Columbus Soccer Ref

I did a tournament recently and was definitely surprised at how much whining there was over throw-ins. In the matches I did, most of the complaints came from teams east of Columbus - notably from PA and Ontario, Canada. The majority of the time, their complaints were centered on how much spin was on the ball as it left the thrower’s hands. There used to be verbage in the LoTG that said something to the effect that the ball had to be thrown equally with both hands. That was done away with quite a long time ago - certainly long enough to be a non-issue for the U14 & U16 teams that were doing the griping. To be sure, Law 15 spells out the criteria for a valid throw thusly -

• The thrower must face the field of play.
• The thrower has part of each foot either on the touch line or on the ground outside the touch line.
• The thrower uses both hands.
• The ball is delivered from behind and over the head.

Nothing in there that involves spin. . .nothing that says you can’t pound the ball to the ground. . .and nothing that says you can’t have a light release over the head. Just because it’s a bad throw doesn’t mean it’s a foul throw.

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Alright. . .I’m definitely feeling that I have to vent. I’m very quickly losing patience with Official Sports. OSI and USSF announced the new-style shirts at the 2007 MLS Cup. That was November 18, 2007. Now here we are FIVE MONTHS LATER and they still can’t meet demand. I waited until March (four months after their introduction) to place my orders. I’ve ordered all five short-sleeve shirts (gold, black, red, blue, & green) and the gold and black long-sleeve shirts - all in the Pro style. So far, I’ve received both gold shirts (short & long sleeve) and the red short sleeve shirt. So I currently have the black, blue, & green short sleeve on backorder as well as the black long sleeve. During a call to OSI today, I was told that the remaining four shirts are expected in mid-May. Are you friggin kidding me? I understand initially underestimating demand, but 4+ months after the shirts were announced to still have a 2 month wait I find completely inexcusable. I only hope my backorders are filled before Regionals in late June.

Perhaps I’d be willing to cut Official Sports some slack if I felt the new-style shirts were something other than a money grab on their part. The color of the new shirts is the same as previous, save for the new option of green. I’d feel better about being asked to pony up for new shirts if they were lighter/cooler, but while the new shirts may be very slightly lighter than the older style, they’re the same material so there’s no gain there. Indeed, USSF hasn’t even issued a phase-out date for the old style shirts. My understanding is that OSI’s new contract with USSF is for two years. Given the way OSI has bungled the delivery of these new uniforms, I’ll have a hard time rooting for them when their contract comes for renewal.

One major difference between players and referees is that referees can’t go to practice. Sure we can read the LoTG and the Advice To Referees, but real improvement can only come from doing matches, making mistakes, and learning from them. Of course the spectators, coaches, and players don’t want to hear/know that a referee is using their match as a learning experience. But my view is that I try to learn something from every match. Sometimes the mistakes/lessons are obvious and the results are equally obvious - and sometimes the mistakes are subtle but with results that are obvious. This weekend I definitely had a learning experience involving the latter - a subtle miscalculation that had dramatic effects on the match. As I move up and get higher-level and more competitive matches, I’m finding the mistakes and miscalculations often involve gray areas in the LoTG and man/match management.

Here’s the situation of my match yesterday -
The Midwest Regional League is a very competitive regional league involving teams from the 13 states of Region II. I was doing the middle in a U17 boys MRL match. We had White vs. Red. Everything was going remarkably well - the players were composed, very skilled, and generally settled. I was feeling really good; always well-positioned and consistent. At 43 minutes, white plays the ball over the goal line for a goal kick. The ball goes a long way, and the red goalkeeper is walking to the ball, and walks it back. As he gets back to the goal line with the ball, a teammate is telling him to hurry up - to which the goalkeeper responds “It wouldn’t be a problem if they didn’t kick it so f@#*ing far”. Read the rest of this entry »

Last night I did a U15 Girls State Cup match and it was one of the craziest matches I’ve done in a while.  In the first half, the white team whined and complained every time one of them was even remotely touched, much less hit the ground.  During this time, the red team pretty much dominated play.  In the 19th minute, a white player was on the ball in the attacking end near corner flag.  She was legally dispossessed of the ball and as the ball was played up-field, the white attacker raised her arm and used the point of her elbow against the side of the red player’s head.  I was surprised how easy the decision was to show her the red card and send her off for violent conduct.  The half ended with the score 1-0 in favor of red.  I mentioned the whining of the white team to my ARs and wondered what these ladies would do against a more advanced and physical team.
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This weekend, I received an e-mail inviting me to represent OH South at this year’s Youth Regionals (Region II). This will be my first time at Regionals, and I’m thrilled and honored. As the title says - now the real work begins.

“I feel ready, and yet unprepared”

– Garbage from “The World Is Not Enough”

Well. . .yesterday was my first 4-match day, and it was sort of a wakeup call.  My first match was a U15 boys middle and I thought it went well, even with a send-off.   Then I had two ARs, a U17 boys and a U16 girls.  To finish the day I had a U16 boys middle.  I was definitely feeling pretty wiped out. . .and to add to it all, I was being assessed.  One of the ARs was a Grade 5 whom I’d worked with before and is quite good.  The other AR was new to me and it didn’t take too long for him to unimpress me.  Early on, I found he was having some trouble staying with play.  Now, I know I have to get better at consistently looking to my right for the AR’s flag when balls are played forward, but I don’t know that I’ve ever worked with an AR who was consistently so late with the flag.  I mean I’m all about a late flag, waiting for involvement and such, but this guy was almost to the point of pushing my buttons.  I know at least half the time, I looked right as the ball/play went forward and saw no flag - only to have people screaming at me 3-4 seconds later to look at the flag.  Fortunately, when the teams switched ends for the second half the majority of the action was at the other end.  But I definitely felt that I didn’t get what I wanted from that AR.  And when I’m physically wasted, I definitely rely on my ARs a lot more. I couldn’t have been more relieved when the match ended.  Some matches you feel you did great, some matches you feel OK, and other matches you survive.  This was a match I felt fortunate to survive.  In the end, the assessor felt I did a pretty good job and gave me some things to keep in mind.  So I got that going for me, which is nice.

So what does this have to do with fitness?  In my mind, it has everything to do with fitness.  If my fitness is where I want it to be I’m not nearly so wiped out for that 4th match and my mental focus is sharper, allowing me to better handle the match despite a problematic AR.

The other thing I realized is how poorly hydrated I am.  In that last match, I started cramping pretty badly behind my right knee.  I’d never had problems cramping like that before.  Time to cut way way back on the sodas and drink more water!!!!

Law 12 outlines the cautionable misconduct offenses as unsporting behavior, dissent, persistent infringement, delays the restart, fails to respect the required distance, enters/reenters without permission, and leaves the field without permission.  Most are pretty cut-and-dried for the most part.  Although most players and coaches I’ve worked with have bought into the myth of “he has to ask for 10 yards”.  Yet none can show me in the LoTG where it says this requirement is dependent on any such request.  Players and coaches conveniently forget that it’s supposed to be a FREE kick.  Most coaches and players also don’t realize there’s a 2-yard required distance for throw-ins as well.

But this post is about the cautionable offenses I find to be more elusive because they tend to be more subjective - Dissent & Persistent Infringement.  I also tend to feel that not enough yellow cards are shown for these.

Dissent -
My experience is that most players believe they are allowed to dissent the referee.  I don’t know where they got the idea.  I think it’s in large part because they’ve been allowed to dissent for so long, they’ve come to expect to be able to keep doing it.  I think it’s unfortunate how many referees “just take it” - and shame on them!  As a result, I think I come as a big surprise to a lot of players because I take a lot less than most referees I’ve met.  I don’t know how many times I’ve shown a player the yellow card and told him it was for dissent and the player doesn’t understand that he’s done something wrong.

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With all the rain we’ve had in March here in Ohio (5” above normal for the month), I’ve already had roughly 15 games washed out so far this season. Trying to turn a negative into a positive, it’s given me a chance to work some more on my fitness. The older I get and the more serious I get about refereeing, the more important I think fitness becomes. Of course you have to be able to keep up with play, but I’m convinced that fitness plays a major role in a referee’s decision-making process. Think about it, how clearly do you think when you’re totally gassed? How do you keep a cool head when you’re busy sucking air? How do you make sure your signals don’t get sloppy when you’re wiped out? So I definitely think fitness plays a role in making correct decisions, good mechanics, and game control. As a referee, most of what we do and learn is by doing and getting feedback from peers and more experienced referees. After all, we can’t go to practice like players do. But fitness is one of the few aspects of our game and preparations that we have almost complete control over. So I struggle with what I eat, keeping hydrated, and getting a workout in as close to every day as possible. Because if I don’t, I don’t think there’s any way my game will improve.

I think every referee has heard this at one time or another. Do fans, coaches, or players who try to claim bias on the part of referee ever have a clue about the official they’re directing this at? Do they really believe what they’re saying?

In my case, I think it borders on ridiculous. My wife and I have only lived in Columbus for 2 years and the town we live in has a pretty decent club program, but I do VERY few matches for them. I do my best to get to other areas of Columbus for matches, partly because I want to see as many clubs as possible. I have one child, but he’s only 17 months old - and even then, he has spina bifida and will never know the game the way I did as a kid. So conflicts like those are a non-issue. And yet, when I’m in the middle those types of comments (from older kids) are something of a hot button for me with regard to dissent. If a player has been mouthing off a bit and then plays the Homer Card, it usually is enough to prompt a caution for dissent. Mostly because it calls into question the integrity of the game, and like most forms of dissent if left unchecked can spread rapidly. I’m sure there are some biased referees. But if a coach or player really thinks an official is biased, there are mechanisms put in place by the league where they can address those concerns. But to go spouting off with such things on the field, having no knowledge of the official, seems quite irresponsible to me.

I’m curious to hear from people about their strangest, craziest, scariest, or most bizzare red card.

For me, on two occasions I’ve had a player put his hands on me.
On one of them I was doing a U16 boys match I whistled a hard foul, and went to the spot to diffuse tension between the two players. The fouled player got up and promptly pushed me, apparently thinking I was an opponent. It took me a second to realize what had happned and reach for the red card. Not a whole lot arguement from the player once he realized what happened. No arguement from the bench.
The second time, I was doing a U17 boys match - for my upgrade assessment to Grade 7 no less. Attacking team has a DFK about 25 yards from goal. I set the wall and whistled for the kick. Before the kick takes place, the defending players in the wall are pushing an attacking player in the wall. The kick goes wide of goal for a goal kick. As the defending team is retrieving the ball for the goal kick, I go to have a word with the members of the wall to let them know the attacking player has a right to be there and not to push off prior to the kick. One of the defenders dissented a bit, saying the attacking player pushed him - then demonstrated with an outright push on me. It took me a minute to realize how big a case of the stupids this kid had.

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