Assessment Complete

The assessment was completed, nothing too terrible. Game was not really too complicated. One yellow card only and the takeaways are to get out of passing lanes (where have I heard that before, yeah, in other assessments) and to watch for contact above the shoulders.

That last one was the main negative that I got dinged on (as well as my lack of applying consistency with regards to handling). The episode in particular was a short player going up against a larger player for a header. The taller player swung out his arms for balance and made more than incidental contact with the shorter player's face. I didn't perceive it at the time and therefore let play continue but the shorter player evidently took a stronger blow than I thought he had taken and was down. I check on him, he continued playing and then made a reckless foul that earned him the only yellow card of the match. What the assessor told me was that  had I called the contact to the face, then probably I wouldn't have had to deal with the yellow card. And he is probably right. So passing lanes, contact above the shoulder and consistency with handling are the three areas that I need to work on.

My next assessment is in about a month and if all goes well, I will be done for 2017.

Assessment today

Virginia has asked all referees looking to stay a 6 or above or those going from 7 to 6 to be assessed their matches before June 30. That is a lot of assessments for only a half a year. Today is my first one, and I will have to find another one in the next 2 months for the adult match. Hopefully it goes well because the assessment fees are expensive!

Also wanted to share something from my son's high school match the other day. I don't know who the center was nor did I find out, but he did something that I would love to be able to use as well in the future. The game was 2-1 in favor of my son's team. Game is getting chippy and there is a lot of talk. Ball is played through to a streaking attacker for my son's team and he makes a move to go one on one with the keeper, and pushes the ball past the keeper and the keeper takes him out. Outside the box but in my view, clear DOGSO. Everyone in the stands goes crazy, tempers flair on the field. They come and tend to the injured player and the ref just pulls the keeper aside and starts talk to him. He talks for what seems like a minute or so and the tensions on and off the field calm down. Finally, he shows the player a red card but it wasn't a "I am angry at you" red, it was more of a "unfortunately I have to show you this" sort of red. And everyone was more calm by the time that happened. Had he gone in guns blazing, showing the red (which is probably something I would have done), the tension would have remained high. I felt he handled it quite well. Just something to remember for next time.