What to do?

How do you go up to a referee and tell them they are terrible and should not referee a game ever again? Perhaps instead you can start out by saying something like, rough match. How did you feel doing that game? 

My daughter, playing in a U10 tournament this weekend had a referee that could not get one call right. Not one call. The referee was a younger rather than older, probably around 25. She did not make one offside call, and there were plenty. She did not call one single foul on any team, and there were at least 10 possible calls, 3 absolute calls. She missed 50% of the throw ins (she guess on all of them). She did not move much out of the center circle.

At the end of the match I wanted to walk over to her and tell her something. Either something positive or something like, please do not referee again at this level until you feel comfortable doing rec. I am all for putting people up to the challenge, but she was way out of her league. I really just wanted to ask the experts what you thought, and what can be said, if anything, to someone who has a terrible game.

To finish up the story, I did not go and say anything to her. My daughter was hurt towards the end of the match, and my responsibility was to her more than to the referee, so that was that. The following morning, we had the pleasure of an early game when I see her walking down from her car and I cringed. Fortunately, she went to the field right by ours. It was a U11 Boys match that was warming up. Needless to say it was an unmitigated disaster. She had both coaches on the field at one moment, yelling at her, at each other. The parents of both teams yelling at each other and the field marshal (a parent with a bright vest, normally) trying to control everything. 

The anger towards her had been bubbling up in the first half when she did not move much and proceeded to make the same mistakes she did previously, bad calls one way or another. The moment of truth, or the moment all heck broke loose was when she whistled for a foul where the attacking team had to take the kick. She was having the team take a free kick inside the box. Picture it, a free kick that is not indirect, about 2 feet away from the 6 yard box. Finally, one coach stepped onto the field and reminded her that a free kick of that nature is a PK or indirect. She changed it to a PK. The team scores but the other coach is now on the field, and though I am not sure what happened, but she suspends the match at halftime. She sits by the sideline for 15-20 minutes until another referee shows up and he does the second half. She leaves. I wonder what happened exactly but somehow it is a mounting of errors, from the assignor, to the parents, to the coaches and especially the referee herself. If I catch her again, I will try to offer some advice, but it is hard to approach someone to tell them how terrible they are and then offer some tips. Any suggestions?

Small Field, Big Bodies

Yesterday was fun, it is the reason I ref, it is why I like to do what I do. An end of season match in a lower division U15 boys match. The field was a smallish field on one of the side fields at a middle school close to home. Normally, big boys such as those in U15 or above tend to garner a lot of attention and given that the field was small and bumpy, the kids were big, I was expecting a lot of traffic and a whole lot of fouls and a bunch of plastic.

Surprisingly, I did whistle more fouls that I normally do on a bigger field, but no plastic at all. And it was a fun game, though nobody could really control the ball on such an iffy field. Still it was a fun end of season match instead of those end of season matches that sometimes get out of hand because of the kids who would rather fight than play soccer. Hats off to these kids who played a good game and did not decide that they were two close to each other. Maybe something a little positive to prepare me for a winter trip to Alabama and more reffing...more on that later.

End of Season

Well, we are coming to the end of the season. It has been a frustrating season. I hope to be able to reveal some of the aspects that made it a rough season. I will go over the basics for two ongoing things that will be flushed out once concluded.

1. Injury to player causes a problem to the referee. In a match where I was an AR, one player was hurt and some bystanders (observing another match) may have filed some sort of official complaint against the center referee. More to come on that.

2. Worst referee in America does a match where my son is playing and sends him off for getting hit in the head by another player's fist. Unbelievable.

Since both things are still up in the air, I will not comment, but man am I angry. Hopefully more info as I have it on both of these issues.

Answer to the trivia question

If you have been thinking about the scenario I presented about the PK shot hitting the sub and then going in, well, here is your answer. According to that scenario, the restart, is a goal kick. Not sure how they came to that conclusion but that is what I was told, so I pass that on to you.

More to come later. For now, stay warm.

Breaking News: Official Sports

There may be a problem with Official Sports and credit card processing. Right now they are not taking online orders and I have seen some emails going back and forth from others stating that everyone should check their credit cards for possible fraudulent charges and to look at their Facebook page for a message.

Anyway, take a look at your statements if you have bought from them recently. I know I have and will be checking mine to ensure that there are no charges that I do not recognize.

2 hurdles passed, a couple more to go

Don't have a ton of time to go into a lot of detail but I passed my written exam with a 91. Due to a confusion when I registered, I had to take the 5/6 exam instead of the 7/8 exam. The system thought I was a grade 7 going for my 6 instead of an 8 going for my 7. The exam was a lot harder than I expected with a lot of questions regarding USSF Position Papers instead of strict Laws of the Game. The one I remember was a sub runs onto the field while a PK is being taken (both the kicking team and the sub are on the same team). The PK hits the sub while taking the kick and goes into the goal. After cautioning the sub for entering the field of play, what is the restart? Yeah, cause I get that a lot in my matches.

Then I also did the physical a week later and it went better than I expected. I did a little over 6.5 laps in the 12 minutes (5.5 laps was what I needed), was able to run the 200m in 30.5 seconds (40 was the limit) and the 50m in 6 seconds (9 was the limit). The 12 minute run was the most difficult because you had to keep on running no matter what, regardless if you completed your 2,200 meters prior to the 12 minutes. If you walked at any moment, you immediately failed. At least that is what the instructor said.

Now I have to do my assessment match. I have worked with my assignor to secure three possible assessment level matches and then in October I have to attend a referee upgrade seminar. To tell you the truth, I think it is just easier to be an 8. From what I have seen up to now, not worth it to go to a 7 other than personal satisfaction. But perhaps once I complete it, I will get more games that are not of the U13 girls variety (if you have read my posts before, that age group is the one I detest the most, because it is like watching paint dry).

Shoot me a comment if you are interested in taking a guess at the scenario above. I will post the answer that I was told at the recert class.

Going for my 7

They don't make it easy, at least in Virginia, to become a grade 7. I just registered on the USSF website and tomorrow I can try and sign up on the VA website for a 7 upgrade exam and all that. Then it is a physical exam as well that you need to sign up for. I emailed our point of contact at the state level and still don't seem to have all the answers. I will post more but now it is time to start running, as the Cooper test as I think it is called, requires running 2,200 meters in 12 minutes. That is the one I am most worried about, but if I start running, that should be ok.

I downloaded a program called Nike + GPS for my phone that should help with this. We will see how it goes, but I am going to give it a shot. From my calculations, 2,200 meters is just short of 1.4 miles in 12 minutes, so that is my goal. Then there is a 200 meter dash in less than 40 seconds and a 50 meter dash in less than 9 seconds. For some reason, those don't scare me as much as the long run of 1.4 miles in 12 minutes. Anyone who has some experience in that, please post your tidbits of knowledge. More in that later.