Reffed by a FIFA referee

You will have to excuse my lack of memory when it comes to names, but for the first time, I saw a FIFA badged referee up close. Turns out that in my son's tournament this past week, there was a FIFA referee looming about. And sure enough, in the defining match for my son's team (a U14 team), there he was, stepping on the field. I was blown away by the ease of movement and the crew in general. I noticed that the badges for the referees in Maryland were not the USSF badges I am used to, nor did they look to by AYSO (but they might have been, I did not get a close up of the AR's badges). The FIFA badge is undeniable. And it is large compared to the ones I have.

It was fun to watch for a few things. First, he was not calling anything small. There were a lot of challenges that would have earned a whistle from many a referee but not him. His bar was high and he called it. He had a slow whistle (and I loved that). He waited until he saw where the ball was going or what the player did after getting tackled to call a foul. There was a lot of non verbal communication between the crew. He probably had a great pre-game that I would have loved to have sat in on.

Some things that I wanted to knit pick were that he counted off the steps for a free kick. I thought we weren't supposed to be doing that. He also seemed to have a different bar as to what fouls would be called depending on where in the field those fouls occurred. For example, there were plenty of calls close to the box, creating nice free kick opportunities. But there were similar challenges in midfield that were not called. Same thing inside the penalty area, no calls. However, I wanted to state again that it was a pleasure watching him ref. To the point that during a breakaway for my son's team, I was caught watching the referee and his position instead of my son who scored the go-ahead goal. When a fellow parent asked me why I wasn't paying attention to the action, I told him that it is not every day that you get to see a FIFA referee that close. Just a fun thing to observe and to take a little nugget or two back for your own matches.

Summer Adult League done

We have a little break for the next couple of weeks where things have either concluded or are about to begin. My kids' travel programs are going to kick off in a couple of weeks and their tournaments will be something of soccer fodder if there is anything of interest.

Also, the local adult league concluded with some interesting dynamics regarding players. I am astonished to realize how many of us who are on the higher side of 40 think they can still hang with the young 20 somethings that were here for the summer adult league. I guess they were back from college, on summer break and decided to join the league for this go around. More than once I saw these 40 something players (myself included) trying to run down a person who is half one's age. It is not pretty.

Still, I have less tolerance with adults than with the kids when it comes to shirt pulling, diving and overall silliness. It seems like the adults try to emulate more of what is going on when they watch the TV than the kids are, and they are not that good at acting. Or perhaps it is that the legs are just not there. Needless to say, I have a blast when playing but I still would prefer to ref than play.