Well. . .tonight I did a U19B middle and ran into a couple of coaches (same team) who definitely had absolutely no grasp of the big picture - or sportsmanship - at all. Here’s the situation. . .we have Gold vs. Orange. We’re at the 87th minute and Gold is leading 4-1. There were a couple of cautions in the match, but in general things were going pretty well. Virtually no dissent from players or coaches to this point. Gold player has the ball right in front of the Orange bench, and Orange defender commits a challenge that is definitely reckless (no excessive force and no endangering the opponent’s safety). I blow the whistle hard and run to the foul to make sure there’s no retaliation. Things are fairly calm and the Orange player (and his coach) knows a caution is likely coming - and it would be his second of the match (resulting in a send-off). As I seperate the Orange player who committed the foul, the Orange coach asks me if he can take him off and that they will not substitute for him (we were still close to the Orange bench). I definitely appreciated that this coach understood that the player needed to be removed and the game needed the player to be removed. Also, this was the last match of the league season for these two teams. So I elected to handle the misconduct by letting the coach manage his player. The Gold coach voices some dissent that the player was not shown the red card, which I felt was just venting. After all, Orange had removed the problem player and were playing a man down - AND GOLD WAS UP 4-1! I mean what more did the Gold coaches really want? So I restarted play - with Orange playing down a man. About 30 seconds later, I noticed that the Gold coaches were bickering with the Orange bench. I stop play and go over to the Gold bench to essentially tell them that I had used my discretion to allow the Orange coach to manage his player and that we were moving on. And mostly that the bickering with the other bench had to stop. These coaches barely let me get a word in. Their attitude was generally aggressive, provocative, and definitely unsporting. When I was done with the Gold bench, I then went to the Orange bench and made it clear that the bickering had to stop. Finally, I go back to the players and the match. We play the final minutes of the match and it ends. I fill out the match card, denoting the cautions, and get the Orange coach’s signature while handing his player passes back. I then give back the player passes to the Gold coach, along with the game card. Since the winning coach sends in the game card, he can sign at his convenience. I then go about getting out of my wet shirts (it had rained during the match). When he gets back to his bench, he and the other coach then shout over to me - again dissenting my decision not to issue a second caution (and resulting red card). Now. . .I’m in the process of changing out of my gear after the match. The only thing I say to the coaches is “Coach, walk away!” Of course, they didn’t like this at all. So they continued their dissent as I continued to change into a semi-dry shirt. Any response from me was the same - “Coach, walk away”.
So let me get this straight. . .we’ve had a nice match for 87 minutes. . .and your team is up 4-1 in the last match of the league season. . .and you’re going to be all pissed off about the referee’s decision to allow a coach to manage his player rather than show the red card (something I’m sure you would appreciatehad the roles been reversed)?!?!?!? I’m not sure I’ve ever encountered a worse case of sore winners. It really spoiled, for me, what I thought was a pretty fun match up to that point. Truly a shame that some people have to be such poor sports.
(NOTE: It should go without saying that if the Orange coach not been willing to manage his player, then I definitely would have shown the Orange player a second yellow card and then the red card.)
June 2nd, 2009 at 4:26 pm
I think you should have given him the red card. The new USSF directives on 100% misconduct and the risk/flow/control game model make it clear that for 100% misconduct situations, a referee should issue the card regardless of other factors.
I think this is the right approach — it makes the game more consistent for players, coaches, and fans and less like a game of Calvinball where the rules are applied at the whim of a single individual.
There are many reasons why coaches feel the need to argue with referees after a game, and they often argue about stupid stuff, but inconsistent application of the rules may have been a partial motivation for the behavior you witnessed here.
And, after all, what difference did not giving the red card make? It was probably that kids last club game EVER, so it’s not like he was going to miss the next match. You’d have to write a report. The league (if it was MOSSL or BPYSL), *might* have counted it against the coach.
On the other hand, coaches get their adrenaline up during a game and then have no outlet for it, because they don’t get to play, so they sometimes direct that energy into an ego contest with the referee over some stupid thing or another. I’m sure there was some of that dynamic at play here, too.
June 2nd, 2009 at 5:38 pm
aref> Thanks for your comments. While you mention the 100% misconduct directive, US Soccer is strongly encouraging referees to utilize all of the game management tools in our arsenal and not just the cards. I often ask myself, what does the player need? what does the game need? and what options are available to me to get that (keeping in mind the big picture)? Can I get what I want out of a player by simply a quiet word? Do I need to make it a loud and public ass-chewing? Or do I need to show a card?
I find that the more advanced training I receive (i.e. Pro Clinic, etc) the more I use personality and presence to manage my matches - and the better the matches are for everyone. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t shy away from going to a straight red card when needed. But I am much more comfortable using all of the tools available to me.
In this case, given the foul that happened I asked myself what does the player need and what does that game need? And my answer was that both the player and the game needed that player to be removed. The coach provided an option that didn’t involve the cards and still allowed the player and the game to get what it needed - the problem player removed. And given the tenor of the match for the previous 87 minutes, I felt there was little or no chance of any escalation by either team. Because of those factors, I chose to manage the situation by allowing the player and the game to get what it needed in that way.
I think a big part of the problem is that many referees are not yet implementing the Game Management Model and as a result, players and coaches are still looking for the referee to step in with a whistle or a card for situations that the players should be allowed to play through or managed by the referee.
June 3rd, 2009 at 9:15 am
I have to disagree with you here. The Game Management Model specifically says that when you have a 100% misconduct situation, you give the card, and do NOT consider the big picture. You only think about what the game needs and what the player needs for gray area situations: a foul that might or might not be misconduct, or that might merit either a misconduct or a sendoff.
June 3rd, 2009 at 2:09 pm
What if this was a State Cup match? What if this was a game at Regionals? You would have given out the card. You made an exception because you had pitty for the losing team.
I did this during the warrior. I should have given a red card because it fit every aspect of the FIRE (Frustration, Intentional, Retaliation, Excessive) in determining if a card was yellow or red. I went with the yellow. 10 minutes later the player commited another stupid infraction which I gave him a yellow for as well to give him a red for 2 cautions.
If I had gone with my gut and the laws of the game, he would have been ejected as he should have been and the second incident would not have happened. I took pity on this team because they were losing. They lost 6-1.
Follow the laws, not your heart.
June 8th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
I think you made the right call. I would have handled it the sameway. I don’t think he showed pitty on a losing team, he had a solution to the situation which controls the game. His job is to control a game that is in the 87th minute.
The reverse (which we will never know) could have been that player number 2 on the Orange takes exception to a Red in a fairly tame game as he describes and now makes the last 3 minutes of the game a real pain. They are U19’s some of these kids are done playing and it is the last game of the season (AKA could be a real trouble game, but it wasn’t).
I actaully have concern over referee’s that referee black and white. Typically they fail to bring personality into match and tend to lack the ablity to communicate with a player and get them through a spot in the game that a few words can solve.
4-1 win but I plan on still getting pissed off at a referee????? I think I would look at it and hope the same thing is handed to me as a coach down the road.
June 8th, 2009 at 11:03 pm
My feeling is it comes down to one thing. . .what would allow me best manage the match while giving the player/game what it needed & without my having to make up a solution or do something outside the LoTG?
Sure, instead of giving permission for the player to leave the pitch I could have shown the yellow card and then the red. But as Alex pointed out, that carried its own set of match control risks. So. . .when both options give the player/game what it needs, I have to choose which one would best allow me to manage the match (regardless of score or time remaining). Each option has an associated set of risks with regard to match control. Based on the tenor of the match to that point, I felt that the coach was willing and able to manage his player - and as a result, presented the best set of risks and best kept with the tenor of the match to that point.
In the last year, as I’ve gotten more advanced training, I generally find myself giving fewer - but more meaningful - cards. I manage my matches a lot more with personality and presence than with the cards now. I don’t shy away from showing a card, but instead of going mostly on emotion I try to give cards only when the player needs it or the game needs it (or both) - and not because I feel I need to give the card. This requires that I ‘read the match’ - and that takes practice/experience and it’s not an exact science. There are risks involved with each course of action. Sometimes you choose to give an ass-chewing instead of a card and the player persists on being stupid. It happens. Sometimes, you give a card and it ends up setting the player off and he gets an even worse case of the stupids than he had before. It happens. But the better you read your match, the more you can make calculated risks on these decisions/choices. But the risks don’t go away.