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.
2 comments:
I feel your frustration about ref quality. I pointedly asked about quality and essentially endorsing poor quality performances (they continue to get assignments, right?) at a session with several MLS refs two weeks ago. The assignors in the room all agreed that this is a "bodies" issue. How much longer will it go on? My guess with the grade changes and continued exponential growth, quality will continue to be an issue for some time. I'll share a quick story from last season. Had a young AR show up late, appearing uninterested, and dressed unprofessionally. He did not look good the first half. I talked to him at half time, and afterwards he went and laid down with one of his friends (not sitting with the rest of the crew, continuing to discuss/learn/prepare). Not much change second half, and I called the assignor after the match to tell of my frustration. The assignor says "that's why I assigned him to your match, so you could mentor him." I was shocked. First, tell me ahead of time. And then when I call you to report, don't act like the mentoring failed. The ref is not interested and didn't change, that's my assessment. Now it's back in your court to assign or not, to mentor or not. Sorry for the post but I do feel better! Especially since all my tourney games for today were cancelled!
Thanks for the comment. This tournament weekend here in the greater DC area was quite an experience in creative assigning. All games were eventually covered, but it was because there were many refs that were shifted and moved around to make sure the games had refs. It is totally a numbers issue. And the face that there are some youngsters that may have the incorrect notion that just showing up is all they need to do. I try as well to mentor when I see something that I can help with and when the referee is open to such commentary but if not, I keep my mouth shut.
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