Lots to talk about

Boy do I have a lot of material. I have stuff from the most recent School of Excellence meeting and also the latest College Showcase tournament I did a couple of weeks ago. Don't have a ton of time to write it all up today but I will go with something that happened this past weekend, and then work my way back in time.

This past weekend was interesting because Saturday I had the School of Excellence class in Richmond. More on that in the next entry or two. And on Sunday, I had some games for a local tournament out here in Northern VA. I got to work with my son, which you all know by now is a highlight of my weekend. He did say after this tournament that he is taking a break from refereeing so it is going to be just me and my daughter for a while (until my son realizes that he likes to do things that actually cost money).

Anyway, on those games, I had a fun couple of games. We had an intense game early, that was a semi final and then another semi that the 3rd person in our trio did (only his 3rd center in a while and he did very well by the way).

In my third match, I had the center and it was a consolation match. Both teams had finished at the bottom of their brackets and had neither scored a goal or gotten a point from their previous matches. It was a U15 girls match and when the teams were warming up, I noticed that there were more than a couple of girls that were, stockier than what I am normally used to seeing at the travel level.

I knew I was in for a ride when the teams were warming up and they were both in blue from top to bottom. Immediately one of the girls from the visiting team came to me and said, "We are the visiting team for this match, so they have to change." I checked with the home team, and three girls had forgotten their alternate jersey so I asked the visiting team and the coaches there were less than receptive to change. It was only when the offer to possibly use sweaty, smelly pennies did the visiting team state that they indeed had all their alternate white jerseys.

Game starts and as expected, the girls' play is not exactly earth shattering. They have clumsy challenges. #7 blue and #57 white immediately start jawing at each other and laughing at each other. I call a couple of fouls on blue and then I have to chat with #7 blue and then with #20 blue. Immediately after, #57 white does a hard challenge off the ball on a blue player. Out comes the card. I had not expected that. Blue seemed to be the one pushing harder and more on edge, yet white committed the first truly cardable foul.

First half ends 0-0 and #3 blue earned a card right before halftime. Second half starts and white scores two quick goals. Blue goes crazy on the second because the keeper grabs the ball and then collides with her defender and drops the ball to the white attacker's feet. Nothing I could do about that. When they protested, all I could tell them is that if it had been a white attacker colliding, it would have been a foul, but the defender collision with the keeper is fair game.

Then something interesting happened. For the first time in however many games I have been a part of, I called an offside for obstructing the vision of the goalkeeper. Shot from outside the box and the white attacker was in the way of the ball. When she jumps out of the way, then the keeper reacts and doesn't get to the ball. I look at my AR and he stands at attention, not giving me a good goal and not giving me the offside. He knew something was wrong but could not articulate exactly what. That is when I realized just how offside the attacker was when she jumped out of the way of the ball. The white coach initially asked what the call was and then when I explained, he was ok with it. Had the attacker not been where she was, the keeper would have easily gotten to ball but the fact that she jumped out of the way and then the keeper reacted to the ball told me what I needed to know.

The game then got a blue goal and then the game got really chippy. #7 blue picked up a PI card and then a very telling thing happened. Blue is pushing hard to tie, white steals the ball and makes their way upfield. Blue #14 recklessly tries to tackle white to stop play and cannot. White player stumbles but breaks through with a great pass. I call play on and then say to #14 that I have her in the book and to #57 white to not retaliate. White scores a goal on the breakaway, a perfect advantage call if there ever was one.

After recording the goal, I motion over to #14 blue and show her the yellow card. Team mate #9 blue asks why I am showing her the card. I said that #14 committed a cautionable offense but that I allowed an advantage. So she goes on to protest that I should have stopped play if I wanted to show her the card. I told her that is not how advantage works. So she says that I am favoring the other team by allowing them the goal and still giving the card. To which I reply, "I guess that on that play, I was favoring them. Why would I favor the team that tried to commit the foul?" She kept protesting and it hit me, at no time had anyone ever explained the process of advantage to her. In her mind, I just wanted them to lose. Oh well, if by U15 you still don't understand the concept of advantage, I am going to have to say that I may not be able to help out on the soccer field. Or she just picked up soccer not too long ago and that concept hasn't presented itself enough for her to figure out the process. Quite fascinating either way that I would have such a discussion.

More on the school of excellence and the College Showcase in the coming days.