Tuesday, May 25, 2010

World Cup

One of the biggest sporting events is almost upon us. It is the month long celebration of the sport we love (or tolerate, at least) and I plan to miss very little of it. I apologize for doing another off-topic post but I promise to add some referee content to make it more kosher. It is just that it is one of those things that happens once in a blue moon and it is an event that the whole world hinges on every play, every goal and in the end, one of the big countries will come out the winners, but I hope against hope that someone unexpected will take the title (not your typical Brazil, Germany or Italy).

What are your expectations for this event? I know I will be looking at the refereeing teams early on to see if I can figure out who is doing a good job. 4 years ago, Horacio Elizondo of Argentina did the first and last matches of the World Cup. My guess is that we will see someone who has one of those impeccable runs just like the teams do and they will have a good final. For some reason I remember the names of two other refs of World Cup finals without having to look them up, Codesal from Mexico did the 1990 World Cup final, and Arphi Filo (sp?) did the 1986 final both featuring Argentina and Germany.

Not that I ever aspire to get to that level, but it is nice to see how the pros do it to then take those techniques and try to apply them (normally unsuccessfully) to the younger games. Let me know what you all see and hopefully we will be talking about a small country (in terms of soccer prowess) taking home the cup. I would love to the US go deep and countries like Uruguay, Paraguay, Ivory Coast or the Swiss make an impact and leave out one or more of the giants in the group phase.

Personally, I think Spain will win as they are just too good, but it is 90 minutes and you have to play great soccer in the knockout phase or you go home. Hope everyone enjoys it. I know I will.

Monday, May 17, 2010

The Acadamy Approach

For those of you new to the world of travel soccer and reffing in general, there is one thing that seems to have caught on that I would rather not see proliferate as much as it has recently and that is the concept of acadamy travel soccer and the next level of team sponsored soccer.

Let me delve into what exactly I am talking about and then we can go into why I do not like it as much. To begin defining the concept of acadamy soccer and its effects on the reffing world, we start with the local club's requirement starting this last season that all new teams formed would have to use a coach from the only authorized provider of said coaches for the club. This basically means that if you have a group of kids that play well enough where they are a little better than their rec counterparts, they get moved up into travel soccer. The local club has roughly two teams per age group, with some age groups having three or even four teams. That is a lot of kids playing travel soccer.

We have been lucky that my son's team was established before the establishment of "acadamy coaches only" policy so we have a grandfather policy that allows us to remain independant for now. But any other team formed after their age group or any one formed from now on are required to use these coaches (who are for the most part, very knowledgeable and have a keen interest in making sure the kids get better). This rant is not against any one coach or acadamy program because it is the concept and what it breeds that is the problem here, not the coaches themselves.

So what does this have to do with reffing you ask? Well, case in point was this past weekend. I was the center ref on a match between a U13 girls team from the local club and one from somewhere else in the area that was a critical match. It was important to the local club to come out a winner, because they are an acadamy team and have been for quite some time. Truth be told, for U13 girls, they play well, but evidently this season, the results have not gone their way. I looked at their standings after doing my Saturday and Sunday matches (I centered them on Saturday and on Sunday I did an AR) and the truth was in the pudding. Before the weekend they had played 4 matches and had drawn 4 matches, 0-0 and three 1-1 results. Since they are an acadamy team, they are expected to be atop of their division. It was suggested and hinted to me that this team deserved some results to come their way. It was not a clear cut request to assist the team with my calls, it was more of a shadow of a doubt that it would be something helpful.

It certainly did not work out for them because they were playing the top team in the division and were soundly beat out by them 4-0 (hey, at least they did not tie). I am at odds as to whether I should report this as I am not sure it was all that clear if it was a passing comment stating they would love a win or if it was more of a comment that required action on my behalf. Obviously there was no helping the girls even if I wanted to because I could not erase 4 goals with creative reffing. One or two goals perhaps, just ask the Spanish and Italian teams in the 2002 World Cup against South Korea. That was creative reffing and evidence of an agenda to aid the local country into a part of the World Cup that they had no business being in, but 4 goals is too much.

Anyway, this all boils down to the fact that Acadamy soccer is focused on results, much more so than development of the players. At the U10-U14 level, I think that while there should be some consisntancy on having your starters play the same position, every once in a while, shake things up because it is still developmental and it helps the kids adapt to a different scenario. Also, focus on making them better players, not on the results of the match at hand. Everything I have seen about Acadamy soccer is all about the result, and it makes sense if the parents are shelling out a ton of money to pay these coaches but the kids do not deserve it to be this way. Not sure if there is a solution or if it makes sense to restructure the leagues to refocus somehow on other things than just the result of the match.

So to wrap it up, it sucks because all of this in the background leads to having one of the parents and the acadamy coach (who I do not care for too much) to come and hint/suggest/attempt to influence/etc. my decisions on the field because of their needs for results. Sorry, guys, but I don't dance like that.