This past weekend, I stayed home while my son and wife went to a tournament in NC. They came back with some abysmal stories regarding the referring they saw while down there, but I have to take that all with a grain of salt since I wasn't there. Except my wife filmed most, if not all of the matches. While I could not appreciate everything going on, I do have some things standing out from what I saw in the matches. Two of these things are somewhat hard to refute and to shrug off.
First one is in the first game played on Friday was my son's team against a local team. No idea about where the referees were from but it was evident who they were rooting for. After the first goal from the NC team, my wife caught the referee pumping his fist. And I know I have celebrated plays before, when a player scores an unbelievable goal or when you call an advantage that 5 seconds later is converted into a goal, but this was more a run of the mill play that the referee felt like celebrating. A couple of the boys saw it and immediately knew they weren't going to get many calls. They didn't.
Second game was interesting in that there was a younger AR as AR2. He was not paying much attention, it seemed as you could see him playing with his flag. In a counter play, he is not in line with the second to last defender, but is somewhat close. Ball is played to what looks to be a fairly offside attacker but no call is made. Keeper makes a save that goes to the corner and the center comes over and chats with him and the mike picks up something about offside and how the attacker was offside, yet the center lets the corner stand. And you guessed it, there is a goal directly off of the corner. Not sure what the referee was thinking if he thought the attacker was offside (audio was not that clear, but it picked up attacker offside, so perhaps the center did not think the attacker was offside).
A couple of minutes later, ball goes out of touch on his side and the AR does nothing, so out sprints another referee from nowhere and replaces him. No words exchanged, no stopping play, just a new AR instead of the distracted young AR. Interesting, hadn't seen that and I guess they had already decided this was going to happen.
Finally, the level of play in general was bad for a college showcase tournament. I guess the fields didn't help. A couple of them looked like they were more suitable for cow pastures than soccer, but that was not really appreciated until you saw the kids try to make passes on the ground that kept popping up and were sometimes hard to control and anticipate.
Most parents stated that they wouldn't come back, for these and many other reasons. So there you have it. This weekend, I am the designated driver for another tournament, but this one is closer to home, and supposedly is on turf. We will see if my brethren can do better than that NC tournament. I will be spectating and filming, so if I can get something juicy on film, you might see it here in a week or two.
Thursday, February 5, 2015
Tuesday, January 13, 2015
Referee related novel
http://www.amazon.com/OFFSIDE-Mystery-William-P-Barrett/dp/1620154439/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1420652370&sr=1-4&keywords=offside
This link is to a book that found its way to me during the holiday season. It is referee related (one gets murdered, so that is not really good for us referees) and soccer related as well. It is set in Southern California in 2006 so there is a housing bubble to contend with as well as a financial crisis. All in all, it is a fun read and you learn a lot along the way about soccer, the laws of the game and their origins, the various locations and many other things. I thought it was well written and thoroughly researched. The main character is very believable and so are the rest of the characters in the story. If you are on the lookout for a good read this book should be able to hold your interest and then some.
This link is to a book that found its way to me during the holiday season. It is referee related (one gets murdered, so that is not really good for us referees) and soccer related as well. It is set in Southern California in 2006 so there is a housing bubble to contend with as well as a financial crisis. All in all, it is a fun read and you learn a lot along the way about soccer, the laws of the game and their origins, the various locations and many other things. I thought it was well written and thoroughly researched. The main character is very believable and so are the rest of the characters in the story. If you are on the lookout for a good read this book should be able to hold your interest and then some.
Wednesday, January 7, 2015
Recert class
After passing the exam, I had on my calendar to attend the class for this year. Since I was a returning 7, all that was required was to sit through the class and see what the focus was this year. As you may recall, last year's clinic had a lot about social media and why a referee shouldn't be on it. This year, my takeaway focus was about fitness. A lot of videos on stretching and getting ready for the game, and for staying fit. It is like they were reading my mind. But other than that there wasn't much in terms of new things.
Also, a lot on head coverings and what colors were allowed (black and the predominant team color for field players). The coverings must match (that is all players who wear them must use the same color). They cannot be attached to the shirt worn by the players.
But other than that, there wasn't much that I can recall. No big rule changes for this go around other than the clarification (yet again) on offside. And to FIFA now, or at least the instructors at my class, offside player involvement means actually touching the ball not just going for it, so more and more, they want us to keep our flags down as an AR, at least that is what I took from that discussion.
How have your recert classes been going and has anyone noticed a trend since we have not really had a ton of rule changes in the past couple of years?
Also, a lot on head coverings and what colors were allowed (black and the predominant team color for field players). The coverings must match (that is all players who wear them must use the same color). They cannot be attached to the shirt worn by the players.
But other than that, there wasn't much that I can recall. No big rule changes for this go around other than the clarification (yet again) on offside. And to FIFA now, or at least the instructors at my class, offside player involvement means actually touching the ball not just going for it, so more and more, they want us to keep our flags down as an AR, at least that is what I took from that discussion.
How have your recert classes been going and has anyone noticed a trend since we have not really had a ton of rule changes in the past couple of years?
Tuesday, December 2, 2014
Recertification nonsense
For all of you out there with kids who are referees, let me give you a tidbit of advice. Do not try to do the recert exam online at the same time as your kids are trying to do their exams. The idea I had was to have everyone sit down and take the test and when they were done, go over any questions they had so we could make sure they understood the question and what the correct answer should be. Not the case.
As we sat in our morning room, with each child on their laptop and I on mine trying to determine if headscarves could be something other than black, I would be interrupted every 30 seconds by one of the two asking a question. Not reading the question, trying to understand it, analyze it and respond. No, just read the question out loud and see what I thought. It was painful and the last time I try that method. Since the tests in Virginia are 100 questions long, it made for a long afternoon.
The funny thing was that my son, who has been reffing a couple of years more than my daughter, failed his exam with a 74 and had to take it again. My daughter, who was more methodical and didn't rush her answers, got an 84 first try. He was able to take it again and get a 94 the second go around.
I took mine with those interruptions and have to admit that the questions were quite confusing sometimes. A lot of measuring had to be done. Things like ball goes out 15 yards from the left post so is it a goalkick (retake) or a corner kick. Off the top of my head, I don't remember if the distance from the post to the end of the penalty box is more or less than 15 yards (it is). Things like that made it complicated. I was able to review all the ones that I got wrong and have to admit that I disagreed with plenty of the ones I had wrong. Oh well. I passed and I guess that is all that matters.
As we sat in our morning room, with each child on their laptop and I on mine trying to determine if headscarves could be something other than black, I would be interrupted every 30 seconds by one of the two asking a question. Not reading the question, trying to understand it, analyze it and respond. No, just read the question out loud and see what I thought. It was painful and the last time I try that method. Since the tests in Virginia are 100 questions long, it made for a long afternoon.
The funny thing was that my son, who has been reffing a couple of years more than my daughter, failed his exam with a 74 and had to take it again. My daughter, who was more methodical and didn't rush her answers, got an 84 first try. He was able to take it again and get a 94 the second go around.
I took mine with those interruptions and have to admit that the questions were quite confusing sometimes. A lot of measuring had to be done. Things like ball goes out 15 yards from the left post so is it a goalkick (retake) or a corner kick. Off the top of my head, I don't remember if the distance from the post to the end of the penalty box is more or less than 15 yards (it is). Things like that made it complicated. I was able to review all the ones that I got wrong and have to admit that I disagreed with plenty of the ones I had wrong. Oh well. I passed and I guess that is all that matters.
Monday, November 24, 2014
Recert time
This is the first time that all 3 of us referees in the family have to recert. My kids are doing it at the end of this month and I will be doing it in December. The classes are sometimes hard to come by because of the fact that the weekends that you can take the class are also the weekends when one or two of the kids are playing in a tournament. Most recently, they have been out of town to boot.
So it comes as a surprise that I am having a hard time finding the 2014/2015 Laws of the Game USSF style. I must be looking in the wrong place as I have the 2013/2014 one in PDF but cannot locate the newest version. I found the FIFA version in no time flat, but the more local version has just been hard to find. The main USSF site still has the 2013/2014 rules, which I think will be good enough to have while taking the exam.
The one thing that makes me question our process is that now we test prior to taking the class, so it assumes that there are no questions or other situation that the referee wants to cover before taking the exam. Or perhaps it just makes things easier, at least for us in the Northern VA area. I wonder how things are handled elsewhere.
Just in case you are wondering, the link to all the documentation that USSF has is here:
https://ussoccer.app.box.com/s/ruqcsf0671k1bcf6dzwf
So it comes as a surprise that I am having a hard time finding the 2014/2015 Laws of the Game USSF style. I must be looking in the wrong place as I have the 2013/2014 one in PDF but cannot locate the newest version. I found the FIFA version in no time flat, but the more local version has just been hard to find. The main USSF site still has the 2013/2014 rules, which I think will be good enough to have while taking the exam.
The one thing that makes me question our process is that now we test prior to taking the class, so it assumes that there are no questions or other situation that the referee wants to cover before taking the exam. Or perhaps it just makes things easier, at least for us in the Northern VA area. I wonder how things are handled elsewhere.
Just in case you are wondering, the link to all the documentation that USSF has is here:
https://ussoccer.app.box.com/s/ruqcsf0671k1bcf6dzwf
Monday, November 10, 2014
My way or the highway
This past weekend, my son and I worked a couple of higher level games at the U17 and U18 level. My son did not disappoint but he did say that this is the level of soccer he likes to work on, so I might have spoiled him in terms of working U8 or U10 rec games from here on out. In the first game, where I was center, it was a decent game but with one team really pushing to get the goal while the other played counter (and not very effectively).
White was the more aggressive team and should have put away their chances in the first half but the post said no 4 times in that half. On the other side, black had one play where there was a shot and the keeper bobbled it and then lost control, it was falling to the attacker and then the keeper sort of fell on her. I immediately said "no foul" and no one protested but at halftime, we discussed it and I had the nagging feeling that it should have been a PK. The lead AR, a grade 6 said that absolutely it should have been a PK because she misplayed the ball and the chances of the attacker scoring from that distance had she not had the keeper fall on her would have been close to 100% since it was at around the 6 where the collision happened.
In the second game, the State referee took charge and immediately you saw a difference in the two styles of refereeing. I think that if you were to compare my style with that of this grade 6 would be in the levels of accommodations. I think I was more accommodating to the style the girls wanted to play and what the coaches and players were expecting to have called.
In his game we had a lot of "what was that call all about?" moments in the game. Not that he called a bad game, but coaches, players and my guess is parents as well all had to think about what some of the calls were. Not that I think they were wrong per se, but he did call things "his way". In the first 10 minutes one coach yelled out his displeasure over a non call (that was called, just waiting for advantage to dissipate) and the center looked over and said "enough" very clearly. While the coach chipped away some more in terms of comments later in the half, he did not make them public enough for the center to hear, so he got away with them. I did mention to the center that he was making those comments but part of me thought that the coach was right, since I couldn't make out some of the calls or the logic myself. Since he didn't hear them, he was ok with them if I was ok with them is how we decided to measure the level of dissent.
In the second half, the other team's coach wanted to have a conversation about a perceived foul on one of his players. The center comes over and immediately states that he is not going to have a conversation. "No more", "enough" and such were stated by the center making it clear that he did not want to hear about the alleged knee in the back that the coach wanted some commentary on. After the 4th time (in a span of 30 seconds) we went from ask, tell, dismiss to almost abandoning the game. The coach could not believe that the referee did not want to hear his side of the story and kept saying "but she got kneed in the back", "you have to protect the players" and "the other coach has been talking all game". To answer to the coach (again, I can see some of his side because to call the level of refereeing erratic would have been an understatement), however, the kneeing was called with an advantage call and I think the center was going to admonish the person who committed it had the coach not asked for more attention and the protection of players was never a problem with this center and the other coach said everything he said after the first public comment loud enough for the benches to hear but not the center.
He sent him packing but then after the game, the coach came back. Big mistake. That one game suspension probably doubled or tripled when he tried to have another conversation with the referee. But it does mean more paperwork for everyone involved. Good to see my son got exposed to that without being the brunt of the problem. More to come on the fallout as I have it.
White was the more aggressive team and should have put away their chances in the first half but the post said no 4 times in that half. On the other side, black had one play where there was a shot and the keeper bobbled it and then lost control, it was falling to the attacker and then the keeper sort of fell on her. I immediately said "no foul" and no one protested but at halftime, we discussed it and I had the nagging feeling that it should have been a PK. The lead AR, a grade 6 said that absolutely it should have been a PK because she misplayed the ball and the chances of the attacker scoring from that distance had she not had the keeper fall on her would have been close to 100% since it was at around the 6 where the collision happened.
In the second game, the State referee took charge and immediately you saw a difference in the two styles of refereeing. I think that if you were to compare my style with that of this grade 6 would be in the levels of accommodations. I think I was more accommodating to the style the girls wanted to play and what the coaches and players were expecting to have called.
In his game we had a lot of "what was that call all about?" moments in the game. Not that he called a bad game, but coaches, players and my guess is parents as well all had to think about what some of the calls were. Not that I think they were wrong per se, but he did call things "his way". In the first 10 minutes one coach yelled out his displeasure over a non call (that was called, just waiting for advantage to dissipate) and the center looked over and said "enough" very clearly. While the coach chipped away some more in terms of comments later in the half, he did not make them public enough for the center to hear, so he got away with them. I did mention to the center that he was making those comments but part of me thought that the coach was right, since I couldn't make out some of the calls or the logic myself. Since he didn't hear them, he was ok with them if I was ok with them is how we decided to measure the level of dissent.
In the second half, the other team's coach wanted to have a conversation about a perceived foul on one of his players. The center comes over and immediately states that he is not going to have a conversation. "No more", "enough" and such were stated by the center making it clear that he did not want to hear about the alleged knee in the back that the coach wanted some commentary on. After the 4th time (in a span of 30 seconds) we went from ask, tell, dismiss to almost abandoning the game. The coach could not believe that the referee did not want to hear his side of the story and kept saying "but she got kneed in the back", "you have to protect the players" and "the other coach has been talking all game". To answer to the coach (again, I can see some of his side because to call the level of refereeing erratic would have been an understatement), however, the kneeing was called with an advantage call and I think the center was going to admonish the person who committed it had the coach not asked for more attention and the protection of players was never a problem with this center and the other coach said everything he said after the first public comment loud enough for the benches to hear but not the center.
He sent him packing but then after the game, the coach came back. Big mistake. That one game suspension probably doubled or tripled when he tried to have another conversation with the referee. But it does mean more paperwork for everyone involved. Good to see my son got exposed to that without being the brunt of the problem. More to come on the fallout as I have it.
Monday, October 20, 2014
Silent treatment
A week ago, I went to a Columbus Day tournament with my son as referees. We took advantage of being outsiders so we got a hotel room provided by the referee committee to referee there. My son did all ARs (8 in total) and I did a mix of centers and ARs over the weekend. It was fun and I got to try out my more quiet side of reffing since two people had recently remarked how chatty I was.
In my first game as a center, I really did not talk much at all. A lot of blowing my whistle for fouls or for admin stuff (like substitutions or the like) but no talking to players unless I absolutely had to. 10 minutes into the first half, a play in the box that the red coach goes crazy for a PK. I did not give it, did not even bellow a "NO!" which is what I normally do on a play that I am not going to call a foul on. Coach continues for a few seconds and when the ball goes out of play, I position myself close to the coach and make eye contact while doing the zipper across the lips. And I get an acknowledging nod. It worked!
For the rest of the game, it went well but I noticed something. At least for me, when I talk to players more, I am always adjusting my bar of what constitutes a foul and what doesn't as the game goes on, the tempo, the score, etc. I noticed I needed to adjust less when not talking. At least in my mind, the bar was less mobile. Maybe because I expressed less of what I was going to allow vs not allow? Not sure why.
In my other games, it was less effective and I had to walk over to coaches and tell them to pipe down in another game. I really wasn't focusing on doing the silent treatment so I didn't do it as effectively. I need to make sure that until I get it down pat and it is second nature that I really concentrate to make sure I am doing that. I just find it hard because it is not who I am truthfully. We will see if it works out in the long run, but I am going to try that, focus on not talking as much to players and coaches. It does give things a more professional vibe to my matches, but then to me it seems like it is more of a "job" and less "fun". We will see what works and what doesn't after I have had more time to work this angle.
In my first game as a center, I really did not talk much at all. A lot of blowing my whistle for fouls or for admin stuff (like substitutions or the like) but no talking to players unless I absolutely had to. 10 minutes into the first half, a play in the box that the red coach goes crazy for a PK. I did not give it, did not even bellow a "NO!" which is what I normally do on a play that I am not going to call a foul on. Coach continues for a few seconds and when the ball goes out of play, I position myself close to the coach and make eye contact while doing the zipper across the lips. And I get an acknowledging nod. It worked!
For the rest of the game, it went well but I noticed something. At least for me, when I talk to players more, I am always adjusting my bar of what constitutes a foul and what doesn't as the game goes on, the tempo, the score, etc. I noticed I needed to adjust less when not talking. At least in my mind, the bar was less mobile. Maybe because I expressed less of what I was going to allow vs not allow? Not sure why.
In my other games, it was less effective and I had to walk over to coaches and tell them to pipe down in another game. I really wasn't focusing on doing the silent treatment so I didn't do it as effectively. I need to make sure that until I get it down pat and it is second nature that I really concentrate to make sure I am doing that. I just find it hard because it is not who I am truthfully. We will see if it works out in the long run, but I am going to try that, focus on not talking as much to players and coaches. It does give things a more professional vibe to my matches, but then to me it seems like it is more of a "job" and less "fun". We will see what works and what doesn't after I have had more time to work this angle.
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