Happy New Year

I need to finish my write ups of the last two days of the December College Showcase tournament but just had a lot going on. I promise to do so shortly. In the meantime, happy New Year and hope everyone has a great start to 2012.

Alabama Showcase Part 2

The next day was one where I was kind of nervous. We were now going to center matches and so the stakes were a little higher. As I was observing a couple of previous matches, I saw that some of the centers were letting play go on more than what I normally do. At that moment I decided that I was going to let them play when I was in the center since that was what most of these others were doing. It turned out to be a mistake. The reason it was a mistake was because I was then not able to call my game and was taking longer to determine if it was a foul that I was not going to call that I would normally call. Then they started flopping and trying to buy fouls because I must have been all over the place with fouls. Let's just say it was unfortunate. Lesson learned for sure. And it was really hard to reign them in after because they did not know what type of game I was going to officiate.

In the second match, where I was an AR, the center decided to do the opposite. Call a tight game and ease up if needed. Turned out to be a better thing to do instead of the other way around. So if nothing else, ref your match as you see fit. Then make small adjustments accordingly, but at the end of the day, at least you can live with yourself after the match it over. The feeling I had that second night was terrible. I felt like I let the kids down and it was because I had.

At the same time, some kids were really letting me have it. Saying that I was the worst referee they had ever had, that I could not recognize what a foul was and what a flop was, etc. I was so out of my element that I should have started carding for such snide remarks but I felt like I couldn't. Things got better though for the other two days, so don't feel too bad for me.

Alabama Showcase Part 1

Don't know how long this series will be, but let me go day by day, so possibly 3-4 entries. We set off as a group of 4 down to Birmingham. 725 miles is a long way to go to ref some soccer matches but it was fun. We arrived late that evening and had to work 2 games on that Thursday through Sunday.

On Thursday I had the chance to work the National League games, U16 boys. Did an AR and got to do my first 4th official. I enjoyed that one. It was cold, but under the lights, it was fun. One coach did not know the rules and tried to have a kid reenter the field of play during the same half, which was a no-no for this event. He also tested the limits of what was acceptable the whole time but was a good handful, if you will.

In the second half of that match (center was a 5, AR1 was a 6 and AR2 was an 8), AR1 is deep in his own half and a ball goes out of play close to me on the sideline. I clearly see if go off of white for a blue throw (10 minutes left in a 1-1 game) but AR1 points the other way. I silently indicate to the center that it should go the other way as a way of suggestion. He comes over and verifies (I was 5 feet away, so it made sense) and goes with my call (against the chatty coach and so he goes ballistic). 3 minutes later, similar thing happens, but I point the other way, again silently, and the center does not see me, so the coach goes crazy one more time.

Being the 4th basically was summed up as letting them vent and then putting them back in their place (not stepping onto the field and sitting down after giving instructions, etc).

So that way day 1. More to come on the other days soon.

In Alabama

Really looking forward to this college showcase tournament we are participating in. We arrived last night and are heading to the fields shortly. I hope to have impressions of what I see while out here for these next 4 days.

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.