A question of levels

In this area, you have your garden variety rec leagues, your travel leagues and in the middle, exists SFL. This league, as I think I have mentioned before, mixes kids from rec and travel caliber kids. It is popular because it mixes in the travel part (teams travel a bit out of their home area) and still have rec prices in terms of registration and practices, etc.

With that said, the bad part is you get kids who can barely kick the ball playing with kids who should be playing travel but can't afford to. I have mentioned that this mix is not a good one because the different levels leads to things like the situation from yesterday I had in my game. This was a u13 game, to fully set the stage. 

White team up 1-0 late in the game. Yellow pressing up and they lose the ball on attack. Yellow player tries to recover the ball from white's defender by executing a two footed tackle from the side that the defender could not see. While the tackle was good in terms of dispossessing the ball from the defender, I felt it was really a dangerous tackle. Had the defender's ankle been 2 inches closer to the tackler's two footed lunge, he would be spending the rest of the weekend at the hospital. So I blew the whistle and the coach went ballistic because all he saw was the result of the play. I saw the potential of tackles like that. I told him that a tackle like this is fine in a World Cup but not in a u13 semi rec match. I showed him (the player) the yellow card and that sent the parents over the edge. But at the end of the game, no one came by asking me to explain myself. It was one where I was going to show a yellow or a red card depending on whether there was contact with the ankle. I am not sure if coach or player fully understood what I was trying to convey. It all depends if they take a step back and reflect on the play or just brush it off as the ref being unreasonable. Time will tell if that player eventually gets it or not. Hopefully he will. 

Another assessment

This past weekend, after my Saturday with the young kids, I had my assessment match to maintain my Grade 7 certification. I received good marks for staying close to the play, but not too close. The other thing that the assessor said was that I called 7 fouls in the first 15 minutes and then had only 11 more through the rest of the game. He said that it worked for that game though my AR said that the coach was questioning if I was going to call all contact at the beginning. However, the kids never complained and then I did not have to worry too much about the frustration level.

The only thing that was a problem was an exchange with one of the coaches. He complained that during one of those screening plays where a player accompanies a ball that is rolling out of bounds, that the player veered too far away from the ball to play the player. I did not think so, but he complained very publicly. I replied "Thanks coach. I ref, you coach." The assessor stated that I should have left it at Thanks Coach. That way you do not invite a reply.

Other than that, another year of me being a 7. He did state that he wanted me to try to upgrade to a 6 given what he saw that day. Some day maybe.

Dark Arts

Very interesting U11 match I had this past Saturday. I have not had a younger age group in a while and was happy to have what seemed to be a easier time for the game at hand. U11 boys, how hard can that be right?

Things started easily enough, during the check ins though, the local team (the Blue team) had many latino players, a latino coach and he made a comment that surprised me. When I was checking in the boys, I mentioned that to me, the most important thing was for them to be able to go to school on Monday and to make sure that they were safe, so if they felt weird or dizzy, etc. to please let me know. The coach interrupted and said that the boys were here to win and that they would come out when he said so. Okay coach, remember this is U11.

The game started and Blue started off well. The hispanic players had a different level of play, they moved the ball with grace and while there were some non-hispanic players on that team, most of the play flowed through these more gifted players. All fine and dandy for the first 10-15 minutes. Blue took an early lead and was up 3-1 I believe when I called a foul on Blue at midfield. Immediately Blue #49 gets in front of the ball, within 3-4 feet and prevents a quick restart. I hold up the game and publicly state that he has to move back and that I would be ok if he was 6-7 yards away and had to be moved back, but I said, even you know that 3-4 feet is not 10 yards. #49 moved back without a problem.

3 minutes later, #49 has a breakaway and when he makes a move on the keeper, he dribbles too hard and the ball is going out for a goal kick. As he passes the goalkeeper (before the ball goes out) he takes a spectacular sprawl. And then he turns around and holds up his hands like we see on TV every weekend from the Ronaldo's and Messi's of the world. Hmm, me not liking this #49 too much. And the coach piles on, "Referee, the keeper tripped my player, that should be a red card!". Again, U11. I just ignored them.

Later in the half, still 3-1 Blue when I called a foul close to the goal for white. Again, Blue gets in front of the ball, not a foot away. And sure enough, it was #49 again. I tell the kid, "Look, you have to move back. You can't stand there." To which he responds, "I can stand wherever I want. My coach said so." Ok, your coach just earned you a yellow for persistent attempts at trying to trick your way through a soccer match. Actually the yellow was for failing to respect the distance, but man o man, he was more complicated than some 15 year old kids I have had to work with. At this point, everyone knew that I was not going to tolerate getting to close to the ball on free kicks. And the coach yells at me "Don't yell at my players!". I don't think I was yelling, but rather talking firmly after having to explain myself on where not to stand for free kicks, but I apologized to the coach and the player and just said to him, "Look, you have to give them 10 yards. I don't need to get involved." Coach got it, kid got it. So we are good supposedly.

To make things worse, they line up for the free kick and right before they take the kick, Blue #10, who was one of the boys forming the wall, takes two giant steps forward and jumps just as they take the kick. I stop the play, reset the ball, whip out another yellow card and loudly proclaim to everyone "I hope we are clear that today we are going to respect the distance on free kicks." White scores on the free kick retake to make it 3-2.

Final score was 6-2 Blue as they really were the better side. At halftime, a fellow referee was sitting watching my game and he said that Blue had been taught the dark arts of soccer. And it was true, they did many of the things we see the pros do, go down easily, yell and grab their ankles at the slightest of contacts, pull shirts and of course, stand in front of the ball on free kicks. Hopefully they got a little wake up call when it comes time to play in tougher games that many referees will not put up with those shennanigans. And maybe I was too hard on them, but I feel that they brought it onto themselves when they try to bend the rules. Sometimes when you bend the rules, they hit you back when it snaps back into place. So be it.

Nothing better than a slow whistle sometimes

I read in some other blogs and on the internet that it is a good idea to have a slow whistle, especially as the kids get older. It gives you that one to two second advantage to see where play develops. I have always used a wrist lanyard for my whistle because it automatically forces me to give that extra time. Many times I have thought of calling a foul or stopping play and in the time it takes to bring my hand up to my mouth and get the whistle ready for action, the play resolves itself and the advantage is realized.

Case in point, this past weekend, U16 girls game. Orange clears the ball and white was really pushing up. So the clearance clears most of the white defenders. The sweeper tries to head the ball as last defender. She does a sloppy job and instead manages to head it somewhat but also the ball rolls along her trailing arm towards her own goal. Everyone uses the infamous "Handball ref!", even the coach. The ball gets to a streaking attacker who has a one-on-one with the keeper and puts it away. All this happened because of that slow whistle. At the time of the actual contact with the arm (and it WAS handling, not inadvertent contact), the play did not appear to be one of needing a slow whistle. But given that it took a moment to get the process down, whistle into hand, hand up to mouth and then breathe in to blow to stop play, it gave the attacking team enough time to figure it out themselves. And instead of blowing to stop play, I bellowed "Play on!" and I looked like the guy that actually knew this was going to happen. So sometimes having that built in buffer is great because you have the time to let the players figure it out for you. And you look like the smartest guy on the field. Trust me, it does not happen often, but when it does, it is a beautiful thing.

But I have an email

This past week I had to do something I would rather never do, be on the coach's side for a match. My daughter's travel team had a conflict of epic proportions which left her team (the club's B team out of 3 teams in her age group) without a coach. The local girls travel league is supposed to deconflict matches for the coaches so that they can make each game. This weekend, the league decided to make our club's A team for the age group travel to St. Mary's County in Maryland and the other team to Eldersberg, also in Maryland. One for a 12pm kick off and the other for a 1pm kick-off. The coach would never have made it on time if the fields were 10 minutes away. Unfortunately, these two locations are about 2 hours away (but in the same state).

So as the story goes, there was no one to coach the B team. The main coach has the A and B teams and the assistant has the C team. The main coach was with the A team and the second coach was with his C team, which left the B team without a coach. The process of getting carded as a coach was simple from my viewpoint since I did not have to do much other than fill out some paperwork and send in a headshot.

For the game itself, there was not much to speak of in terms of reffing except for an interesting exchange I had with the other coach. During the second half, the game was tied 0-0 still and it looked like whomever scored would win it that day. At one point, the other coach started suggesting to the referee (a young lad who was probably doing his one of his first travel centers) that he call "handball".

"Ref, that is a handball" he would say. Later, "Another handball ref". While there was contact between arm and ball, we all know there has to be some intention. Just because there is contact does not constitute handling. So after the 3rd or 4th time he ever increasingly suggests calling "handball", I tell the coach, "You do understand that there has to be some intention to actually call handling, right?" to which he answers "If the arm is in an unnatural position, it is a handball. I have an email that proves it and will show it to you after the game."

To which I just shut up, because what am I going to say to that? There are so many things wrong with the statement that it just not worth explaining. My intention in speaking to him was not really to educate him on handling vs handball. Nor was it to start talking about how one of our best female referees has stated time and time again that handling is very different in the mens game than it is in the female game. What my goal tried to achieve was to shift the conversation to me so he would not attempt to influence a very impressionable young man into making a call that could alter the course of the game. My daughter's team was dominating and I knew that eventually we would get a goal, all I had to do was avoid the coach from suggesting a bad call that might prompt a goal out of nowhere for them.

It worked, as he ceased to talk about the handballs and right after, my daughter's team scored.

Another interesting note, from this young referee was the fact that with about a minute left in the game, and with my daughter's team up 3-1, he calls a foul on the other team in the box. My daughter had gotten by the defender and was ready to shoot when the girls basically pushed her from behind. The referee called the foul and then began lining up the girls for a kick inside the box. So I ask the referee:

"Is this a direct kick?"

"Yes", he replies.

"And it is in the box, right?"

"Yes", he replies again.

"So it is a PK then instead of a direct kick, correct?"

"Oh, yes, you are right."

Then he proceeds to set up for a PK. I tell my daughter to take it and as she is running up to take the shot, he blows his whistle. She stops and looks at him as she was ready to take the PK. She takes a step back and begins running up to the ball again, and again he blows the whistle. All this time, he was indicating to her to go ahead and take the PK but was blowing the whistle at the most distracting time. He even told her to go ahead and take the shot after the second whistle. She was so confused that she missed it, not that it mattered, because the game was essentially over but it showed me that he had never had to practice a PK before.

I can now say that I have a 2-1 record as a coach for my daughter's team. It is very different being on the coaching sideline, especially because you have to manage subs and guide the girls. I had a lot of fun, but prefer reffing to coaching any day. I like to be responsible for myself and not being required to be responsible for so many girls and their results. But every once it a while it is nice to watch the game from the other sideline.

Reffed by a FIFA referee

You will have to excuse my lack of memory when it comes to names, but for the first time, I saw a FIFA badged referee up close. Turns out that in my son's tournament this past week, there was a FIFA referee looming about. And sure enough, in the defining match for my son's team (a U14 team), there he was, stepping on the field. I was blown away by the ease of movement and the crew in general. I noticed that the badges for the referees in Maryland were not the USSF badges I am used to, nor did they look to by AYSO (but they might have been, I did not get a close up of the AR's badges). The FIFA badge is undeniable. And it is large compared to the ones I have.

It was fun to watch for a few things. First, he was not calling anything small. There were a lot of challenges that would have earned a whistle from many a referee but not him. His bar was high and he called it. He had a slow whistle (and I loved that). He waited until he saw where the ball was going or what the player did after getting tackled to call a foul. There was a lot of non verbal communication between the crew. He probably had a great pre-game that I would have loved to have sat in on.

Some things that I wanted to knit pick were that he counted off the steps for a free kick. I thought we weren't supposed to be doing that. He also seemed to have a different bar as to what fouls would be called depending on where in the field those fouls occurred. For example, there were plenty of calls close to the box, creating nice free kick opportunities. But there were similar challenges in midfield that were not called. Same thing inside the penalty area, no calls. However, I wanted to state again that it was a pleasure watching him ref. To the point that during a breakaway for my son's team, I was caught watching the referee and his position instead of my son who scored the go-ahead goal. When a fellow parent asked me why I wasn't paying attention to the action, I told him that it is not every day that you get to see a FIFA referee that close. Just a fun thing to observe and to take a little nugget or two back for your own matches.

Summer Adult League done

We have a little break for the next couple of weeks where things have either concluded or are about to begin. My kids' travel programs are going to kick off in a couple of weeks and their tournaments will be something of soccer fodder if there is anything of interest.

Also, the local adult league concluded with some interesting dynamics regarding players. I am astonished to realize how many of us who are on the higher side of 40 think they can still hang with the young 20 somethings that were here for the summer adult league. I guess they were back from college, on summer break and decided to join the league for this go around. More than once I saw these 40 something players (myself included) trying to run down a person who is half one's age. It is not pretty.

Still, I have less tolerance with adults than with the kids when it comes to shirt pulling, diving and overall silliness. It seems like the adults try to emulate more of what is going on when they watch the TV than the kids are, and they are not that good at acting. Or perhaps it is that the legs are just not there. Needless to say, I have a blast when playing but I still would prefer to ref than play.