As you may know, here in Virginia, if you are a State referee grade 6, you need to get 2 assessments a year (July 1 to June 30) in order to maintain your grade. You also have to do the training and pass a physical fitness test (which consists of 10 laps around the track in 20 segments of sprinting and walking).
One of your assessed matches can be on a U17 or above and the other has to be an Adult match. The youth match was done early and I was getting worried that the adult league that currently is the only one in the area that is tough enough to be considered valid for assessments was not publishing matches.
So it was surprising to me when I get an email from the assignor that I had 2 games on Sunday. One was an AR and the next was my center. The teams were well known to me and we were all set. I email the person in charge of assessments and within a day, I have my assessor and we are ready to go. One of my ARs was also going to use my center match as her upgrade AR match. So great, more bang for the buck.
Fast forward to Sunday. Dreary, dark, dank and depressing. Around 4pm, we get an email from the league that the 9pm matches are cancelled. Does not affect me at all, but the impending torrential rain we are supposed to get gives me concern that perhaps no one is going to show up for the 7pm assessment match.
As we arrive to the field around 4:15, the center for the first match mentions that he is a 7 as well and was wondering if it wouldn't be too late for him to also get assessed as an AR in my assessment match. We call the person in charge of the assessments and he blesses the additional assessment. So at that point, the 7pm match, right around the time a crazy amount of rain is scheduled to come down, is now a match where all 3 officials are going to be assessed for maintenance or upgrade purposes.
There was a delay in getting the field ready and about 10 minutes before kick off, we get an email that the 7pm match is cancelled due to weather. What a dilemma because we all need the match. So I call the assessor to see if by any chance, they are close by and can make our 5pm match, our assessment match. He says yes, the coordinator says yes and we kick off 5:30 with me in the center and both ARs being assessed. Thank goodness we were not able to get the field ready and that the players were ok with starting a little later.
It turned out to be a good match, even though it was rather lopsided at the end. My ARs were spot on with their calls, I had a great play on that resulted in a yellow and a very easy second yellow in the second half that made the match level difficult.
I will expand on the "play on yellow" in the next post as this one is rather long as well as some other stuff that is blog related as I have run out of time for today. More to come tomorrow. Thanks for reading and commenting everyone.
Thursday, April 19, 2018
Thursday, March 22, 2018
What I learned just recently
This is a bit of a tongue in cheek post. But it harps back to the misconceptions that people have. These last couple of weeks I have been doing a bunch of tournaments. A lot of games for sure (in cold and ugly weather as well). But taking it all in stride. I don't think that I have ever had such a busy end of February and start of March. In it, there were 2 things of the many that seemed to stick.
The first one was that a pass that does not go forward means that the receiving end of the pass cannot be offside. So in essence if player A and B are on the same team and A is in front of B, with B controlling the ball and A is in an offside position, if the pass from B to A does not go "forward" then A is not offside even if he comes from an offside position.
So I got that in a high level U17 match. Player passes the ball in what some of us call negative (that is the ball is played sideways, but slightly backward, almost like a lateral in the NFL. Player A comes from a clear offside position and collects the ball. My AR raises his flag and I blow my whistle. The team that was called for the offside insists that since the pass did not go forward but rather slightly backward, that is it not offside. Sorry I said, I would check it later but as far as I knew at the moment, it is offside.
Perhaps I am wrong and the ball indeed has to go forward but I find that hard on the AR since many times, they don't see exactly how the ball gets to the attacker in an offside position, they just see that they were in an offside position, a pass was made and the offside player is the first to make contact with the pass. So I will have to look it up, but I think I am right on that one.
The second was also related to offside but pertained to a deflection by the offense. This one happened to me as an AR in a high school match. The defense had the ball and was going to clear it. I am AR on that side and as the defense clears the ball, an attacker steps in front of the clearance. The ball deflects off of the attacker to another attacker who was making his way back and was in an offside position. He makes contact with the ball and turns to the goal for a one-on-one. I raise my flag and the coach on my side goes ballistic.
"He is on because it was a deflection."
I explained that the defense gets to use that argument (deflection vs intentionally played) but the offense does not get that same treatment (or should it?). It was evident that the player that was hit by the ball was not intentionally trying to play it to the attacker, it just happened. But the attacker, at the time his teammate was hit with the ball, was in an offside position. Therefore, my understanding, is that he is offside. Again, if I am wrong, I want to hear about it in the comments.
Finally, a really funny one. Team Red is down 2-1 and attacking. Coach of the losing team is on my side, I am AR1. They are attacking towards me and the attacker gets by a clumsy challenge by the white defender. In the process of defending, the white player loses his shinguard. He gets up and steals the ball from the attacker (while his shinguard is on the ground).
Coach immediately loses it and states that a defender cannot play the ball because he lost his shinguard. That he is not allowed to touch the ball at all and that it should be a free kick for red. I told him that there was no such rule but he kept going on and on about him not being allowed to play the ball until the shinguard was back in its place. I would agree that if the play had stopped because the ball went out of bounds, I would probably hold up the restart if I saw the white defender with the shinguard in his hands, but during the run of play, play on.
All I am going to say is that you learn something new every day. Or at least, you are challenged to the point where you have to think about it. Let me know what you think with you comments and hopefully we start getting some warmer weather.
The first one was that a pass that does not go forward means that the receiving end of the pass cannot be offside. So in essence if player A and B are on the same team and A is in front of B, with B controlling the ball and A is in an offside position, if the pass from B to A does not go "forward" then A is not offside even if he comes from an offside position.
So I got that in a high level U17 match. Player passes the ball in what some of us call negative (that is the ball is played sideways, but slightly backward, almost like a lateral in the NFL. Player A comes from a clear offside position and collects the ball. My AR raises his flag and I blow my whistle. The team that was called for the offside insists that since the pass did not go forward but rather slightly backward, that is it not offside. Sorry I said, I would check it later but as far as I knew at the moment, it is offside.
Perhaps I am wrong and the ball indeed has to go forward but I find that hard on the AR since many times, they don't see exactly how the ball gets to the attacker in an offside position, they just see that they were in an offside position, a pass was made and the offside player is the first to make contact with the pass. So I will have to look it up, but I think I am right on that one.
The second was also related to offside but pertained to a deflection by the offense. This one happened to me as an AR in a high school match. The defense had the ball and was going to clear it. I am AR on that side and as the defense clears the ball, an attacker steps in front of the clearance. The ball deflects off of the attacker to another attacker who was making his way back and was in an offside position. He makes contact with the ball and turns to the goal for a one-on-one. I raise my flag and the coach on my side goes ballistic.
"He is on because it was a deflection."
I explained that the defense gets to use that argument (deflection vs intentionally played) but the offense does not get that same treatment (or should it?). It was evident that the player that was hit by the ball was not intentionally trying to play it to the attacker, it just happened. But the attacker, at the time his teammate was hit with the ball, was in an offside position. Therefore, my understanding, is that he is offside. Again, if I am wrong, I want to hear about it in the comments.
Finally, a really funny one. Team Red is down 2-1 and attacking. Coach of the losing team is on my side, I am AR1. They are attacking towards me and the attacker gets by a clumsy challenge by the white defender. In the process of defending, the white player loses his shinguard. He gets up and steals the ball from the attacker (while his shinguard is on the ground).
Coach immediately loses it and states that a defender cannot play the ball because he lost his shinguard. That he is not allowed to touch the ball at all and that it should be a free kick for red. I told him that there was no such rule but he kept going on and on about him not being allowed to play the ball until the shinguard was back in its place. I would agree that if the play had stopped because the ball went out of bounds, I would probably hold up the restart if I saw the white defender with the shinguard in his hands, but during the run of play, play on.
All I am going to say is that you learn something new every day. Or at least, you are challenged to the point where you have to think about it. Let me know what you think with you comments and hopefully we start getting some warmer weather.
Wednesday, February 21, 2018
High school vs USSF vs College
For those that don't do comments too much, here is the link to the current differences between the three sets of rules. I have not looked over all of the differences so I won't comment but I did want to thank the 2-3 of you that read my post and sent me an email almost immediately. I did not think I had that level of a following!
https://www.nfhs.org/media/1018270/2017_soccer_guide_-interscholastic_revised.pdf
Another interesting thing from this weekend was the snow we had on Saturday evening. I had 3 matches and at the start of my center which was kicking off around 2, it was coming down nicely on the turf field. By the end of that match, the field was more white than green and it was coming down hard. To the point that I had to shield my eyes when running down the pitch.
When we were about 10 minutes from kick off for the 4pm match, it looked like there was a good couple of inches of snow and the lines were gone. No 18, no touch lines. We had to put down cones and discs to see where the midfield was and where the top of the box was for each side. I went to talk to the tournament director and said that the fields were unplayable. To which I was told that it was not my call. And yes, to a point, it is not, until it is, you see. Unfortunately the center for that match was more accommodating than I would have been and played the match in full.
The field right next to ours ended their match at halftime of the 4pm kick off. And the field behind us actually played their 6pm match as well (while the other 2 fields's matches were cancelled). Go figure.
Still, not your everyday field conditions. Players were going in hard as it was a showcase tournament but they really couldn't showcase much. I had to send off one player in my match who slid so hard that had he made contact with the person with the ball in earnest, he would have broken a foot or leg (and the perp was already on a yellow).
After the match he came to me and insisted that he got all ball. I didn't agree completely. He did get ball, but got leg in there as well and I did mention that I always want them to control the body and that he played in a manner that could have caused injury given the conditions. But the truth of the matter was that regardless, the game should not have been played, because it was on a field that was already somewhat dangerous, or was getting there quickly. And yes, I could have stopped play at any moment when I felt it was unsafe. It didn't really feel like that until we were ready to kick off the next match when I came to the conclusion that it was ok to finish the match but the field was not ok to start a whole new match. No one got hurt but I did call the assignor and said that in my book the 4pm games were being held on a field that was not playable. He suggested that we talk to the coaches and see if they were ok (and unfortunately, they were).
https://www.nfhs.org/media/1018270/2017_soccer_guide_-interscholastic_revised.pdf
Another interesting thing from this weekend was the snow we had on Saturday evening. I had 3 matches and at the start of my center which was kicking off around 2, it was coming down nicely on the turf field. By the end of that match, the field was more white than green and it was coming down hard. To the point that I had to shield my eyes when running down the pitch.
When we were about 10 minutes from kick off for the 4pm match, it looked like there was a good couple of inches of snow and the lines were gone. No 18, no touch lines. We had to put down cones and discs to see where the midfield was and where the top of the box was for each side. I went to talk to the tournament director and said that the fields were unplayable. To which I was told that it was not my call. And yes, to a point, it is not, until it is, you see. Unfortunately the center for that match was more accommodating than I would have been and played the match in full.
The field right next to ours ended their match at halftime of the 4pm kick off. And the field behind us actually played their 6pm match as well (while the other 2 fields's matches were cancelled). Go figure.
Still, not your everyday field conditions. Players were going in hard as it was a showcase tournament but they really couldn't showcase much. I had to send off one player in my match who slid so hard that had he made contact with the person with the ball in earnest, he would have broken a foot or leg (and the perp was already on a yellow).
After the match he came to me and insisted that he got all ball. I didn't agree completely. He did get ball, but got leg in there as well and I did mention that I always want them to control the body and that he played in a manner that could have caused injury given the conditions. But the truth of the matter was that regardless, the game should not have been played, because it was on a field that was already somewhat dangerous, or was getting there quickly. And yes, I could have stopped play at any moment when I felt it was unsafe. It didn't really feel like that until we were ready to kick off the next match when I came to the conclusion that it was ok to finish the match but the field was not ok to start a whole new match. No one got hurt but I did call the assignor and said that in my book the 4pm games were being held on a field that was not playable. He suggested that we talk to the coaches and see if they were ok (and unfortunately, they were).
Tuesday, February 13, 2018
Back in school
Conditions on the ground dictated that I could and should return to school to do High School games. This season, I return to the fray. I have taken my test, watched the rules clinic online and attended the on-site meeting that they had for high school referees. I haven't found a good (and updated) list of differences between the rules in USSF soccer, and that of NFHS rules.
The ones that I know of off the top of my head are the throw in, where USSF is a redo should the ball not actually go in play (high school you gave up your chance), the yellow card requirement of coming off in high school and the injury to the keeper where a trainer needs to come out.
There are other differences, like OT PKs but that is more of a procedural thing. If any of you have a good updated list with all the differences, it would be great for someone like me that has exclusively been doing USSF based rules for the last 3-4 years. Thanks in advance if you do find a list out there and I will update this post should a good one be found.
The ones that I know of off the top of my head are the throw in, where USSF is a redo should the ball not actually go in play (high school you gave up your chance), the yellow card requirement of coming off in high school and the injury to the keeper where a trainer needs to come out.
There are other differences, like OT PKs but that is more of a procedural thing. If any of you have a good updated list with all the differences, it would be great for someone like me that has exclusively been doing USSF based rules for the last 3-4 years. Thanks in advance if you do find a list out there and I will update this post should a good one be found.
Sunday, February 11, 2018
Match that changed everything part 2
I will have to speak in code a bit so as not to offend certain parties, but we had a meeting regarding the issue of the match. And I also talked quite a bit with my daughter about her desire to stay out of the refereeing world.
First, there was a meeting about the match in question. I was asked to provide more detail and to explain my perceptions of what was going on, what I heard and what I didn't hear. Not something that I get to do every day. In the end, the panel is going to decide within a couple of week whether the was enough for referee abuse. If I hear anything regarding that, I will update you.
With regards to my daughter, I dug a little deeper. Because I have mentioned this many times, I enjoy more than almost anything else in my refereeing world the ability to spend time with my kids doing something I love. My daughter was more of a referee-for-money type of person and so she said that while she was genuinely scared at the time of the incident, she also had decided before then to not recertify for 2018. So it was not the match that caused her to end her career altogether but rather a factor in the decision to do something else other than ref during tournament season.
So in the end, there was one. I have a 6 year old that says she wants to referee but that is 6 years in the future, so not sure that will stay like that. But I will say that I am happy that we were able to get to the bottom of what happened, and that there was a meeting to decide whether referee abuse happened.
And then next 4-5 weeks are going to be absolutely crazy. I have tournaments starting next week all the way through the end of March. I guess it will be good money, but I am sure going to be tired as well. Hopefully I will have some time to let you in on what happens if something merits it.
Finally, I am about to purchase a comm system. Full details when I get it and when I try it out. Gotta have that tax deduction!
First, there was a meeting about the match in question. I was asked to provide more detail and to explain my perceptions of what was going on, what I heard and what I didn't hear. Not something that I get to do every day. In the end, the panel is going to decide within a couple of week whether the was enough for referee abuse. If I hear anything regarding that, I will update you.
With regards to my daughter, I dug a little deeper. Because I have mentioned this many times, I enjoy more than almost anything else in my refereeing world the ability to spend time with my kids doing something I love. My daughter was more of a referee-for-money type of person and so she said that while she was genuinely scared at the time of the incident, she also had decided before then to not recertify for 2018. So it was not the match that caused her to end her career altogether but rather a factor in the decision to do something else other than ref during tournament season.
So in the end, there was one. I have a 6 year old that says she wants to referee but that is 6 years in the future, so not sure that will stay like that. But I will say that I am happy that we were able to get to the bottom of what happened, and that there was a meeting to decide whether referee abuse happened.
And then next 4-5 weeks are going to be absolutely crazy. I have tournaments starting next week all the way through the end of March. I guess it will be good money, but I am sure going to be tired as well. Hopefully I will have some time to let you in on what happens if something merits it.
Finally, I am about to purchase a comm system. Full details when I get it and when I try it out. Gotta have that tax deduction!
Friday, December 8, 2017
The match that changed everything
As you know, I have said many times that I love doing matches with my daughter (and when my son was doing matches, with him as well). I thought it was a great bonding experience, we had fun and gave us something to do, together, that was akin to what some other people say they feel when they volunteer or do good, etc.
So to have a match that in my eyes ended my daughter's career or desire to referee is something I don't look fondly too. I have always tried to shield her since she wasn't as committed as my son was when he was doing it. And I am not sure if she is using the excuse to say that the match in question caused her to not want to ref anymore rather than just say that she lost the desire a while back. That is something that I am not sure she would admit to.
Anyway, the match in question, and I have to be careful of how I word it because I don't want it to be easily identifiable for the center in question since there is a lot of fallout from this match apparently.
We were not at home, but rather at a tournament elsewhere, where we were put up in a hotel, so we had a bunch of matches on Saturday and the last one was where both my daughter and I were together as ARs for a center that we both knew up in Northern VA.
Anyway, it was a bad situation, we had an issue before kick off that set the tone for a really rough match and at the end the center had to abandon the game due to threats from the sideline. My daughter says that this match, the fact that she felt we had to run for our lives (and we didn't, but it sorta felt that way at the moment) and the complete disaster that it was has given her pause and wants to not recertify.
I hold that center substantially responsible for the fact that my daughter does not want to ref anymore. She did work the Sunday matches with me and I thought she had a good time, but it seems that it wasn't enough to sway her back to reffing. I suspect she didn't really want to ref anymore and found this match as a gift as the excuse to say she didn't but the truth is that this center that I held in such high regard made a series of mistakes and let's just say, I would have handled things differently.
On the bright side, I have a lot more equipment and gear to work with now. And thankfully I had not bought my daughter the new ref shirts since we can use them until the end of 2018.
So to have a match that in my eyes ended my daughter's career or desire to referee is something I don't look fondly too. I have always tried to shield her since she wasn't as committed as my son was when he was doing it. And I am not sure if she is using the excuse to say that the match in question caused her to not want to ref anymore rather than just say that she lost the desire a while back. That is something that I am not sure she would admit to.
Anyway, the match in question, and I have to be careful of how I word it because I don't want it to be easily identifiable for the center in question since there is a lot of fallout from this match apparently.
We were not at home, but rather at a tournament elsewhere, where we were put up in a hotel, so we had a bunch of matches on Saturday and the last one was where both my daughter and I were together as ARs for a center that we both knew up in Northern VA.
Anyway, it was a bad situation, we had an issue before kick off that set the tone for a really rough match and at the end the center had to abandon the game due to threats from the sideline. My daughter says that this match, the fact that she felt we had to run for our lives (and we didn't, but it sorta felt that way at the moment) and the complete disaster that it was has given her pause and wants to not recertify.
I hold that center substantially responsible for the fact that my daughter does not want to ref anymore. She did work the Sunday matches with me and I thought she had a good time, but it seems that it wasn't enough to sway her back to reffing. I suspect she didn't really want to ref anymore and found this match as a gift as the excuse to say she didn't but the truth is that this center that I held in such high regard made a series of mistakes and let's just say, I would have handled things differently.
On the bright side, I have a lot more equipment and gear to work with now. And thankfully I had not bought my daughter the new ref shirts since we can use them until the end of 2018.
Wednesday, December 6, 2017
Hiatus
Boy did I take a hiatus these past 3 months. I always had it in my head that I have to post about this or that and sure enough, life would get in the way (or more games) and as they say, the rest is history. So I apologize for not getting into some of the things I wanted to talk about. At this point, the commentary about being a site coordinator is a mere figment of my memory. I do recall there being an issue with a coach who had been ejected and me having to play interference between the ejected coach and the crew that ejected him. It was nothing too terrible, but it did escalate a bit because they had to call me out to the field and make sure that the crew was able to walk off the field without the coach coming to talk to them since there was nothing that could be said at the moment.
I also will touch on a game I did in Richmond that at the moment I thought would strengthen my daughter's resolve to be a great referee but it did just the opposite. This will be in my next post because I am still quite saddened by it, by the fact that my daughter will not recertify for next year and I hold someone I looked up to fully responsible for botching a match so badly that it lead my daughter to decide that she has had enough. So that will be next time (who knows, my next post could be in 2019 and I won't even remember that I wanted to talk about it).
But I will share something interesting that I calculated today. As I mentioned, I keep a spreadsheet of all my matches. And to this day, I have calculated that I have worked a total of 914 matches since I started in August of 2008. That is a lot of matches. It comes out to 109 matches a year. It is scary to think that I have worked that many matches since starting.
Anyway, I will try to catch up on the following topics in the next couple of weeks:
- World Cup
- The match that led to my daughter's retirement
- My latest recent class
Hope everyone has a great holiday season if I don't get to posting before 2018 starts!
I also will touch on a game I did in Richmond that at the moment I thought would strengthen my daughter's resolve to be a great referee but it did just the opposite. This will be in my next post because I am still quite saddened by it, by the fact that my daughter will not recertify for next year and I hold someone I looked up to fully responsible for botching a match so badly that it lead my daughter to decide that she has had enough. So that will be next time (who knows, my next post could be in 2019 and I won't even remember that I wanted to talk about it).
But I will share something interesting that I calculated today. As I mentioned, I keep a spreadsheet of all my matches. And to this day, I have calculated that I have worked a total of 914 matches since I started in August of 2008. That is a lot of matches. It comes out to 109 matches a year. It is scary to think that I have worked that many matches since starting.
Anyway, I will try to catch up on the following topics in the next couple of weeks:
- World Cup
- The match that led to my daughter's retirement
- My latest recent class
Hope everyone has a great holiday season if I don't get to posting before 2018 starts!
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