Assessment

The assessor rated it difficult and I thought I had failed. There was so much talk and in the end, I was not aware of all the back and forth that the two teams had for each other.

It started at the end of my partner's assessment which was the first of the two matches. The center for the first assessment match, where I was an AR had a relative benign match until the very end when he had to card the goalkeeper of the team hanging on to a 2-1 lead for holding the ball well beyond the 6 seconds. After that match, the goalkeeper that would turn out to be the main antagonist says that our yellow card was not correct because the goalkeeper was moving. To which I replied, "Try that in my match and see how quickly you get a yellow card." Yeah, it didn't get any better.

I later found out (a couple of days later) that this goalkeeper is always running his mouth and is well known in the league. Another reason to do more games, to be exposed to, and be able to deal with, those complicated players that seem to try and feast on a referee that they don't know.

Anyway, the game went well for a while until the second half when one team tried to make up the difference as they were down 3-1. They scored to get within a goal and from then on, it was a show. The team that was leading started complaining about everything, diving and going in hard. Being an assessment match, I tried to handle things without cards initially. Bad mistake.

The most interesting interaction was at about the 80th minute, the team down 3-2 has one of their big guys go into a challenge for the ball right in front of the assessor on the other side of the benches. I was right there and didn't see much in terms of the challenge. He comes out yelling that the opponent kicked him and tried to throw a punch. The assessor was right in front of it all and yells out, "Cut it out, he did none of that." My guess is that he was trying to help me by giving me info that he had since it happened right in front of him. Since the two players scuffled before I got there, I ended up giving a yellow to both but told the one claiming murder to tone it down as no one saw anything.

In the end, there was more, and I frankly thought I had failed. I felt like it was one of my worst games ever. But the assessor said it was truly a difficult match and while I had not passed with flying colors, I had passed. I thank the assessor for the assist. As I said in the previous post, either I have to learn to like the adult game and not fear it, or I can just go back to being an 8 or 7 and doing the games I like.