am sure that anyone who referees games sees games differently if there is a vested interest due to the participation of a child, relative, etc. I have disagreed many times with referees in the past when it involves my child and his team, but I do not believe I had seen such bad officiating in some of the matches I witnessed. More on that later.

My four matches went ok, I got to call my first penalty and handed out my first yellow cards. In the end, I called two penalties and gave out two yellow cards, all in the same match, one penalty and one yellow card a piece.

The first one was evident, the boy was in the box by about two feet, got past the defender and the defender just leveled him with a kick to the shin of the foot that was in the air at the moment. It was a reckless foul and halfway towards a red card in my book. I immediately called the penalty and showed him the yellow card as it was truly unsportsmanslike. They converted the penalty.

Three minutes later, the other team is attacking and another interesting play occurs. A defensive player passes back to the goalie and the goalie falls on it. I call an indirect in favor of the attacking team. Since the ball was in the goalie box, I take the ball outside of the goalie box and have all the players on the defending team line up under their goalpost. In the end, they missed it but in the scramble, a defender charges and misses the ball and strikes the attacker who had the ball. A penalty again, but for the other side (I was not trying to play 'fair' in the sense of giving one team what the other team had received, it just happened that way). The goalie saved the kick, and that was the half.

In the second half, I showed a yellow to a boy who just kept on fouling. I had called 3-4 fouls on him in the first half and on the second foul of the second half, I said enough, and showed him a yellow for persistent infringement of the laws of the game. What was funny was that the coach of that team, at halftime, came out to talk to me and said that he wished all the refs called the games like I did, and had no fear of calling the difficult plays (2 penalties, a yellow card and an indirect on the 6 - all in the first half of a 25 minute half).

I later found out that he complained to the referee table about me stating that his kid had only commited 4-5 fouls in the game and he did not understand why I was being so harsh with him. Funny how these things work...

The other games were much less involved. One of them was a 7-0 blowout, so not much there, and the other two were U10 matches that were good, well played games, with little fouling, one ended 1-1 and the other 2-0.

Back to my son's matches now. I have to say that many of the younger refs, those kids in the 15-18 age group seem to have a solid lack of understanding for the rules of soccer, and an adverse feeling towards the blowing of the whistle. We had three or four times when the whistle was not heard when play needed to be clearly stopped.

And as a side note, as a point of reference, I follow the plays closely (and that is why I sometimes get winded and tired after only two youth matches) and get to see a lot of the minor fouls that go on, like the pushing off, the pulling of shirts, the high kicks, etc. I, on average, call about 10-15 fouls a game I would think in the U9 to U10 age group and I feel that some teams commit fouls all the time because they are trained to foul all the time. In two of my son's matches, no fouls were called in a 50 minute match. I repeat, NO FOULS. That is virtually impossible. At the same time, I am watching the games and seeing what I would call a foul. Let's just put it that my sense of foul recognition and many of the younger kid referee's sense of fouls are way off.

Finally, the worst play of the weekend was a breakaway of my son's team towards the rival goal and he gets fouled from behind and in my opinion, inside the penalty area. The ref calls the foul, puts the ball on the line of the penalty area and calls for a direct free kick. What the heck is that? On the line is inside the box, according to the rules, but the boy would not be budged (I refrain from yelling, like the other parents and coaches due as I do not want to appear partial and then have to ref those other kids in another game).

In the end, my son's team did not do well at all, and the officiating had nothing to do with it, so no blame there, but really, if you are going to be a referee in this sport, please, please read the rules, do a couple of season in the rec league if you are not sure and then come and do reffing for a more complicated and advanced soccer style as many of my coworkers this weekend were not ready for "prime-time".

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Excitement

This coming weekend I get to do a tournament. It is called the Battlefield Classic and I have four games scheduled, so that should be fun. At the same time, I am a stand-by ref, so if there are any problems, injuries, etc, I may do more. I will try and post between day 1 and day 2.

As for this past week, I did 3 U8 rec league centers and then an AR for a U19 league. The three centers were a lot of fun and very competitive in the sense that all three games were close. 2-2, 1-0 and 3-2 were the final scores.

The AR position for the Sunday game was an assessment game. I did not know it was an assessment game until I received an email from the center stating to make sure that I was early so I could go over all the lines etc. He also asked me to make sure that I brought my USSF card, so I emailed my assignor and the person who had registered me into the reffing world as well to ask them if I could get it or at least the number. The registrar sent me a strange response, to the point that stated, "You are probably way out of your league and will probably hurt the center's chances to get to go to Grade 7". When I spoke to my assignor though, she said that I should not worry about an 8 to 7 upgrade, most everyone passes that one and you really only have to terrible at foul recognition to screw it up.

Anyway, I went, and boy those U19 boys were tough. The amount of mental abuse the center and the ARs get in these games is unreal. I called a paper thin offsides, where the attacker was just in front of everyone else and another attacker appeared to pass the ball (or it could have been a self pass) but when I raised my flag, holy moly, the boys let me have it. "Thanks for making us lose the game", "Maybe everyone should get glasses" and so on.

For the first time ever I had to tell the coach to can it as I had had enough. The team was down 1-0 at that point in the second half and what made it funny was the fact that they scored twice in the final 10 minutes to steal the match.

After the match the assessor went over the things the center did well and not so well. I thought he had done a decent job. Not spectacular, but good enough to pass. The assessor said that he was going to pass him but barely, as he had horrible positioning, where he did not look at the ARs and he did not work with the lead AR on plays to make sure that everything was covered. The fact that he had his back to me while corners were being taken on the other side of my field was the one thing the assessor though was the worst.

It was a good experience, but not one that I want to do again, at least not for a couple of weeks, the kids were brutal enough. I will update everyone this weekend after the tournament.