Friday, March 17, 2017

Ref dreams

Had a really interesting dream last night that I figured I would let you all know about, just because, not that it has a lot of tough decisions as a ref but more for the entertainment value of how one's dreams work.

Scenario was that it was a U littles game somewhere with a lot of trees. Not a field that I recognize. It is a final or some sort of knockout because in my dream, I know that there has to be a winner. Game starts and nothing interesting happens until somewhere early in the game, a player comes late and wants to come into the field. Somehow, the coach pulls all of his players off the field now that he has the new player and retreats to a corner of the pitch to talk strategy.

My in-dream persona cannot believe what I am seeing. It seems the parents take it all in stride because they retreat as well to talk among themselves. So I approach the coach and tell him he has to come out and play, since the game is taking place. Let's go. To which he says no, he does not have to bring his kids out. And then I distinctly remember telling the coach, "You have to bring out the kids to play, otherwise, I will yellow card each and every one of them."

Don't remember much after that other than going to the parents and telling them that the game was over because one team did not want to come out to play. Not sure what that means in terms of what is really going on in my head, but I just don't recall having many vivid ref dreams like this. I know I have replayed plays in my head while awake, but asleep like this, I don't think I have had many. For those that know about dream interpretation, let me know what you think all this means.

Monday, March 6, 2017

Subs and restarts

I know, 2 posts in two days is not something you see often. Well, consider me inspired. This post is in regards to probably what was my son's last travel match ever. Next season he will (hopefully) be playing in college and has already committed to a school in Virginia for soccer. Nostalgia aside, we had a couple of interesting points for the match. The center was a man I know and respect a lot. Love his no nonsense reffing style. Don't always agree with his calls, but he is one of those "old guard" type of referees. You know, honor and all that.

The two interesting things were that in about the 13th minute and with my son's team already down 2-0, a teammate of my son does a great move and gets his support foot swept right out from under him in the penalty area. Clearer PK would have been hard to conceive. Yet my friend makes no call. So he is conditioned for the next call and unfortunately gives my son's team two PKs after that missed PK call. I could justify one of the two, but it was tough to see him rattled after the first non-call. My guess is that he knew he owed the team a PK and ended up finding two.

And those things happen. You replay a call in your head at a stoppage, or at half and then "find" calls that kind of make up for the missed call. It would be easy to make each call an isolated event, irrespective of the previous call or the score of the match or any of the other million factors that we weigh every time we decide to blow or not to blow that whistle.

The other interesting thing, and one that I would love some feedback on, is the inability of some of us to not be able to shed some things that we learned way back when. Almost myths, even. Like my friend. After he made the PK call (the one that he actually decided to award), a sub was waiting at midfield and he let him in. Rules of the competition did not actually permit this, but he was going with any stoppage and no one decided to correct him. Then he states to my son's coach that the PK cannot be taken by the sub. And I have heard that before. In fact, many of us have used that before. I know that I have probably thought of it, but it is rare to have the scenario, so I cannot recall if my previous self has ever denied a sub a PK restart before.

But truth be told, the laws of the game don't say anything about that. If that were true, a sub really shouldn't be allowed to take a throw in either. Or a free kick, or a corner kick, or partake in a dropped ball, because all of these scenarios is where he or she is the first to touch it after coming off the bench. So, it is my understanding that this is a myth or a misconception that has been passed down from generation to generation and from referee to referee, but I have really yet to find it written down anywhere. Perhaps some day,  I will find it, but for right now, I think a PK restart is just the same as any other restart. At least that is what I believe. Let me know your input and I will post the results in the coming weeks or months. Also, don't expect another post tomorrow.

Sunday, March 5, 2017

Self Incrimination

Ok, I am going to try and add something funny, timely, or nuanced about the something that happens at the games I attend or ref.

The first one is going to be about self-incrimination. It happened to me at a fairly high level match in Richmond a couple of weeks ago. The play was white attacking and black defending. White midfielder lofts a through pass to a streaking attacker towards the top of the box. Keeper comes out and from my angle, it looks like keeper is going to grab it without a problem. Attacker makes a really fast run however. Defender that was lofted over is facing her goalkeeper and looks over her shoulder and appears to get in the way of the attacker. Keeper picks up the ball and attacker and defender collide spectacularly.

At first thought, I was thinking defender was WAY too far from the ball to make a legitimate play but at the same time, she didn't shift her position that much and so it could be a foul on the attacker. I run over, make sure everyone is ok and I was going to ask my AR who has a better "playing distance" angle what he thought. The defender then did me a favor by saying "but I was just shielding, she didn't have to run me over."

My AR confirms that the ball was at least 5-6 yards away at the time of the collision and so I call a foul in favor of the attack. Had she kept her mouth shut, I wouldn't have known her true intentions, though I suspected them and probably would have had the foul coming out instead of going in, but she confirmed that it wasn't that the attacker just bowled her over, but she intentionally got in the way.

Coach was not at all happy, but such is life.

Next time, subs and PKs.