I promised it yesterday, so here it is.
I was pondering after one my matches this past weekend, where I was the center and my son the lead AR on this one incident that made me think of degree of DOGSO (denying obvious goal scoring opportunity). It was late in a match between while and red. White is up 5-0 with about a minute left to go in the match. Red has a rare attack going and the attacker makes a great move to split the last two defenders and as he is going to a one on one with the keeper, he is taken out by one of the split defenders.
To take into consideration outside of the foul itself, is that this was a tournament and that the white team with that result (a win was required) was in the final.
So as I call the foul, I look at my AR (again, my son) and pat my patch and my rear to see what he was thinking, yellow or red. He looks at me like I am crazy and pats his patch so I issue a yellow. After the game, he shared his reasoning:
- The game had been decided long ago, 5-0 or 5-1 was not going to change anything towards the game, the standings, or anything else.
- While it could have been DOGSO, the level of the play was probably a hard sell to justify a red.
What impressed me most about my son's reasoning was the fact that he had, at 15 years of age, thought through not only the situation at hand, but the overarching situation of the tournament and the needs of the game as well. Nothing would be gained for issuing a red and it would not change the result of that game. It was not a foul that by itself would get anything more than a yellow had it happened at midfield and that it was not needed, plain and simple.
In all of that, I was leaning towards red, but then after talking to my son, it made most sense to issue a yellow. In the end that white team lost the final 6-0 so it wasn't like the red or yellow would have had made a difference, but I was impressed by the level of higher level thinking of my son. Kudos to him and I am thankful I had him on the line to help me reason out a difficult situation.
So in conclusion, if the game had been a close one, 1-0 either way or tied, I probably would have issued a red card, because it was strategic and could directly have an influence of the outcome of the match and tournament, but in that situation, the threshold (here is that word again!) was higher to be a red, just because it wouldn't have made a difference in the winner of the match.
6 comments:
I totally understand your reasoning. I had a somewhat similar experience in a College Club 'B' men's game where I had a pretty clear cut PK and possible DOGSO-F. But a) the game was 2-1 b) the team that committed the foul had the '1' and only had 13 dressed players - 12 of which could play and c) even though it was the 1st half, it was pretty obvious who was going to win the game (as long as they could finish their chances). Didn't even bother with a card.
Final score was 7-1.
The only question I would have for you is, if your game was being assessed, what would've been your call?
Listening to our assessor's comments this week, it doesn't matter if the call is right or garbage as long as the R sells it. I concur with how the AR was in tune with the match and recommended what the game needed, and the R has the job of selling it. If I was in his shoes and being assessed, I would hope I could articulate what was described in the post to the assessor. ITOTR, right?
Have you worked with a crew member that doesn't want to improve? Recently I had a match where during the first half I had to go by him twice to "encourage" him to stay with play. Then at halftime he refused to admit he was out of position and argued with me the entire break. So my question is how to work with someone who is not self-aware and refuses to take correction?
@Captains please - About all you can do is report the facts to your Assignor, then kindly ask not to work with that person again. Good Assignors will follow-up with an unofficial (or official) onsite evaluation of that individual.
@Captains please - I will answer you last question first, it had been a while since I had worked with someone who did not really care too much anymore. But I did have that happen in my last assessment match. It seemed like the kid didn't want to be there. I didn't say anything to anyone but I have his name and know that if it is a game where I want or need a good crew, I will probably not accept the assignment. If I were compelled to make them better, kind of take them under my wing, I would probably try to get to know why they are in a funk or if that is how they are looking at the refereeing world in general. Basically try to diagnose why they are in the state they are in and try to untangle from there.
But I will have more on that shortly since it feeds into my next post.
@ Brian - Tough one if being assessed. I didn't get the chance to ask my assessor if a DOGSO is always a DOGSO no matter what the situation, but I did have a similar situation in my assessment match and I got my answer essentially, at least on the non-DOGSO scenario. It is to not give a red if you are not going to get anything out of it. I will post the scenario that happened in my assessment match and you can dig into what the assessor said. Stay tuned.
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