So much for Ireland

Well, the Ireland thing came and went. It was fun in a way but I was not impressed by the Irish team in this tournament. While the coaches were quite nice, the "lads" were anything but. And they had one heck of a vocabulary, and they chipped at the ankles when the ball had already gone, but they were fun to watch for a while. Game ended 4-1 against them.

But the center was a 4 and it was someone that I had recognized as having spoken at one of the VYSA conventions a couple of years back. And this is what I learned from him and then my next match, where I had a 4th official myself for the first time. Foul counts and almost total recall foul memory.

At halftime of the Ireland match, the center comes off and starts talking about the fouls, "so we have to look out for #14 red because he fouled at the center circle and then again 5 minutes later on the corner..."

My fourth official for my match took it to another level. At halftime, he says to me, "Well your foul count was 9-2 in favor of blue, but it was what had to be called, so just keep that in mind." I later found out he is a 5. And he was right, but I had no idea what the foul count was, just that I had called a lot more fouls for blue. He indicated that if I did not call more fouls for white, they might see it like I am not favoring them. And what is funny is that I knew I had to find something to call in favor of white. I just did not realize how unbalanced it had been in the first half. In the second half, I should have carded one kid who went fairly hard on another, but instead gave him a butt chewing. For a while I thought the game might spiral out of control, but a couple of gifts from the players (#20 white finally fouled for the 4th time and I gave him a card for PI) and then #20 blue that halted a promising counter attack with a "professional" foul and the testosterone level fell a bit. We finished well for a 1-0 match.