School of Excellence

Here in Virginia, our referee higher ups set up a clinic of sorts that will meet 4 times a year and will be branded a school of excellence. I applied and had our first meeting this past weekend. This meeting was held at a park and then we went to dinner and finally a soccer game where one could comment on the crew working the game and get pointers, etc.

I enjoyed our first meeting and the one thing that I took from it that impressed me was how "picky" the observations can be when being assessed. We had a National Candidate run a couple of exercises during the park session when you have 2 ARs and one center and the ARs have to run in tempo with the center and then the center has to mimic the ARs positions. First the center would make a call and the ARs had to back it up (say a foul, throw in or offsides) and give direction or location if needed. Then the center had to mimic the ARs and their calls to back them up. It was a good exercise for getting used to working with the center and AR, it created great rapport. But the usefulness of working it out with others is questionable in the sense that no one is going to show up so early for a game that they would have time to do an exercise like that. It would only occur in rare occasions or when a game gets cancelled or delayed that you could do this exercise.

The other thing I liked was the notion of precise hand signals. For example, the goal kick signal as a center, should be with either the palm up (old school according to the instructor) or perpendicular to the ground (kind of like a karate-chop). The PK signal needs to be different than a goal kick from all possible angles so the instructor suggested having your signal palm face down or pointing with one finger and at an angle lower than parallel to the ground so that it is not mistaken for a goal kick signal.

As for the ARs, the directives there were that the throw in signal should be lower than 45 degrees so there is no chance of confusion with offside calls. And then there is the waggle for the fouls. There should be two different types of waggles. A regular run of the mill foul is a small waggle. Then there should be an exaggerated one for when you want to inform the referee that more information is coming, like a request for yellow or red.

Finally, the flag always in the left hand when running a regular diagonal. It has been mentioned many times, but can't be stressed enough. When there is nothing of note going on and you don't need to sprint upfield, you should have the flag in the left hand and signal offside with the right hand. That gives you more visibility and also an extra second to ensure you are making the right call. More nuggets of wisdom soon, but for now, this is what I was able to come up with.