Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Watch what you say and post

Had the recert exam two weeks ago and last weekend had the recert class to complete my 2014 requirements to maintain my 7. The online exam was different. Since it was open book, it seemed like it was going to be easy. It was not. Many well worked questions that focused on the advice to referees more so than the laws of the game.

I got an 87, which means that 13 of them were wrong. When I looked over the correct answers (something I appreciated in this online exam), I had to admit that some of them were right, I just didn't read the question as carefully as I should have. However, there were two that I totally disagreed with. I won't go into the specifics, but I made a note to ask my instructor at the recert clinic to see what they thought.

When I went to the recert clinic, it was somewhat of a madhouse. Since they didn't offer many recent clinics in the fall for 7s and above, this one seemed to be packed. There was no chance to ask specific questions at the end because we had to be out of the location we were in. I am going to have to email my point of contact and see what they say about the questions.

Still, I guess I am ok for 2014.

Now on to what shocked me the most about the recert clinic. It does not appear that there are many rule changes. There are, instead, clarifications mostly. Especially to the offside law. Which we know what that means, more confusion, because some of us will read it one way and others will read it another way. Still, nothing has changed, just clarifying language.

The interesting thing about the recert class was the time spent on social media. They made a big deal about not posting anything related to upcoming matches to Facebook, Twitter, etc. They even gave an example of two referees that got into hot water when they did such a thing and used it as a word of caution. They did not ban it outright, just more of a strong suggestion to not use social media to give specifics of assignments or comments about players, etc.

This boils down to common sense, but then again, I do post a lot of what happens on the field here as well. However, I feel like I do not personally identify anyone except myself. I wonder what they would say about what I have done up to now and if it crosses the line as to their barriers with social media. If I get an answer, I will let everyone know (or I will just stop posting, and by my silence, you will know the answer).

I will leave you with one comment the instructors had about posting on social media. They had a phrase in there that said "Silence is hard to misconstrue." I would have to agree with that.

Thursday, November 21, 2013

That is not something you see everyday

This past weekend, my son and I did a tournament for the first time. It was a lot of work with 8 games over the weekend, but he got to see a little more of what makes up the life of a referee. While the weekend was cold and dreary, it was fun for the most part.

On Saturday, we had only U13 and it was an all-star tournament, so basically good rec players for the most part. Then on Sunday we had U19 Girls and therefore, it was a lot more intense for him. He had never done that level and had to run quite a bit and make sure that he got into position a lot more.

The important thing was that he had exposure to KFTM (PKs to determine a winner). 3 of the 4 Sunday matches went to PKs, so he had a chance to do both, the AR that manages the takers and the AR that observes the keeper encroachment.

On one of the games with the 5th kick coming up for the second team (a goal sending the PKs to the 6th kicker and a miss finishing the game), the kicker takes the kick and the keeper makes a good stop. I blow the whistle to end the game and my son later tells me that he had seen keeper encroachment and that he had given me the skirt (I did not see it of course, but then again, my fault for not checking). I made it a teachable moment for both of us (me to check the AR to ensure that there was encroachment and for him to make sure that if I don't see the "silent" signal, to get my attention any way possible before blowing the end of the match.

On another note, we saw a funny thing as well with the equipment of one player. He was wearing knee pads. Like the ones you see in volleyball. I had never seen it on a soccer player. Had it been higher level I might have said something but at the level these kids were playing at, it made no sense to say anything. Also, another boy had the famous snoods (like a neck warmer) that would have caused a problem had anyone pulled on it, so I had him remove it.


Saturday, November 16, 2013

Fitness Physical

As a 7, I have to take part in being assessed as well as proving you are somewhat in shape. Today was the day to prove the latter. I never thought it would get easier but this year's Cooper test  (12 minute run) was simpler for me. For one, I did not have to run as far, since I hit the milestone of 38 years of age, I now was told that I had to run 2,000 meters instead of 2,200 meters.

Second, I ran farther than I had ever run before on the Cooper test, 2,350 meters, and I did not seem to really get tired, so I must be doing something right, as it should get harder, not easier to do the test.

The other two portions of the exam really are hard to fail, 40 seconds to run 200 meters is not too difficult (I did 30.5 this morning) and 50 meters in 9 seconds (6.5 for me) are really not anything I ever thought would be something one could fail at. The only one is that Cooper test.

Not that I enjoyed getting up at 6:30 to be there at 8am for my test, but it is something that I have to do anyway, and it worked out well that I seem to be doing better now than in years past.

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

So, more cards, eh?

I had a slate of decent games this past Sunday, a top level U17 match, followed by another top level U16 match and then a U14 match to wind things down. In preparing for the matches, I mentioned to some fellow referees that I thought games required more cards. For the most part, if people were given cards more often, they would not go all crazy when they happen to receive one. At least that is my thought process on it. And sure enough, I figured that these matches would get a lot of that since they were high level, and the stakes were high.

Turns out that I certainly had more PKs in those 3 matches than cards. It is the level and the demeanor of the kids that determine when cards get shown, not some predisposition as to number of fouls or the level of play. In the first match, in 90 minutes, all I saw were 22 girls (and the subs as well) who wanted to play soccer. Did they foul? Yes. Did they go hard? Yes. Did any one go over that line that constituted something more than a talking to? Nope.

What was funny was that the only times when I thought about pulling a card was during the second match, when two players collided when jumping to head the ball and it seemed like one went more into the opponent than straight up. And I thought that while it was hard, it was foul but nothing more. 15 minutes later, a similar foul happened but the other way. At that moment, I thought it might be time for a card, but it was so similar to the first that I felt like I was betraying the bar I had set when I called the first one. It wasn't retaliation since the two players involved in the first foul were nowhere near the pair of participants in the second.

Finally, the third game, had the biggest chance for a card. 2nd minute of the match, blue breaks away from defenders and as she goes into the penalty area, she is taken down from behind by a defender. I quickly sprint to spot and my brain immediately ponders the thought of a red card. But this is what went through my head (and if you need to chime in, please do so):

- Blue is going to get a PK and probably convert.
-White does not have subs and would now be playing the rest of the game with 10.
-While is going to lose anyway as the skill level is not on par with Blue.
-White players drove at least 50-60 miles to come to this field. How much would it suck to get thrown out in the second minute of a game that you drove so far to get to?
-White defender did not really aim to foul, it was more clumsy than anything else.

I have to admit that regardless, I probably should have shown the red card to the defender, but my intuition was right. They did convert, they went on to win 5-0 and there was little that the red card would have achieved on top of what was happening. Sometimes you just get it right for the game at hand without know if you really will at the time of the decision.

So in the end, while I might pontificate that soccer needs more cards, all that is needed is to show them when they are needed. Everyone of us has a threshold and when it is crossed, do what needs to be done, when it does not get crossed or when the game or players don't need it, keep them in your pocket. You shouldn't use them for the sake of using them, you should use them when you need to get something out of the game or the players. At least that is my story this week. Next week I might change my mind.

Sunday, October 20, 2013

A question of levels

In this area, you have your garden variety rec leagues, your travel leagues and in the middle, exists SFL. This league, as I think I have mentioned before, mixes kids from rec and travel caliber kids. It is popular because it mixes in the travel part (teams travel a bit out of their home area) and still have rec prices in terms of registration and practices, etc.

With that said, the bad part is you get kids who can barely kick the ball playing with kids who should be playing travel but can't afford to. I have mentioned that this mix is not a good one because the different levels leads to things like the situation from yesterday I had in my game. This was a u13 game, to fully set the stage. 

White team up 1-0 late in the game. Yellow pressing up and they lose the ball on attack. Yellow player tries to recover the ball from white's defender by executing a two footed tackle from the side that the defender could not see. While the tackle was good in terms of dispossessing the ball from the defender, I felt it was really a dangerous tackle. Had the defender's ankle been 2 inches closer to the tackler's two footed lunge, he would be spending the rest of the weekend at the hospital. So I blew the whistle and the coach went ballistic because all he saw was the result of the play. I saw the potential of tackles like that. I told him that a tackle like this is fine in a World Cup but not in a u13 semi rec match. I showed him (the player) the yellow card and that sent the parents over the edge. But at the end of the game, no one came by asking me to explain myself. It was one where I was going to show a yellow or a red card depending on whether there was contact with the ankle. I am not sure if coach or player fully understood what I was trying to convey. It all depends if they take a step back and reflect on the play or just brush it off as the ref being unreasonable. Time will tell if that player eventually gets it or not. Hopefully he will. 

Friday, October 11, 2013

Another assessment

This past weekend, after my Saturday with the young kids, I had my assessment match to maintain my Grade 7 certification. I received good marks for staying close to the play, but not too close. The other thing that the assessor said was that I called 7 fouls in the first 15 minutes and then had only 11 more through the rest of the game. He said that it worked for that game though my AR said that the coach was questioning if I was going to call all contact at the beginning. However, the kids never complained and then I did not have to worry too much about the frustration level.

The only thing that was a problem was an exchange with one of the coaches. He complained that during one of those screening plays where a player accompanies a ball that is rolling out of bounds, that the player veered too far away from the ball to play the player. I did not think so, but he complained very publicly. I replied "Thanks coach. I ref, you coach." The assessor stated that I should have left it at Thanks Coach. That way you do not invite a reply.

Other than that, another year of me being a 7. He did state that he wanted me to try to upgrade to a 6 given what he saw that day. Some day maybe.

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Dark Arts

Very interesting U11 match I had this past Saturday. I have not had a younger age group in a while and was happy to have what seemed to be a easier time for the game at hand. U11 boys, how hard can that be right?

Things started easily enough, during the check ins though, the local team (the Blue team) had many latino players, a latino coach and he made a comment that surprised me. When I was checking in the boys, I mentioned that to me, the most important thing was for them to be able to go to school on Monday and to make sure that they were safe, so if they felt weird or dizzy, etc. to please let me know. The coach interrupted and said that the boys were here to win and that they would come out when he said so. Okay coach, remember this is U11.

The game started and Blue started off well. The hispanic players had a different level of play, they moved the ball with grace and while there were some non-hispanic players on that team, most of the play flowed through these more gifted players. All fine and dandy for the first 10-15 minutes. Blue took an early lead and was up 3-1 I believe when I called a foul on Blue at midfield. Immediately Blue #49 gets in front of the ball, within 3-4 feet and prevents a quick restart. I hold up the game and publicly state that he has to move back and that I would be ok if he was 6-7 yards away and had to be moved back, but I said, even you know that 3-4 feet is not 10 yards. #49 moved back without a problem.

3 minutes later, #49 has a breakaway and when he makes a move on the keeper, he dribbles too hard and the ball is going out for a goal kick. As he passes the goalkeeper (before the ball goes out) he takes a spectacular sprawl. And then he turns around and holds up his hands like we see on TV every weekend from the Ronaldo's and Messi's of the world. Hmm, me not liking this #49 too much. And the coach piles on, "Referee, the keeper tripped my player, that should be a red card!". Again, U11. I just ignored them.

Later in the half, still 3-1 Blue when I called a foul close to the goal for white. Again, Blue gets in front of the ball, not a foot away. And sure enough, it was #49 again. I tell the kid, "Look, you have to move back. You can't stand there." To which he responds, "I can stand wherever I want. My coach said so." Ok, your coach just earned you a yellow for persistent attempts at trying to trick your way through a soccer match. Actually the yellow was for failing to respect the distance, but man o man, he was more complicated than some 15 year old kids I have had to work with. At this point, everyone knew that I was not going to tolerate getting to close to the ball on free kicks. And the coach yells at me "Don't yell at my players!". I don't think I was yelling, but rather talking firmly after having to explain myself on where not to stand for free kicks, but I apologized to the coach and the player and just said to him, "Look, you have to give them 10 yards. I don't need to get involved." Coach got it, kid got it. So we are good supposedly.

To make things worse, they line up for the free kick and right before they take the kick, Blue #10, who was one of the boys forming the wall, takes two giant steps forward and jumps just as they take the kick. I stop the play, reset the ball, whip out another yellow card and loudly proclaim to everyone "I hope we are clear that today we are going to respect the distance on free kicks." White scores on the free kick retake to make it 3-2.

Final score was 6-2 Blue as they really were the better side. At halftime, a fellow referee was sitting watching my game and he said that Blue had been taught the dark arts of soccer. And it was true, they did many of the things we see the pros do, go down easily, yell and grab their ankles at the slightest of contacts, pull shirts and of course, stand in front of the ball on free kicks. Hopefully they got a little wake up call when it comes time to play in tougher games that many referees will not put up with those shennanigans. And maybe I was too hard on them, but I feel that they brought it onto themselves when they try to bend the rules. Sometimes when you bend the rules, they hit you back when it snaps back into place. So be it.

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Nothing better than a slow whistle sometimes

I read in some other blogs and on the internet that it is a good idea to have a slow whistle, especially as the kids get older. It gives you that one to two second advantage to see where play develops. I have always used a wrist lanyard for my whistle because it automatically forces me to give that extra time. Many times I have thought of calling a foul or stopping play and in the time it takes to bring my hand up to my mouth and get the whistle ready for action, the play resolves itself and the advantage is realized.

Case in point, this past weekend, U16 girls game. Orange clears the ball and white was really pushing up. So the clearance clears most of the white defenders. The sweeper tries to head the ball as last defender. She does a sloppy job and instead manages to head it somewhat but also the ball rolls along her trailing arm towards her own goal. Everyone uses the infamous "Handball ref!", even the coach. The ball gets to a streaking attacker who has a one-on-one with the keeper and puts it away. All this happened because of that slow whistle. At the time of the actual contact with the arm (and it WAS handling, not inadvertent contact), the play did not appear to be one of needing a slow whistle. But given that it took a moment to get the process down, whistle into hand, hand up to mouth and then breathe in to blow to stop play, it gave the attacking team enough time to figure it out themselves. And instead of blowing to stop play, I bellowed "Play on!" and I looked like the guy that actually knew this was going to happen. So sometimes having that built in buffer is great because you have the time to let the players figure it out for you. And you look like the smartest guy on the field. Trust me, it does not happen often, but when it does, it is a beautiful thing.

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

But I have an email

This past week I had to do something I would rather never do, be on the coach's side for a match. My daughter's travel team had a conflict of epic proportions which left her team (the club's B team out of 3 teams in her age group) without a coach. The local girls travel league is supposed to deconflict matches for the coaches so that they can make each game. This weekend, the league decided to make our club's A team for the age group travel to St. Mary's County in Maryland and the other team to Eldersberg, also in Maryland. One for a 12pm kick off and the other for a 1pm kick-off. The coach would never have made it on time if the fields were 10 minutes away. Unfortunately, these two locations are about 2 hours away (but in the same state).

So as the story goes, there was no one to coach the B team. The main coach has the A and B teams and the assistant has the C team. The main coach was with the A team and the second coach was with his C team, which left the B team without a coach. The process of getting carded as a coach was simple from my viewpoint since I did not have to do much other than fill out some paperwork and send in a headshot.

For the game itself, there was not much to speak of in terms of reffing except for an interesting exchange I had with the other coach. During the second half, the game was tied 0-0 still and it looked like whomever scored would win it that day. At one point, the other coach started suggesting to the referee (a young lad who was probably doing his one of his first travel centers) that he call "handball".

"Ref, that is a handball" he would say. Later, "Another handball ref". While there was contact between arm and ball, we all know there has to be some intention. Just because there is contact does not constitute handling. So after the 3rd or 4th time he ever increasingly suggests calling "handball", I tell the coach, "You do understand that there has to be some intention to actually call handling, right?" to which he answers "If the arm is in an unnatural position, it is a handball. I have an email that proves it and will show it to you after the game."

To which I just shut up, because what am I going to say to that? There are so many things wrong with the statement that it just not worth explaining. My intention in speaking to him was not really to educate him on handling vs handball. Nor was it to start talking about how one of our best female referees has stated time and time again that handling is very different in the mens game than it is in the female game. What my goal tried to achieve was to shift the conversation to me so he would not attempt to influence a very impressionable young man into making a call that could alter the course of the game. My daughter's team was dominating and I knew that eventually we would get a goal, all I had to do was avoid the coach from suggesting a bad call that might prompt a goal out of nowhere for them.

It worked, as he ceased to talk about the handballs and right after, my daughter's team scored.

Another interesting note, from this young referee was the fact that with about a minute left in the game, and with my daughter's team up 3-1, he calls a foul on the other team in the box. My daughter had gotten by the defender and was ready to shoot when the girls basically pushed her from behind. The referee called the foul and then began lining up the girls for a kick inside the box. So I ask the referee:

"Is this a direct kick?"

"Yes", he replies.

"And it is in the box, right?"

"Yes", he replies again.

"So it is a PK then instead of a direct kick, correct?"

"Oh, yes, you are right."

Then he proceeds to set up for a PK. I tell my daughter to take it and as she is running up to take the shot, he blows his whistle. She stops and looks at him as she was ready to take the PK. She takes a step back and begins running up to the ball again, and again he blows the whistle. All this time, he was indicating to her to go ahead and take the PK but was blowing the whistle at the most distracting time. He even told her to go ahead and take the shot after the second whistle. She was so confused that she missed it, not that it mattered, because the game was essentially over but it showed me that he had never had to practice a PK before.

I can now say that I have a 2-1 record as a coach for my daughter's team. It is very different being on the coaching sideline, especially because you have to manage subs and guide the girls. I had a lot of fun, but prefer reffing to coaching any day. I like to be responsible for myself and not being required to be responsible for so many girls and their results. But every once it a while it is nice to watch the game from the other sideline.

Monday, August 26, 2013

Reffed by a FIFA referee

You will have to excuse my lack of memory when it comes to names, but for the first time, I saw a FIFA badged referee up close. Turns out that in my son's tournament this past week, there was a FIFA referee looming about. And sure enough, in the defining match for my son's team (a U14 team), there he was, stepping on the field. I was blown away by the ease of movement and the crew in general. I noticed that the badges for the referees in Maryland were not the USSF badges I am used to, nor did they look to by AYSO (but they might have been, I did not get a close up of the AR's badges). The FIFA badge is undeniable. And it is large compared to the ones I have.

It was fun to watch for a few things. First, he was not calling anything small. There were a lot of challenges that would have earned a whistle from many a referee but not him. His bar was high and he called it. He had a slow whistle (and I loved that). He waited until he saw where the ball was going or what the player did after getting tackled to call a foul. There was a lot of non verbal communication between the crew. He probably had a great pre-game that I would have loved to have sat in on.

Some things that I wanted to knit pick were that he counted off the steps for a free kick. I thought we weren't supposed to be doing that. He also seemed to have a different bar as to what fouls would be called depending on where in the field those fouls occurred. For example, there were plenty of calls close to the box, creating nice free kick opportunities. But there were similar challenges in midfield that were not called. Same thing inside the penalty area, no calls. However, I wanted to state again that it was a pleasure watching him ref. To the point that during a breakaway for my son's team, I was caught watching the referee and his position instead of my son who scored the go-ahead goal. When a fellow parent asked me why I wasn't paying attention to the action, I told him that it is not every day that you get to see a FIFA referee that close. Just a fun thing to observe and to take a little nugget or two back for your own matches.

Monday, August 5, 2013

Summer Adult League done

We have a little break for the next couple of weeks where things have either concluded or are about to begin. My kids' travel programs are going to kick off in a couple of weeks and their tournaments will be something of soccer fodder if there is anything of interest.

Also, the local adult league concluded with some interesting dynamics regarding players. I am astonished to realize how many of us who are on the higher side of 40 think they can still hang with the young 20 somethings that were here for the summer adult league. I guess they were back from college, on summer break and decided to join the league for this go around. More than once I saw these 40 something players (myself included) trying to run down a person who is half one's age. It is not pretty.

Still, I have less tolerance with adults than with the kids when it comes to shirt pulling, diving and overall silliness. It seems like the adults try to emulate more of what is going on when they watch the TV than the kids are, and they are not that good at acting. Or perhaps it is that the legs are just not there. Needless to say, I have a blast when playing but I still would prefer to ref than play.

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Coaches and Rules

I am sure I have covered this many a times before but man, sometimes, even the most experienced coach boggles my mind. Case in point, during a recent U17 highly competitive match, I call a foul committed against the keeper and the team took the kick in between the 6 and the penalty spot. The ball did not clear the 18 before a teammate touched it and headed upfield.

As I begin to whistle, a player from the other team said that the ball had not left the box. The coach for the team that took the kick then goes bat crazy. "How do you not know the rules?" "Only on a goalkick does the ball need to clear the box." "Where did you learn how to ref?" and more of that nature.

I should have pulled out my 2013 rule book and showed him that on Page 41 of the Laws of the Game, it states:

Free kicks inside the penalty area (direct or indirect free kick to the defending team):

- All opponents must be 10 yards away from the ball
- All opponents must remain outside the penalty area until the ball is in play
- The ball is in play when it is kicked directly out of the penalty area
- A free kick inside the goal area may be taken from any point inside that goal area.

So I guess he skipped over item #3 above. And to think that he was a U17 coach, and their team played well means so this means that he knows his stuff, but then again, he doesn't. Why do they try to overplay their coaching. Stick to coaching, something I know little of and do not get into it with the coach, and leave the reffing to me (not that I can't make mistakes, because I can and I do). But I am going to want to hear it from my two ARs or someone impartial. Even if it is the worst call in the world, you are not going to change my mind.

Thursday, July 18, 2013

I behaved

Don't need to go into too much detail but the game went fine the other day. Took a hard foul at the top of the box that in previous weeks would have been something that I would have complained about, and possibly brought up a stink about, was just a foul.

I did get up and try to score on a quick restart when they were not looking but it didn't work out. Still, I have to be proud of myself that I did what I thought I needed to do to make it a better place and not be so antagonistic. There is one team that boils my blood though, so not sure how I will react to them when the time comes to play them again. But for now, I was a good citizen. Because I know that sometimes referees make the worst players like players sometimes make the worst referees.

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Referees make bad players

Or at least, I make a bad player. I mentioned that the local league started an adult league. The league has different levels and teams based on genders, etc. I play on a coed team and have realized that I am more trouble than some of the other players. Since I know the rules quite well, I have a hard time when I feel the rules are being misapplied. This past week, it was offside that set me off. At the time, I thought I was right (and still think I am right about the actual application of the rule in this case) but I realized, I am not the ref and nothing I say can change what the ruling was at the time the action took place, so I better just can it instead of getting in the head of the referee. I don't like it when other players do it to me and so now that the table has turned, I have to be able to live with the occasional (or with some of my fellow referees, more than the occasional) missed call and just move on.

Tonight I have another game and will focus on my behavior more so than the referee decisions. Let's see how that plays out.

Friday, July 5, 2013

Referee Links

I hadn't noticed until today that some of my links were either no longer valid (like the home made cards I use, that site is no longer up) and the referee blog that got me started with reffing to begin with (the author has moved on to officiating another sport and has since stopped really blogging about his soccer related frustrations).

So I did a little housekeeping and got rid of them. If there are any links you all think should be up there instead, let me know and I will try to get things added. I especially would like to replace with more reference related links instead of other ref blogs as that seems to be the best way to hone our craft.

Hope everyone had a good 4th and that the summer is going well.

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Working with Adult Soccer Players

Throw away everything you thought you knew about soccer and then try to relearn it, because that is what happens when working with adults. The same rules apply, they just apply differently. As adults, we complain more, we talk trash a whole lot more, and we cheat more if given the chance.

Case in point, the local league where I am also one of the officers has finally gotten an adult league off the ground and playing. It is fun, family friendly and creates a spirit of community. That is until you blow the whistle to start the match, then those nice guys you thought you knew off the field become a mix of puberty laced adolescents with a penchant for foul language and a shot of demonic tinged pitbulls coming off a hunger strike. And as full disclosure, I am a player as well as a referee in this league, so a lot of this applies to me also.

We dive, we complain, we use unrostered players, we use gamesmanship to the extreme and we chest bump opponents when someone else has the gall to stand up to us.

Now that the league is in its second season, things seem to be settling down a bit. What was all nice and dandy that first set of matches has become somewhat of a stale truce at this point for many teams. Especially those that play each other a couple of times during the season and then again during the following season. After the third or fourth time you face the same opponent, you know what they are going to try more or less and you aim to take that away, be it by word or action.

Personally, the jury is still out in terms of whether I like working with adults. So far I will say it is different. The tolerance level is not the same. Some have very short fuses. And in the end, it is all about going back to work on Monday, regardless of the score so even if you score a beautiful goal and then get knocked unconscious, the main thing to remember is not that you won on Sunday night 2-1 thanks to that last minute header, but rather the 2 weeks off you need to take from your Monday to Friday job because you now have a concussion for example. Perspective, I guess.

Monday, April 29, 2013

Ref you suck!

If someone were to tell you that during a game, there is a good chance you would send that someone packing, but here is a scenario that I observed this past weekend that blurs the line from the obvious and I would like to know what everyone thinks about the situation.

While waiting for the game before mine to finish up, I was observing the matchup between two fairly even teams. Red vs Gray U13 or U14. I don't know what the score was at the time but it looked like Gray was up by a goal or two by how the teams were playing. There was a center and two ARs. One AR, on the parent side was not dressed but rather wearing jeans and a coat. He was an AR apparently because he called offsides but as I have said before, he was probably a STAR and was not really qualified to understand what was going on.

Anyway, the scenario is as follows. Red player gets by two defenders down the parent sidelines. Two other gray defenders come up to challenge him. I did not see the contact but something happened and the referee calls a foul in favor of gray. Red player backheels the ball towards the gray player but it goes a little too hard and off to the side and the referee decides that he is timewasting, whatever and decides to card the red attacker.

This is where I need your opinion. A parent on the sideline says something similar to the following "Don't worry about it, Doug, he's an idiot." He must have been the father of the kid that received the yellow. The center walked over to the parent and showed him a red card (which I know is not the way you deal with a disruptive parent) and sent the parent to the parking lot.

As a referee I have been called many things and only once have I had to send a parent packing, and he spoke to me and said some terrible things. This was more of a parent getting a dig on the ref via a conversation with his kid. Not sure I would have done what this center did since it was not a direct "Ref you suck!" And even with a ref you suck comment, I would be hard pressed to eject a parent given these circumstances. I do know that there had been no earlier confrontation between parent and ref since I was there before the game started. Anyway, if someone passively aggressively insults you, would you eject the parent? Let me know your thoughts. I want to see if I can set up a poll to capture the answers.

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

More ref running and blog milestone!

To begin, let's commemorate the arrival of the 10,000th pageview on this site. For some startling reason, many people (and possibly many bots as well) have come to this site and in the past couple of days, we crossed over the 10,000th pageview. Interesting and that is about it. Not sure if that means anything significant, but hey, something is something.

On to the running. I am really liking my watch. Here is a link to the actual watch: http://nbmonitors.com/gps-enabled-monitors/gps-runner/

My wife got it at Target and for less than what the site states it retails for but not sure if it was a clearance item or what.

Anyway, more info on the running, in my two adult matches that I centered this Thursday night, I ran another 3.75 miles between the two matches, so that is more than I expected since it is small sided 7v7 soccer. Still almost 2 miles per match seems like a good workout.

For when this one wears out, I will probably get one that can be hooked into Google Maps. For now, I will try and do a match where I have both watch and iPhone on me to compare and get a map as well. That will be for this weekend I hope.

Monday, April 8, 2013

So how much running does a ref really do?

In a previous post, I asked that question and had some answers but nothing from real experience. I have played with iPhone apps that monitor your movements but was not 100% convinced because they are hard to get to work when reffing.

My wife got me a New Balance GPS Monitor recently and so I decided to finally put it to good use. I tested it by running what I knew would be a mile and sure enough it registered 1.01 miles, so close enough.

Here is the picture of the watch:


This weekend marks the beginning of the regular soccer season here in the region and as such, I had quite a few matches to test this on. Here is the breakdown of my matches and the totals run:


  • U16 Girls center (40 minute halves) - 3.98 miles
  • High School Boys JV match (30 minute halves) 2.22 miles
  • High School Boys Varsity AR (40 minute halves) 2.24 miles
  • U16 girls AR (40 minute halves) - 2.00 miles
  • U15 Boys center D1 (40 minute halves) - 4.5 miles
When it is all said and done, that is a lot of running for this weekend. To top it off, I played in an adult league game (and was more tired with that than I have ever been with reffing) as well as reffing the following adult league match, so you can imagine how tired I was this weekend. But still, the pain actually feels good.

Assessment Day

I won't make this long, but it all boils down to what match gets assessed to get your confidence up or not. My assessment did just that. I had a good game, with good ARs and while the teams were not puritan, they were not evil. Just enough dissent and calls that made for a good assessment. If they had gotten my match from that Sunday, it would have been another story. That match was a lot more complicated, between the parents, the players, the coaches, everyone was whining about calls. And I made some procedural mistakes.

For example, instead of going over and having a mini conference with my AR over the location of a foul (in the box or not), I asked him loudly while surrounded by players. I guess I was flustered and just wanted the slugfest to end. So fortunately, the assessment was one of the easier matches.

What was most interesting that weekend was the first match, where I was the AR. In the second half, with White leading 1-0, White had the ball and a player was fouled but he played through it. The center (who was a really athletic grade 8, but kind of nervous and always ran with his whistle in his mouth). In this play, White fought through the foul and the center correctly yelled "Play on!". However, when letting that out he also blew the whistle. It sounded, I heard it and three defenders stopped playing. The attacker did not and passed it to a team mate who scored on a baffled keeper.

The defense surrounded the center and he insisted that he did not blow the whistle. I went on to the field and conferenced with him so that he would not dig himself any deeper and told him (without any players present) that I had heard the whistle, and he needed to restart with a dropped ball as an inadvertent whistle. He did after much coaxing. And of course, in the last play of the game, the other team got a goal and tied it up, so the parents of the White team let me have a deluge of pleasantries. Oh well, no good deed goes unpunished.

Friday, March 15, 2013

Art and Science

It has been a long while since posting anything and I apologize for that.

Winter is not my favorite time of the year and did not really get to do much in terms of reffing or keeping in shape. It was kind of depressing actually.

But spring is around the corner and this last week we had a big tournament in the DC area with many of the top teams around the nation checking in. It was a great 4 matches I had this weekend with a lot of things to give to you. I won't write them all out now but I will share this.

On Friday, prior to the start of the matches, all those referees participating in the referee academy got together to discuss some of the finer things in reffing. One of the speakers, Alfred, went on to say something that really hit home for me. Basically, he stated that in the center, you are an artist. Trying to manage many things going on around you. Players, coaches, spectators, and anyone else within your sphere of influence. You are like a classical music conductor. You have to make sure that even if something is not going well, you generally move the music in the right direction.

As a AR, it is all about science. Was the ball in or not, was that offside. All that is a yes/no conundrum. There is little art, and more absolutes. You either have it right or wrong but there is rarely a gray area while in the middle, it is all shades of gray and rarely an absolute.

Just was interesting to hear the way he went about explaining it. It was a refreshing look at the way referees are seen. I really enjoyed his talk and was happy to see that the following day, he was the one who assessed my match. But more on that later.