Quick note

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Without going into too much detail about the recert class, I wanted to let you all know that I passed with a 72 out of 75. And I still have an issue with two of the ones that I got wrong, but that is neither here nor there. It all boils down to the fact that I guess I will be reffing again in 2010 and you may have to put up with me for another season. Lucky you.

Of Tournaments and Fauna

Interesting stories from this week’s tournament. I will break it down in three distinct stories: a) The Tiny Ref, b) The Late Ref and c) The Non Ref

So for starters, this was a tournament weekend, a closeout weekend as the season is winding down to a close. There are a couple of tournaments scattered throughout the DC area, and this one was fortunately, closest to home. In the past, the assignor who gives me matches for this tournament (and the others that he assigns for) has always used me as a backup ref at the site where my son's team plays. And I have never had to actually sub in for a ref. I was once given a match by the site coordinator back in March of this year, but the assigned ref showed up in the nick of time. But I digress...

The Tiny Ref

As you can imagine, this pertains to a ref that did my son's U10 matches. He was shorter than some of the kids on either team. I am not sure if he knew all the rules or if he had a whistle, because he really only used it for the kick-offs and then for half time. I do believe he did not call a single foul until 3 minutes before the end of the match and it was a questionable call in my eyes. But the fact that he must not have been over 13 made it the most interesting thing. I am a firm believer in having referees train but during tournaments, parents paid a decent chunk of change to have their kids play special matches, and though he was not terrible, he certainly did not give the impression he really knew what was going on so of course, parents were not happy. And in the end, if parents are not happy, they take their tournament dollars elsewhere. I saw a lot of frustration over the reffing in general because of the inconsistancy of the whistle blowing. My guess is that if you do not like the officiating, you will probably not be back next year for that tournament. And some of the blame I have to lay it on the assignor who may have blindly given the matches to a 13 year old.

The Late Ref

On Sunday, I had an early start. The first match was to begin at 7:30am. It was cold and fairly dark still when I arrived at the field at 7:05am. The other AR arrived with me and we began chatting. The fields looked terrible. They were Bermuda grass that I later found out, turns yellow and basically looks dead upon first frost of the season and that is why they looked bad. To top it off, there were several field markings, all in while, against the pale yellow of the Bermuda grass, which made an AR’s job all that more complicated.

By 7:20, our center had not arrived, so while the other AR checked the teams in, I ran over to the ref tent and let them know that we may need another ref for our match in 10 minutes. 5 minutes later we get someone coming over. He introduces himself and he is not the scheduled ref, but rather the backup. While we are standing there, he does manage to confirm my suspicion that he is rather cocky and eccentric by some of the comments he makes. He said things like “This level is so easy compared to the semi-pro that I normally do, but oh well…” (we were about to do a U15 boys Elite flight level match, so it should not be that easy).

Right before the start of the match, another ref lumbers on to the field and we come to find out that he was the ref that was supposed to be here to center the match originally. He and the eccentric ref get into a little discussion and in the end, eccentric tells him “I do not care if you got here late. It is my match now because it is no longer your match. You can watch the match from the sideline or the ref tent, but get off my field.” And here I thought we were a community of brothers.

So the match starts and the eccentric ref is one of those chatty ones, with strange calls, late calls and everything else we are taught not to be. He becomes the star of the match and at the end, when we go over the final score and the cards, he states he gave 5 yellow cards during the match. I saw only one.

For the next match, the shunned referee comes on to the field as my AR, still complaining about the match that he was supposed to center. But I notice one weird thing, he did not have a US badge on his uniform, but rather a FIFA badge. I asked him if he was still certified (his badge had a small 98 on the bottom, so I thought he was not still certified for FIFA but I had to ask). He said he was from Cameroon and had received his FIFA badge there and worked the African Cup of Nations as an AR (I could not verify this on Wikipedia as they did not list the AR’s names, only who centered each match and I am not going to dig that much further). Still, I am not sure he should be wearing a 10 year old FIFA badge instead of the current US badge.

The Non Ref

This one was more entertaining than anything else, but while on my break I was watching the action unfold on two fields when all of a sudden, one of the ARs starts to wiggle his flag like crazy to indicate that something was wrong. Then I look over and a deer was sprinting across the field on the half where play was not occurring. I do not think that the center on that field even realized since it happened so quick. Then the deer leapt over some chairs and bound up the hill to the other field, where she squeezed in between the goalpost and the keeper (who again, did not realize until the deer was long gone) before jumping over a ditch, in between cars and over a fence to disappear into the woods behind the fields. Not often do you get that type of close up with wildlife when reffing (unless you consider some of the parents wildlife).

This coming week I am doing my 2010 certification and hope to have some more information on what we are going to be focusing on this coming year. Come to think of it, I have not had to do the certification for three seasons now, because I received my in August 2008, which already gave me the 2009 badge.

In the coming weeks I will have that as well as the ref seminar in January and a high school training session. So this winter should not be a quiet one.

Bad Clubs

I am not sure how much I want to say about this, but I have been mulling over the fact that there are a couple of clubs in the area that are just bad clubs. The coaches, parents, and most everyone else associated with the clubs are just mean, crummy people, or they act that way on Sunday at least.

For the most part, whenever I do matches for these clubs, I know I am going to have to be extra cautious, and that they will not be happy with the performance of the referee squad unless their team comes out ahead. These two clubs are fairly similar in location and in general are probably worse off economically than most of the other areas.

I have had my fair share of mean people, but this is more of a systematic, endemic thing going on with these two clubs. It is almost everyone, it is almost like they feed off of each other. I am sure that if I were to talk to some of them alone, they would seem fine, but when they arrive at the field and everyone that they know are all yelling and screaming at the kids, officials, coaches, etc. it is similar to mass hysteria.

Again, this is not a rant on the socio-economic situation of the clubs, but I wonder if that has something to do with it. I hope to pick up this rant later, I want to see where we can go with it but it is late now and I am tired. Talk to you all soon.

But it is so nice out

The weather dealt me a delayed blow. In the most lucrative weekend of the year (for regular season soccer), I was dealt the equivalent of a snake eyes. The assignor pays a premium for working the playoffs of one of the rec leagues. During the regular season, those matches are not in high demand, but if you are willing to do them, he then rewards you at the end of the season with matches that pay very well for the playoffs. For 70 minute matches, you would receive $50 for a center and $30 for an AR. I had 3 centers and one AR, so I was looking at an extra $180.

It rained Tuesday through Friday and on Saturday, they make the decision to close the grass fields and not the turf fields. Sure enough I was on grass. To make matters worse, it turned out to be a decent day. Sunday was even better, but I come to find out that since the semi-finals were not played on Saturday, there would be no finals for Sunday either. So I did not get a chance to work either day. Still, I am not going to complain too much as I have to go by and collect my check from the assignor tonight and I have a good idea of how much will be in there, and it is decent to say the least.

This next weekend, I am doing the last tournament of the season. Last year it should have been called the icycle tournament as it was really cold, and there were some matches scheduled at 7:30am! This season, I am a backup ref on Saturday and Sunday I am working the U15 boys and U14 girls. We will see how all that goes but it should be fun.

Follow up from last week

I still have to sort out some things from this past weekend, it was another good weekend for some decent soccer but I did want to follow up from last weekend on my comment about my son's match.

My son plays U10 travel and many times, I am asked to help as an AR in his matches. The match was a blowout and at one point with the match at 6-0 or something like that and me perched right in front of the visiting team's bench, my son's team plays a ball from defense that makes it past all their defenders (who were on the attacking half). There was one boy on my son's team perched at midfield and when the pass (or clearance) goes by, he takes off. He was clearly onside as he was right behind the midfield line and the ball passed him before he made his run, so I held my flag down. SIDE NOTE: As a non-paid AR, I asked the center if he wanted me to flag things as normal, as if I were a real AR or just help with the out-of-bounds stuff. He said to do the full thing.

When the kid makes the run for the ball, I start running down the line and from my back I hear, "Hey Ref that was..." It was the coach of the other team. I could not believe he was giving me lip about my non-offside call. So as I am running away from him, I look back and say, "Please coach, do not give me any of that" in a tone that was not very civil.

When the play finishes I run back and expect to hear a ton of "he was clearly off-side" and "how can you be an AR" etc. so I said before he could say anything, "I do not want to hear it" to which he answers, "but that was a great call, all I wanted to tell you is that you did very well in holding the flag down".

I need to stop being such a hot head. Another lesson learned.

Too bad I can't make them all cry

This past weekend I worked both days with interesting stories on each day, mostly anecdotal stuff, nothing really hard core ref related, at least on Saturday. On Sunday (in my next post), there is more juicy ref content.

Saturday I was slated to work 3 matches, U12 and U10 boys in the local rec league. Not particularly complicated matches, but the interesting thing about rec matches is that the parents are always keeping score and that the disparity in the level of play is always something to consider since you want people to have fun but you have to be mindful that the really good players are going to stand out...

First story of the day was that I seemed to have a knack for making the boys cry. In the first match, one team has a breakaway and a defender runs stride by stride with the attacker and is yelling at him like a marauding Viking all the way down. The attacker does not flinch and scores, but after the goal, I told the boy that he cannot yell to attempt to distract the attacker and that in a regular match that would be a yellow card.

I am not sure if he misunderstood or if maybe I was not age-appropriate in my language (though my 10 year old son would have understood) but he immediately looked at me and started balling. I had to explain to the coach what I said to the boy and he did not return to the field till the second half. And without incident, so at least it was not that bad.

In the second match, there were two terribly mismatched teams. One was very good, with 2-3 players that could have easily played travel and the other was one that barely had the basic notion of what soccer was. On the latter team, there was one child who knew one thing, attack the ball, get the ball and the concept of not fouling in the process was somewhat fuzzy. I counted 5 fouls from him in the first half. In the second half, with him team down 3-1, he really started laying it on thick. When his foul count approached double digits, I told him I had just about had enough of his fouling (and in hindsight, I should have talked to him sooner) and then when he fouled again, I asked the coach to sub him out since this league does not permit yellow or red cards unless something terrible happens. He was subbed and started tearing up as he walked off the field. Fortunately, with only 3 minutes left in the match, he did not return.

For the last match of the day, I did not have any crier, so at least I had that going for me, but seriously, I have to make sure that I choose a lighter tone when addressing children. I guess I have that personality that can come off as gruff and the boys did not respond well to it. Another lesson learned.

As a side note, on the last match, it felt like we regressed into medival times or something similar. One the yellow team there were two boys with distinctly strange names. One boy was almost my height (5'9") and his name was Thor. Yes, as in Odin's son. And then there was another boy named Augustus. Nothing interesting about the match, but the names served as some comic relief as the rain started to come down towards the end of the match.

In my next installment, I will describe another learning experience I had in my son's travel match with the other team's coach.

Weather permitting

It has been a rough time for soccer in the DC area. It seems that it is wet on the weekends. I suspect that in mid November, we will still be making up some of the matches that have been suspended this season.

I have reached another first, the suspension of a match in mid play. It was the 12 noon match of a U13 travel boys and it was raining at a steady clip. I left home around 11:20 and got to the field at 11:35 thinking that the match would be called off because of the rain. But to my amazement, the match prior to mine was being played. The field was grass and not turf, so that made it more interesting. On top of that, the field I come to find out had just been aerated so it had a lot of things going against it.

So I walk out to the field and I am already soaking wet, there are indicators that there will be a little pool or two soon and the field looks bad. One of the coaches wanted to play the other was reluctant but said that this match was a postponed game from a couple of weeks ago, so to please, please play it. I had the issue that I did not want to tear up the field but it seemed that I was outnumbered (although I know that I was the final authority on it).

The game was not good. Sloppy play, sloppy passing, sloppy field conditions. The blue team was 10 times better than the yellow team and they got a goal from their star player #53 early but after that, it was all ugly. One player on yellow was adamant on telling me where I missed all the calls. Halfway through the first half he slide tackles from behind (and I did tell the kids that slide tackling was risky given the conditions) so he gave me a present to calm him down, a yellow with a good chewing out as well.

In the end, he did finish the match but the only reason that happened was because I had to suspend it with 12 minutes left when we started looking more like water polo rather than soccer. Lucky for him I guess. But it was wet all around for me and we all know how much I love reffing in the rain!

Interesting call

I am not going to bore you with the details of some of the games I have been assigned lately, a lot of U13-U14 girls and boys matches that are either very light or overly aggressive. But mostly, U13 girls, just moved into a large field, is like watching paint dry, they move the ball well enough, there is little contact and goals (rare as they are) are only scored within the 6 it seems. It has to be my least favorite age group.

There is one call that I will bring up during my center of a U15 girls match. The defender has the ball on the left flank and pressured by an attacker. The defender is facing her own goal and a teammate towards the penalty spot is calling for the ball. She passes it to her but then the keeper tells the teammate to back off and then proceeds to collect the ball with her hands. I blow my whistle as a passback but the gold team swarms me saying it was not intentional. And I had to think about it for an extra second. The intention to pass to the general vicinity of the keeper was clear, though she was probably not the intended target at the time of the pass, but I have to think full well that the keeper knew she was not allowed to pick it up. So in so many words, I explained it to the girls.

I knew I made the right call when my AR backed me up, but even more so when the coach of the team that was penalized did as well.

I have a couple of more stories from these last two weekends, just not enough time to detail it all out just now.

Three Week Recap

Week 1

U13 and U14 boys on Saturday. Games are being played on a turf field with marking for soccer, football, lacrosse and others given the fact that there were white, yellow, blue and red/orange lines on the ground. The matches were nothing spectacular, but it was interesting that I called a PK on one of the matches I was the center and mistakenly used a football extra point line instead of the PK spot. The kick still went in, so no big deal, but still, something to learn. Also, on another match, the team was using yellow for the goalkeeper, and so we needed to change to another color, but one of the ARs had no other color. Not a good start for him.

Sunday was just U15 girls, nothing special there.

Week 2

U 15 boys on Saturday, very well played games, but one club's parents were obnoxious to the point of no return. As an AR in one of the matches that they lost, they gave me hell for not calling an offsides which I saw as onside. But their comments were to the tune of, "What do you expect when he has sunglasses". Like that is going to make a big difference, but yet, it lead me to realize that when you are doing the AR with the parents involved, it does not pay to carry a conversation with them as they can turn on you.

Week 3

The most boring two ARs I have done in a long time. I do not think I had to actually run at any time, just trot. Painful.

Back to the field

It is that time again, when the pre-season tournaments abound and everyone is getting ready for some soccer. I received my assignments for this Saturday and Sunday, they are U14 boys and U14 and U19 girls. Eight matches in total, 5 as AR and 3 as center. No complaints there. I will only be able to see my son's first match unfortunately and if he gets to the final, perhaps see that one as well.

As for the matches and the team I am getting, I do not know them that well, so we will have to wait and see what we get. I am re-reading the USSF Laws of the Game as I normally do before the start of the season to make sure I have things down correctly.

Minor update

Nothing too insteresting this weekend, there was a Saturday set of friendlies my son was participating in, and they were using older kids as referees. I volunteered to help out but there was no need. The only thing I wish these kids would have done better is to stay closer to the play and to blow their whistle louder. No one was sure if the ball was out, or what the calls were. But in the end there was little else to tell them, if someone had asked. I am not sure that they were registered refs to begin with, but it was all for friendlies and in the end it was just a warm up for the season.

But next week is looking good, I have a bunch of ARs and centers coming up, 8 for this coming weekend. U19, U13 and U14. Should be a good time. More to come.

Away for a while

Not much to report on the refereeing front. To tell you the truth, I have not missed it that much. But in a couple of weeks, I return to the action with a tournament and that should be a good indication of how the season will go. I will fill you in as it happens. These last couple of months have been good though without soccer reffing to worry about, but the season is slowly approaching. My son plays in a couple of tournaments prior to the start of the regular season and the following weekend, I will get to see the matches and critique our fellow referees (hopefully on how well they did).

Second Season in the books

Though technically, the end of the season is not until the end of July, for all purposes here, I am ending the season. I have a document where I keep all my matches that list time, date, location and other particulars to be able to say with some degree of certainly how many matches I have done at any given time. I also have a column for how much I am making for each match. That then gets summed up in another column. Once a check comes in, I note it and deduct it from the sum. Well, today the number between the payments per match and that of how much I have been paid is zero, so I am closing out the season.

I have a couple of season tournaments that I may be doing, but there is not much time to spare, in late August the season starts again, and I have to recertify before the end of the season, so there should be a lot going on. More on those topics in later posts.

For today, I want to give out some rough numbers on the second season and hopefully come to some conclusions and comparisons to the first.

Number of matches refereed: 52
Centers: 33
ARs: 19

I did most of my reffing with the local league here, and with my son in travel (as well as my daughter now dangerously close to entering that as well) I would say that for the time being, doing just the local club matches should be fine. Getting these many matches certainly kept me in shape, and I made some extra cash to help with these lean financial times. And I think I did pretty well doing what I needed to do for the good of the game.

I am going to see about setting goals for myself closer to the start of the new season, which could be a successful recert, aim for a Grade 7 upgrade, or help out more with other leagues, etc. I will let you know once I know exactly what that goal or goals are.

For now, it is some time to get back to work, as my day job has been brutal, and the kids. Enjoy them while they still want to be with their father. Reffing takes a back seat to that, any time.

Updating on a newer machine

Before I go off on my soccer related incursion, I wanted to comment that I am writing this entry on a machine I put together that is running the beta version of Windows 7. It is really cool, fast and basically everything Vista should have been.

Ok, back to soccer. I had wanted to write up after the last match of the regular season and that final weekend where I had 5 matches, but I could not find the time with work being just unreal, so I am going to have to write about the two last weeks together and basically one specific thing, penalty kicks. In my two seasons, I had never had a game where I was reffing go to PKs and I wanted to get that out of the way.

On Saturday of the regular season, in the rec league, the U14 girls that I was reffing as an AR went to PKs on a 1-1 match. It was the postseason so they had to have a winner. In this contest, I was asked to work the center circle, so basically, I would coordinate the kickers and make sure that they were taking their turns, at the ready and backup for the scoring, just in case. It was fun, but little did I know that the following week would be more still.

This past weekend, I did a father's day tournament and when I got my assignments, it was a doozy, U19 Boys. I was thrilled as it meant that they would be good and there would be some decent action. I did six matches for the tournament, two centers and four ARs, but boy did I have an awesome experience at the center on Sunday.

Before arriving at the field, I knew that I had one of the finals for the U19 boys. As it turned out, I had the D1 final, and the teams knew each other well, had played twice already in the regular season and there was no love lost between the teams.

To make matters worse, I was still trying to overcome the experience from a couple of weeks ago when all the parents wanted to eat me up. One thing about this tournament was that many players at this age group were already men and they were playing in the U19 boys rec championship because it was much more financially viable than playing travel (or so I was told by a couple of people at the tournament). So in essence, these kids were probably just as good as the kids that did travel, but just did not have the means to pay for travel soccer.

Anyway, the game went well. I called it a little tighter than I would have (on Saturday I had one center say that at this age group he called practically nothing, and on Sunday, I had another center say that at this age group she called practically everything, so I went with something in the middle). And the orange team was far more physical than the Blue team. But the other thing that I did for them was to say out loud when I was not going to call a foul or call handling. I would yell "No foul, play on" or "No hands, play on" so that they would immediately focus back on the match and not at trying to get my attention to see if I had seen what they would be complaining about. This lowered their whining a bit (I got a lot more whining on my Saturday center and thought this would help, it did).

Blue scored first with 4 minutes left in the first half on a free kick and then Orange tied it up 4 minutes in to the second half. It truly was a great match. In the end they went to PKs and I froze when I was going to do the coin toss. I could not remember the procedure, so what I did was give Orange the chance to call it and they won the toss, so I let them choose to either kick first or second. Orange had the better goalie and they thought that they were better when it came to taking the PKs but Blue only had one stopped by the keeper while Orange missed two that hit the goalposts and out.

And finally, in my last center of my second season I had my PKs as a center. I am sure that I will rue most of those next however many PK shootouts I will have as a ref, but I certainly enjoyed this one. It was a great match played by two great teams and I was smack dab in the middle of it, so I got that going for me.

Funny note

One thing I forgot from yesterday's rant, and that was that just for the second time in my reffing career (truly not that long), I was hit with the ball. The first time was back in January when the ladies league was in play and the ball basically grazed me.

This time, it was a full on clearance from one of the defenders in last match of the day that hit me halfway in the chest, shoulder and upper right arm area. One of the boys made a funny comment, "Handball ref!" He wasn't kidding!

Questioning my performance

A tale of two days. Saturday was great from a complements standpoint and terrible from a physical standpoint. Sunday was just the opposite.

Saturday I did a couple of hard U14 centers and an AR as well. It was great, the first match was a good one between the two leading U14 teams. The first goal was scored 60 seconds in, where my AR was in the perfect position to see the ball trickle in to the goal. From my angle it did not look like it went all the way in, but he had the perfect angle, so that was good. Then with 3 minutes left and the teams tied at 1, we get a clear trip in the box and the home team slammed it home for a 2-1 win. I got a lot of compliments from both teams.

Second match was a 3-2 where I had the chance to call a goal on the line as an AR, and then with maybe 30 seconds left in the match, the team down 3-2 ties it up but the player was offside by half a step, if the one who had created the play had shot it himself, it would have been legit, but he passed it to the wide open (and in the offside position) attacker and that invalidated the goal. Not too happy from the players or fans, but the center thanked me for making the right call.

Finally the third match was a 6-0 blowout, but I got compliments because it was still a competitive game and because there was one player on the purple team that lost that did not have all his marbles. He was somewhat of a loose cannon. He would go in late, run his mouth and just generally make it a sour event for those around him. I spoke to him and the defender from the other team that were jawing it out to cut it out or get a card each. They shut up after that.

At the end of that match my knees were absolutely killing me, so I thought that Sunday was going to be bad, but I got up and felt fine Sunday. However, it was another story in terms of the matches.

The first one was an 8-1 blow out but the team losing had a coach that out of nowhere started yelling that his boys were getting fouled every time they ran to the ball. They were getting outplayed actually. And on top of it, #12 on Blue kept flopping, so the one time he does get fouled, I hesitated and the coach was on me. So I had to tell him that the reason I hesitated was that he had flopped the first couple of times and that it was difficult for me to determine if it was a foul or not given the history. He did not like that at all. Lesson #1, keep those opinions to yourself. I gained nothing by telling the coach and others that I thought #12 was flopping. Tell them that you were waiting to see if there was an advantage or something else.

The second match I had been warned was going to be a doozy and it was. An undefeated team going against another good team. The U11 boys had me on my toes. The first two goals were for the gold team that was undefeated. Then they scored again, and the purple team wanted an offside call that I just didn't see. I was not in the best position and from my angle the attacker came from behind the defender, but boy oh boy did the coach and parents from that side yell and scream bloody murder.

In the second half, the purple team gets one goal back and then with 10 minutes left, they get another. With the score 3-2, gold is attacking and there is a possible foul inside the box, I did not see a foul but because I was not in the best position. I was running down the middle and that angle did not give a clear view. I cannot call a foul if I do not see it. The problem was that there was one purple defender shielding me from the actual contact. So I did not call it. Lesson #2: Try and go wider, that way you have better angles across the field of play and can help with offsides as well to boot. Something that would have certainly helped with this match.

Then with a minute left, purple corner, it floats in and purple and gold jump for the ball. Purple had a striaght jump while gold defender came at an angle. Gold gets his head on the ball but also makes contact with purple. I did not see a foul but the parents of purple sure did (and btw, where was the team liason that each team is supposed to have to calm parents down? I hate having to tell parents to shut up.)

In the counter attack, gold scores again and they win 4-2 but I just did not know what to make of my performance. I want to improve, but at the same time, it was almost like I did not want to do it anymore, it was not worth it...

Much ado about nothing

No idea if the title is spelled correctly, so my apologies if it is. On to the fun stuff from this weekend, oh wait, there was not much as my three matches for Satuday were cancelled out. And I did not have anything lined up for Sunday as I had a prior commitment. I found out that the league I was supposed to ref in does not have any rain days built in (at least for this season) so those games are lost completely. Oh well.

I did get a chance to see my son play and it is funny that I almost reffed the game as the actual ref showed up 5 minutes to kick off. It was in a weird place, not your typical park and it was out of the way for us as the visiting team (over an hour away from home) but the fact that he did not show up until right before kick off really indicated that he was also having trouble finding the place. Regardless, it turned out ok. He did not have the proper equipment, but it was good enough. At least he did figure out to change his shirt color when he saw that one team was wearing yellow. The one thing that really kills me about my fellow refs is situations like this, but this person switched to blue when he saw yellow on red (and one goalie was black while the other was green, so it turned out to be perfect).

In the other field, in a U11 match that was much more intense, the ref also had yellow playing white and he was wearing yellow. He stopped play about 5 minutes into his match and went to his bag. I thought to myself, well, better late than never, but when he returned to the field, he was carrying flags for volunteer ARs and still the same yellow jersey. Not professional at all. I have to insist, bring at least 2 colors (yellow and black) so at least you have the possibility of not screwing it up, with 3 you can play without any issue and only conflict with goalkeepers. At a certain point, you have to realize that you are no longer reffing rec leagues anymore and that you either should take it seriously or not do it at all. Maybe some day, I will become uncaring, but still, it is about doing a job right.

So have at least 3 shirts (yellow and black for sure, and if you do not have any other, get green as there are few teams that use that color). Most teams are Blue, Red or White (in that order, from my experience. And have some fun out there, but with the proper attire.

Heat of the moment

And hot it was this weekend. Six matches overall, 2 on Satuday (a U10 girls and a U9 boys that were nothing spectacular). I did almost red card a boy in the U9 match. Two fouls both fairly similar and heavy handed on the same attacker. I carded him on the first and probably should have done the same on the second but they were already down 4-1 and the second one was a penalty on top of it, so I could not bring myself to yellow card the player again.

On Sunday, things picked up a little more. Two U13 girls matches, one as a center and one as an AR. The center one started off very interestingly as the blue team attacked and had a goal I had to call back because they literally ran over the keeper. They then scored first with a little less than 4 minutes to play in the first half but in the span of 2-3 minutes, yellow got two goals and then sealed it with a 3-1 win.

In the U11 boys matches I had that afternoon, I could tell that they were starting to try and play the ref, as one boy seemed to have missed a shot as a defender went to challange him and he went down yelling he was hurt, etc. and that the defender had fouled him. I had to tell him that I did not see a foul unfortunately. A couple of minutes later, with the game 2-1, the same attacker and defender go at it but this time I see the defender take out the legs in the box, PK for white who is down 2-1. The keeper gets a couple of fingers on the ball and it hits the crossbar and falls into his hands. On the counter, the blue team gets a PK of their own (stupid -as in excessive- foul right on the line of the box and they do convert, to make it 3-1 and game over.

All in all, some of the benefits of this tournament were that we got drinks and food included and that we were paid right after our last match. My total was just shy of $200. Not bad with these benefits.

Swift Justice

I just checked my email and saw one from the Commissioner of the league from the problem parent. He emailed me let me know that the parent has been suspended for two matches. I really hope it teaches him to value what is important. I am rooting for him.

Flurry of activity

These last 24 hours have generated quite a bit of work for me because of my dismissal of a parent that I commented about in my previous post. I was asked by the assignor for the field that I was at on Sunday to include a detailed run down of everything that was happening leading up to the incident and then the exchange as best as I could remember so that he could forward it on to the discipline committee for the league.

In my initial comment card (the one where you write down the final score, and send that in to the league) I included what I could but of course the space allocated is not really much at all. In the email I went into a lot more detail (more than in the post) as I knew who the player was and could figure out that it was the father or caregiver of that player. I submitted that Sunday night and Monday night I received an email where I was CCed that contained the assignor's comments plus my rundown of the events.

Immediately, I get an email from the R/D Commissioner asking if the threat that the disgruntled parent had uttered had made me feel fearful of my physical safety. It had not, but I suspect that if I had said yes, a bigger wave of problems would have befallen this person and the team in general. Also, he commented that I could have terminated the match if I did feel like the threats were on the physical side. At the time of the match, it did not cross my mind, but afterward I did think about it. To be truthful, the kids did not deserve it.

And then I get a couple of emails from people on the local club board to state how well they thought I handled the situation. It appears that there were plenty of people that were there who have some influence. Oh well, who knows, my stock may be rising! More to come on this as I have it but it certainly generates a lot more work that I would have expected. And better yet, more blog fodder.

Another Milestone achieved

Not one that I wanted to ever say I reached, but it was done nonetheless. It was the sending off of a parent. Here is the story:

Halfway through the second half with the blue team up 4-1 and pressing hard to get even more a parent from the team winning all of a sudden starts going ballistic on me, yelling at the top of his lungs that there was a foul on the play. The play in question was a pass that one kid from the blue team chipped over to another who tried to volley and missed the ball, with no one from the other team even within a yard of him.

I walked over, had a lengthy conversation with him that ended with me saying "Would you rather watch the rest of your son's match here on the sideline or in the parking lot?" He said "Try me." I sent him on his way, and all the while he was walking off, he said fairly vulgar things. And there were threats of legal action if his son was injured. I documented it of course, spoke with the assignor who was not there and there was a parent who came over and said that he had seen the three matches and that I had done a good job, that there weren't enough refs with the guts to send off parents when they went ballistic.

The other two games I will write about later if I have the time, but there was nothing spectacular about them compared to this one. I did do a U11 Boys D1 match, and boy, they were a pleasure to watch compared to the D5 game that this incident originated from. The ball control, the dribbling, the crisp passing into space not at the person. I enjoyed it. And the bonehead parent did not come to mind at all until I was done with my three matches.

Next weekend is a tournament, and I have 6 matches total (2 Saturday and 4 Sunday). But hopefully the parents will not be as uptight...

On tap

This weekend could be good, a nice one in terms of the forecast and certainly with 3 matches for me on tap. All U11, 2 boys and one girls. I will post more after the matches and hopefully they are good ones...

One game, no goals

If there was a 0-0 ever written before the game started, the one I did yesterday was the one. U14 girls on a huge field. One team would try to advance by passing and the other with boom-ball.

The only interesting thing was that the center ref said a couple of interesting things, one: -that calls in the box were his, not ours and that calls on our side out of touch were our responsibility and that he would back us up. Still there was little in terms of action. Maybe one chance to score each.

Also, he called every possible handling call. I agree that those balls that go for 30 yards and then hit a hand should be called but if someone stikes it and the opponent is right there, hits the hand unintentionally, I do not call it but he did.

Still nothing else to comment, fairly lame game.

More rain on Sunday

Saturday's promise of rain made it evident that Sunday was going to be a soaker, and it was. The game I had was an AR for a U11 match. I am not sure why exactly we have ARs for such low level games (it was a 3-0 but it should have been something like 10-0). One team just had their stuff together and the other could not put together two passes. They rarely crossed midfield.

It was just cold and wet enough to be uncomfortable and the non-challenging nature of the match made it all worse. The one positive aspect was that the other AR mentioned that I was too loose with my flag, as in, not keeping it at my side when not making a call (throw in, offside, goal kick or corner).

That alone was worth the miseable time. I was soaked after the match, but I had to stay as my son played immediately after. Fortunately the rain let up at the start of his match and did not resume until his match was over. So that made it 6 matches for the weekend. Too many in my book, especially 5 in one day. Not planning on doing that again.

This weekend looks tame, two adult AR matches on Saturday afternoon and that is it. On Sunday, it is Mother's day and there are two women I must tend to, so no reffing then.

Painful reminders

That is what you get the morning after when you do 5 matches on Saturday. My legs ache quite a bit but in a strange way, it feels good.

The first two matches were adult league matches in a very well kept field about 15 minutes from home. What is interesting is that those fields are well kept because they normally close them at the first hint of rain, and yesterday we had a few sprinkles, and a constant threat of showers with thunderstorms all day long that never materialized. Anyway, the games were tame, but they were interesting plays. One involved me where I signaled an offside, and the center (the same one that I helped with his 8 to 7 assessment late last season) signals me down. He is so laxidasical in his motions that he really never gives off a air of control, though his matches never really get too out of hand.

At halftime he tells me first that it was a direct pass from a goal kick and that is why he flagged me down, then he says that it was actually a pass back, so what was it, a direct goal kick or a passback, because it can't be both. And to be truthful, I cannot be 100% sure myself, but I do not think it was either.

The other interesting thing was that the other AR was mimicking my calls all the time, I would signal for a goal kick and he would do the same. I would signal throw in and he would replicate, just weird.

In the afternoon games, they were all very tame. The league is played on huge turf fields and 13 year olds have a hard time scoring as they run out of gas before getting to the goal. In the first match, the game ended 1-1 and one team got like 6 calls for using their hands. The girls kept putting their hands in akward places and one time, the defender tried to chest it down and somehow her arms were over her head and the ball rolled over the arm. I had no choice but to call a penalty. The interesting part was that the team defending the penalty tried to make noise and shout to the penalty taker. I put a stop to that, but the penalty kick sailed over the crossbar.

The other games were also llow scoring affairs, both 1-0 with goals coming over a keeper flub and an offside trap gone wrong. In the one where I was a center, one of the players yelled out a bad word, where I heard it. He was the best player and I carded him but only a yellow. I did not feel like the game needed a red card at all. It turns out he was yelling it to his sister for taunting him when he missed a free kick. Funny how these things play out.

So this morning I am aching and have one more match to go. And it is rainy, gloomy, not exactly the type of day I wanted to have to play, so hopefully something gets suspended. Wish me luck...

A bunch of great matches and one really rough one

Last Saturday, I had 4 good matches, U10 boys and a bunch of U8 matches as well. Those went fine. I felt confident with them. I also had a U12 girls that ended with one team angry at me that I did not call enough fouls against Blue "17" whom they called a fouling machine. I did call 3-4 fouls on her but they wanted every single call. On top of it, it was a close game, 1-0 for Blue and I had to stop the match twice in the second half for serious injuries (ironically, Blue suffered the injuries).

Anyway, I found myself second guessing after the fact. Should I have called more fouls? I did not see them to tell you the truth, but it bugs me if I did miss something important.

I have three ARs this weekend, two on Saturday, adult league and one on Sunday as well as two Centers on Saturday. Hopefully I can put this match in the past and move forward.

Is this already getting to me?

I had read on other blogs how those people that ref get to a point when they start getting tired. This weekend, it hit me. I was getting tired of these matches! I certainly hope this feeling was a fluke, and maybe it was because I was not feeling well on Saturday, but it is something I cannot avoid. More to come later but I hope to be more positive in the next post.

Anyway, 3 matches this weekend, two ARs and one C. Nothing terrible to talk about, excpept I worked with one ref that I think has a good style, kind of proper, kind of gruff and kind of no-nonsense. Would love to work with him again.

Back from a rest

It has been a couple of weeks and I am back. I did not have time to post my wrap-up from two weeks ago, so here it goes, after a break from a little bit of everything (work mostly).

The night before the start of the season, a friend asked me to go see the NCAA finals and we had some drinks. I am a light-weight for sure and the next morning, I was paying for it dearly. It sucked basically. A splitting headache that did not go away till well after the morning matches were over.

Maybe that is why I handed out three yellow cards that morning! Anyway, the games were interesting in the sense that the first match was between U12 D2 boys and they were good. The match ended 2-1 in favor of the local team. Well played, two out of character challenges that earned yellow cards (one for each team) but in general, well played. The first goal was scroed on a borderline offensive foul, the defending coach certainly thought so, but it seemed fair enough to me, so it counted.

In the second match, there was a superior team and an inferior team, but the superior team had 7 players (in U12 it is 8v8) and the inferior team has 4 subs to boot. So one team was always fresh and the other had to run a lot more. Nothing too critical in this match except one of the boys on the 8 boy team fell while the ball was rolling out of bounds for a corner kick and just reach out and grabbed the ball while in play (beside the corner flag). It must have been a brain fart on his behalf, but it was intentional handling, so in the book he went.

The other one was the 7 boy team had a nice play where it was lobbed and it seemed like a one on one but the attacker never got control of the ball, the goalie came out and they collided. It really did not look like a penalty to me or a foul on the attacker. It was a weird case of a collision where both players were going for the ball and were unaware of each other in some weird way. I could not bring myself to call it one way or another, so after the players were tended to, I had a dropped ball. The attacking coach had other things to say, but hey, what do they know, right? In the end that game went 0-0.

This weekend I have 3 U14 matches, two ARs and one center. Should be another interesting set of matches. See you out in the field.

Looking forward to this weekend

It is late, and I am tired after a brutal week at work, but I am excited about the start of the season this weekend. Regardless, I have done some matches already, the day in and day out type start this weekend.

I am happy that my strategy to work with more local people this season seems to be working out. One assignor (the one that assigns for the turf fields 5 miles from home) states that he has me on matches pretty much all spring long. He has me down for 7 of the weekends. And I was just assigned matches for the adult league close by as well. That works for me because the money is great and it is not 35 miles away like I used to do for the other adult league.

Anyway, hope to be able to represent well this season and to pick up the number of matches I do this season.

Another tournament weekend

This weekend, one of the local clubs had a huge tournament. Advertised as a massive tournament with many teams, it turned out to be more of a fizzle instead of a celebration of soccer. The reason, the weather.

At the start of the day on Saturday, we arrive to see my son's morning match and find out that the start has been delayed 30 minutes because the field (which was really the outfield of a baseball field) had a part that was not ready for play (the small part that was dirt infield along one of the touch lines. The county workers were dropping a ton of sandlike substance that was called something like Game Ready sand and promised to harden soft infields soaked in water. It was not raining, but rather a light drizzle. And to boot, all matches were reduced to 20 minute halves (which was enough as the final score was 6-4).

We went home and then I headed out to my field for my 4 matches. I arrived, met the field marshall and got my assignments and my gift (a shirt from the tournament). I then met up with my counterparts for the four matches, a father/son duo. The father was certainly a stand up guy, very good at maintaining control of matches and an all around good guy. His son was doing his first tournament and he did better than I expected given that it was his first tournament.

To note on the four matches I did:

Match one, I was an AR, and it was nothing terrible, except that I fell due to the field and the line being in such a muddy shape. I actually fell flat on my back and the game had to be stopped for a minute or two while I caught my breath again (it was really embarrasing, but it also hurt too!).

Second match was my first as a center and it was a blow out. 4-0 in 40 minutes of soccer and it was evident that one team was outclassed. Still I got a lot more gamesmanship from the winning team than from the team that should have been looking for an advantage.

Third match I was an AR again, and fell again. It was a weird game, the better team started winning with two goals and then the other team just pushed hard forward and got the tie at the end. At the end of the game, the team that tied had a breakaway and the ball gets stuck in the mud. The attacker, who had a step on the defender, fell on the ball, and the defender caught up. The ref called dangerous play as the ball was under the player and his crown jewels. The coach went ballistic, but the center was right.

Finally, the fourth match was an entertaining 0-0, but the first thing of note was the cards. One player on the red team was good but he threw his body around and around. I cautioned him with 10 minutes left in the first half. He had commited 4 fouls up to that point. 5 minutes into the second half, he took down someone from behind and so it happened, I pulled out my yellow again, and then the red. First time I ever had to do that. Then white commited a couple of stupid fouls, and had to caution them as well, but it was a good game in the end.

To conclude, the field was unplayable by the end of the day. To the point that Sunday schedule for all non-turf fields were cancelled despite being a beautiful day. So one day of soccer ruined fields for all season all over the area. I am sure the organizers of the tournament are proud (the reason it was played to begin with was to not have to refund teams their money).

Scheduling smeduling

It was bound to happen, schedules came out for my son's league and now everyone wants to tie down the refs they plan to use immediately. I am amazed at the amount of commitment some of the regular season assignors want. This season, instead of trying to get games all over, and especially get games right before or after my son's matches, I decided to try closer to home. The closest one, basically assigns for one park, and not for a league. It gets really interesting. Anyway, I basically told him that I would give him first crack at my schedule and he already gave me two matches for the 4/5 weekend when everything gets going.

The other assignor I am looking forward to working with has some games on Saturday's, which is good and have taken a couple from him. I am not sure that my strategy will work, but I guess I will noodle it though and figure out if it makes sense. I don't like doing many games in a row, but at the same time, one match only sometimes does not do it either. Time will tell, but from what I see now, it will let me work better for the fall, in the sense that I will know which method works best. If I get to 40 matches, then it will be just fine. If I fall short, I will have gained knowledge on how best to work the system at least.

Figuring out assignors

So far, for tournaments, I have been able to figure out two of my assignors. They each have a certain method of working with their referees and it is fun to see how they always come to the same results. It must work for them, otherwise, they would change, right? At least the similarities comes into play when determining schedules around my son's games.

The first of two assignors has a bunch of emails going out to a list of people and when everyone replys with their availability, he hands out assignments. What is interesting in these two times I have worked for him, is that he gives me the backup role on the fields where my son plays. I have done two tournaments with him and have yet to ref a match for him. He tends to assign me the backup role. I almost reffed one match this weekend but the ref made it just in time. So 0 for 2 with him. Still, I do not mind being backup as it is paid to watch games basically.

The other assignor has the opposite tendancy. Since she assingns based on time and has no real idea when specific teams play, she intentionally puts me in places where I cannot have my son's games. I guess it works for her. What is interesting is that for this coming tournament, there are a truckload of teams coming to town (at least 250 would be my guess) and she does not appear to work with backup refs. At least I never was asked to back up in her tourneys. Interesting dynamics.

So next week, it is on, 7 matches, 3 centers and 4 ARs. It will be interesting for sure to see if I can keep up with all that reffing. A test of willpower, so to speak.

Tournament Weekends

This last weekend, I was able to do two AR matches in a tournament for girls. The age group I had was U14 and they were both rather blah in terms of the outcome. Both ended 1-0 but were well played (probably 4 fouls altogether between the two matches).

What I did take away and hope to implement when I am a center in the near future with a full crew at my disposal is the contact between the center and the AR. Both centers I had gave a lot of visual okays with the thumbs up and when a ball was divided and then out of bounds, if they saw it better than I did, they would indicate in some minor way, which way to give the throw. I liked it because it certainly made it look like we were a team. Other than that, it was a somewhat somber, ho-hum type of weekend in terms of matches.

This next weekend, I am backup for the tournament, and I will probably not get any matches, but will at least be able to be paid for watching some soccer. And the weekend after that, I get U14 boys for 7 matches. That should be fun.

More to come in the next couple of days. I really wanted to start reviewing some of the things that I bought, like whistles, shirts, etc, but it has been far too busy at work to dedicate even a moment to that, so when I get 5 minutes, I will make sure to write up an entry.

Scrimmage from hell

The season is starting to get into gear and to that effect, my son's team had a pair of scrimmages this past weekend. I have been chomping at the bit to get some matches under my belt before the season starts and asked if I could ref these scrimmages to get started on that. As you may recall, I had done a couple of matches in the off-season (one for the ladies league and another as an AR for a friendly of a U-16 girls match).

We arrive at the field and after the warm ups, the game gets underway. My son's team is attacking in the first part of the match and after a pass where I truly deem the attacker on-side, I get a ton of howling from the other team's parents for off-side. I allow the play to develop and when the goal-kick is granted, I walk over to the parent to explain how a one man ref is different than a 3 man crew and that angles are hard when you are not on the line, so if there is any question as to one's offsidedness (not a word, I believe), I will probably not call it. I tried to be cordial and not allow it to bother me. Side note: Annoying parents really get to me as a ref. Sure we make mistakes but I am in no way trying to work a game to ones favor. If anything, I would be more tough on my son's team than a regular ref would because of the fact that I do not want to be perceived as favoring them at all.

Anyway, the reply I get from the parents is to look harder at off-sides and that they want to make sure the kids learn the right way to play. I understand that, but if it is a life lesson that we are trying to get here, how about behavior towards an official? Yeah, did not think that was part of their thought process.

Match goes on uneventfully and the second team comes on to replace the first team (so my son's team stays on the field and plays another team for the second half). The game was much tighter than the first, little in terms of scoring chances and a lot more friction. The other team scores and my son's team pushes harder to tie. They break away and have a one-on-one with the goalie when a defender tackles the attacker from behind just outside of the box. I blow the whistle hard and announce that in any other match, this type of act is a send-off offense. But I do not show a card at all (because it was a scrimmage after all and I thought this was not to be called so tight as a regular game). The boy walks off crying because I found out after making the announcement that he had hurt himself in the tackle. Lesson learned was that I should not be so quick to react (life lesson here, people) and let him come up and speak to him more quietly. It is almost as if I forgot that these kids are 8 or 9, not 14 and know what they are doing.

In another precious sideline incident, while the match is still 1-0, a ball is kicked around the goal line and it hits the hand of one of the defenders. Of course, the same parents start yelling "hand ball", "penalty" and a slew of other things. It certainly was not intentional so I let play go on but at the next stoppage, I had them hold the throw and walked over to those parents and told them that I had enough of their comments. In a scrimmage for crying out loud. I can't wait to see what this team will do when it really is on the line.

Anyway, that was it, a wild one for a scrimmage. I have two ARs coming up this Sunday, for a tournament and I will be on the U14 girls line. We will see how that plays out, but I bet they will be better behaved than these people were this past weekend.

Picking a system for Ref management

One of the topics that I felt that no other referee blog covers in too much depth is that of referee management and assignment. There seems to be many, many ways one can interact with their assignors. Some work via email (simple for the ref, but it must be difficult for the assignors). Then there are those that are not your typical assignors that just call you to see if you can work with them for a certain specific date. I cannot imagine that system working well over a full season. There are those that basically give you a form to fill out at the beginning of the season and then will fill in the matches based on your declared availability. And finally, there are those that use web-based tools like the site TheArbiter.net. They are more or less a web-based form filling system that allows the assignor to work around the pre-entered schedules for each referee.

This all sounds fine and dandy, but I have some problems with the system. It is 2/22 and I get an email from one of the assignors that states he is going to try to start assigning games and such next week for one of the leagues. It is hard to work around so many options and it stinks that I have to 'declare' my availability to one league before another. I have my preferences that of course do not always match the league's need for scheduling. But the league that is asking for availability now is probably the one I would least like to work for as they play the farthest away from home and also pay some of the lowest rates in the area. Still, I would rather ref for them rather than be idle, but you see the dilema.

Anyway, for now, I am going into the system and am going to block out the dates so that I can open it up to them for when I am idle (and can work) but have no one else to turn to. The season has not yet started and it is already interesting.

Lively match

It was a good match between between gray (state champions in the U16 age group) and black (a team from Delaware, I believe). But before I get into that, I arrived and the center I was working with (the one that has little to offer in terms of feedback) had just arrived and was a little more talkative than before, so there was hope.

The match started off with a bang, black kicks off, streaks down the line and gets tripped up in the box, on my side. I probably should have lifted my flag up to indicate a penalty but it was too early and just not that ironclad. If I had been the center, I probably would have called it, but as an AR, I deferred to the center who seemed to be in a better position.

After that, gray dominated play for most of the first half with black managing some counter attacks that kept me going. With 5 minutes left in the half, gray got a couple of quick goals, and the girls in black just did not have enough will to come back from that deficit.

In the second half, black tried and had a chance or two, but gray was very solid in the back. Gray got another halfway through the second half and that is how it ended, 3-0 but it was not that far apart in my book.

Of interest in this match was that I took my yellow and black shirts originally, thinking that they would be the only ones we would use but right before leaving, I threw in the red for good measure, and sure enough we used red (though I do not know why, as it was gray vs. black and goalies were orange and blue).

Also of note, this was the first time I got payment on the field per se, as opposed to getting a check. It was $30 for this one match and it was a lot of running. Again, paid exercise. Gotta love it.

Another fun (and cold) weekend coming up

Late yesterday I received an email asking for refs for a friendly for U16 girls matches. I offered myself for one, but may have to do both.

I am an AR for a Grade 7 ref who I respect quite a bit. Very no nonsense and great match manager. My only concern is that he gives absolutely no feedback to you. He is like a slate, but maybe the cold weather tomorrow loosens his tongue. Probably not, but I will let you all know after tomorrow.

Rant on House Rules

As you know, many leagues have house rules that sometimes interfere with the natual flow of soccer. The one house rule that always seems to generate passionate discussions is the one of no sliding tackles. If you read one of the other (better) blogs that refer to the subject, you will notice that they all, for the most part, make a distinction between a slide and a slide tackle.

This weekend, my son's team played another team in an indoor league where there was a house rule of no slide tackles. The match was at 3-3 when one of the players on my son's team dribbled past the goalie and had a step on the goalie and the defender and he slid to nudge the ball in. The ref called the goal off stating that there were no slide tackles, but in this case, there was no tackle in the slide, nor was anyone affected. He did it again later in the match again, where he waived another goal for the same reason. My son's team lost 4-3 but there was much discussion over the ref's rulings. Since everyone knows that I am a ref too, I get asked, "What would you have called?" and it is hard to defend the ref in cases like this. In both occasions, the player doing the sliding was not slide tackling, but rather sliding to play the ball. It is a hard one to enforce consistantly, because there are no slide tackles but in my book, at least, there can be slides, even when defenders are present and within playing distance (though I might feel inclined to call it if the defender were to flinch). Still, the plays in question here would not have been called for sliding as there was space and direction that favored the attacker.

I rant on this because this is one of my worries, these house rules that make it complicated to be fair sometimes. In the case of my son's team, the ref had direct result in the match, and as a fellow ref, that is something that you do not want to be associated with, the fact that your calls determined the outcome of a match (well they always do, but I think you understand what I mean). Ok, enough for tonight. Enjoy the week ahead.

What a beautiful day - for no soccer

I do not know about you, but in this area, the sun was out, it was in the high 50s or low 60s and just a wonderful day. I arrived at the park where my ladies were to play 30 minutes before kickoff. It was strange because the field was filled with kids playing lacrosse and we came to find out that they were doing their tryouts and were planning to be there for another two hours. Well, that did not bode well as the ladies were also scheduled to play at the same time on the same field.

The lady in charge (soccer-wise) thought that there would be a problem with the time as the league had the permit for a while at the same time (2:30 in the afternoon) for many weeks now but during the week, they told her that the would not have it at that time for this weekend, and then they let her know that they were giving it to her for this week and the next. Evidently someone in the county's office did something wrong because the field had been doublebooked. In all of this, the ladies called the people who had played the previous match for their over-40 league at a different field and were told that the fields at the other field were available, so we all scrambled to that field arriving at 2:55 only to find out that there was another league playing at 3:00 so no match could be played. The ladies gave up at that point in trying to find a field for their match and were hoping to have the match rescheduled.

As all this is happening, I start emailing my referee coordinator to make sure that he is aware of what is going on, since I do not normally have these types of situation. He called me back about an hour after I got home and he said not to worry, that permits are not the the referee's problem and that I would get paid regardless (but it does suck for the ladies that they did not get to play their match). Regardless, it was interesting to see the dynamics of mass decision making in action. The women decided that they were going to try and get the match going at the other park rather than wait out the lacrosse people and if that did not fly, cancel outright. An interesting afternoon, for sure.

More on that seminar

Getting back to the seminar that I mentioned a couple of posts ago, the important points that were mentioned were the following...

1. Get the rulebook from the FIFA site instead of the USSoccer site because the USSoccer site has only the first part of the FIFA book, the other part included in the FIFA book contains examples and more references helping you with the gray areas.

The FIFA link to the LOTG is here: http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/affederation/federation/81/42/36/lotg_en.pdf

The US version is here: http://images.ussoccer.com/Documents/cms/ussf/07_law_of-the-game.pdf

2. No chewing gum while reffing (FIFA disapproves)

3. A regular foul becomes misconduct when considering the follow: point of contact, direction of contact, time and severity, intent and result. If some or many of these are leaning towards reckless, then the yellow card needs to be shown.

Finally, there was a site mentioned that was going to be up and running soon that was going to have clips, etc. but I just went to it and it is not working now. I am putting it out anyway on the hopes that it will be working soon. http://www.thereflink.com/USSOCCER/index.html (updated on 3/11/09).

The presentations were good but really geared towards those with grade 7 or better it seemed. I will attend next year however, as there were other tidbits that I found useful.

Quick note

Just a quick note today that I was assigned another match this weekend for the ladies. I am very happy that this is the case as it keeps me going, earns some money and also let's me try out the knee brace. Will update more after this weekend.

The match belonged to the players

Ok, I am finally getting around to talk about the match, and I still owe you the commentary regarding the seminar and some links but I should be able to get to that shortly. Work during these last 2-3 weeks has been very demanding, so the only time I have is on the weekends.

The match last weekend was one that I thought was not going to be played, it was snowing (more like flurries) 25 F that morning and windy, but by the time I had to leave for the match, there was a lot of sun, still very cold and windy.

I arrived at the park with 25 minutes to spare for the start of the match and there was no one that looked over 40 and ready to play soccer. I found the field we were going to play on, a well worn turf field. There were a couple of people there, kicking the ball around or passing the football and when I thought that the game had been called, and that I had not heard about it, the ladies started arriving.

The match itself was uneventful, really nothing of note, except the brutal wind and that both goals in the match were against the wind. So basically the team with the wind to their backs had the ball on the other side of the field the whole game, but there was one counter-attack in each half that scored a goal.

The other two interesting things were that at the end of the half, I began to blow my whistle to signal the end of the half and one of the ladies shoots from the outside, beating the goalie, but I was already into my second blast by the time the ball crossed the line for a goal. I immediately disallowed the goal stating that the half ended when I began my whistling, not when it concluded but it did teach me a lesson, do not blow for the half unless there is little chance of an immediate goal to avoid confusion.

The other thing of note was the fact that in one play one of the ladies tried to save a ball from going out to touch and I was about 3 feet away and called that the ball had gone over the line. She went ballistic, but really, how could she when I was a few feet away. I could get it if I was 20 feet away and with a weird angle. Still she did not like it at all, oh well.

And my knee started acting up again, so since the match, I went to my doctor who said I had a strained LDL (never heard of it) and that I should wear a brace, warm up considerably before reffing and to premedicate with 600mg of Advil to see if the issue goes away, if not, he will take some pictures to see what else could be wrong, but that my knee is structually sound.

Back to the match, I was proud of the ladies, some of which were closer to 60 than to 40. They played hard, had a good idea of what to do with the ball and they were clean for the most part. I enjoyed their match and hope to do it again before the tournaments/matches start in a month or two.

More on the seminar in the days to come. Keep those emails coming!

The Seminar

As promised, here is the installment that relates to the seminar I attended. The presenter for the two sessions I did attend was Herb Silva and the topics were Foul Severity determination and Communication Skills.

The first one was all about the ability to see the difference between a regular foul and a foul that had ill intentions. A couple of links were mentioned but I do not have my notes here (in bed and with my wife sound asleep beside me). I will milk another post and get those links to you shortly.

The second was mostly communication skills such as when to use humor, or the unspoken techniques that Herb Silva had observed from soccer referee greats like Pierluigi Collina and others. Most were gestures or looks that could cut through ice. This lecture was focused more on the higher level officials and I did see some relationship with my reffing but it was not really geared towards me. I did enjoy them, Herb Silva had a great presentation style and made things entertaining.

I also learned at the seminar that one of the local administrators for the club that my son plays in was going to be given an award, and that one of the people I knew was going to start assigning matches for the fields 5 minutes from my house, and to expect a busy season. I am more than happy about that as it means more work and less travel. Woo Hoo (or however it is spelled) to that tidbit!

More on the link, Herb Silva and the match report to come.

Winter Blues - Not so much

Yes, it is bitterly cold this winter, but that does not mean that there is no referee action going on. I had received an email about a league that was being established for the winter months. It was regarding a league of women over 40 that was starting play in a few weeks. At the same time, there was a note regarding a workshop that was being held in the area with a special section for referees. Of course, the two had to coincide on the same day and basically the same time. So I am going to make one entry for the league and the other regarding what I got from the seminar as there are interesting things from each. And I want to milk the amount of posts I make, make two separate topics into three posts (one talking about them and the other two actually covering them). Anyway, more to come shortly. And yes, it is good to be back!