I plan to delve deeper in this category as I was in training this past weekend to begin doing high school soccer. I received the rule book and the first thing that jumps out at me is the fact that you can see the philosophy of one vs. the other. USSF is written with a certain audience in mind whereas the NFHS rulebook is geared towards the same people but with details galore, covering many more minute details that the USSF book leaves to common sense for the most part (or lack thereof).
My idea is to give it a more profound breakdown of some of the interesting things that contrast between the two, but I wanted to throw it out there that things just were so different between the two that it does not seem like it was the same sport.
3 comments:
NFHS rule set implementations vary wildly dependent where you are.
There is extraordinary leeway for this, though for where I'm at (Socal, CIF-SS), it's pretty much the same game. There's some differences, some of which personally I think are better, and the substitution rules are the ones we had ~20 years ago in USSF, but by and large once you get on the field it's mostly the same thing.
The only ones which are commonly encountered is illegal equipment (out till next substitution), cards for coaches, mandatory substitution on caution, IFK on possession when stopped for whatever reason (instead of a drop ball) and most of the other differences don't really come up very often.
Realistically it boils down to something which is the exact same under FIFA LOTG: there's the rules (which by and large you should follow), and there's what happens on the field.
The spelling out of every little thing, well blame American culture on that one, but most of the nit picky things aren't a significant problem outside of the certification test.
I have yet to actually do a high school match, so not sure how it will play out but the big thing that I saw in the course I took was the emphasis on getting the refs to do signals for the fouls, a la NFL refs. They have been in the rulebook for a while but now they really want to see all those hand signals it appears.
I normally do a small subset of these as an FYI to coaches and spectators, so they have an idea of what I called on a not-so-obvious infraction, but the list is quite extensive for High School. It will get interesting trying to remember to do them all... Thanks for the post and good luck with your matches.
Well, the signals are among the things which are there for the test vs. what's on the fields... I'm somewhat fortunate, the signals here are de-emphasized unless you're doing trying to get assigned to regional finals.
That said, the signals when used help more with partner communication rather than indicating to the players in my experience. Being in a dual, the nearby players will often ask the non-whistling ref what is up (or the coach on your side will), and it helps being able to give a quick confident response to sell your partner's call.
Most fouls you'll have a pretty good idea what your partner is calling, but offside (same as the NFL signal like you intimate) helps quite a bit when it's not explicitly obvious what's being called.
The only other ones which are effectively mandatory is the start and stop clock signals (if you don't keep the time as stipulated in NFHS rules). Our area has the referee keep time and the field clock stops at 2 minutes, but it's still a good touch and I've seen even former FIFA refs use a similar gesture to start a half in a USSF match.
Anyway compared to both recreational and club games, high school can be extremely good experience (especially with developing misconduct responses) and it is well worth putting up with the annoyances to get it. Good luck in your games as well, HS season almost over here.
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