Just a follow-up from this morning’s post about my game this evening.
TLDR: I did not fuck up.
Long version — Good game but holy shit, those boys found new and interesting ways to hurt themselves.
I had four injuries that were serious enough to remove players from the game for assessment and the trainers kept them out. The trainers shipped one to the hospital ASAP and another was on the phone with the team surgeon as the referees were leaving.
Injury 1: 7th minute, Red had a corner kick and crossed the ball into the mixer. White keeper came out and attempted to punch the ball away. He connected with both the ball and the jaw of his center back. Possible broken jaw, probable concussion and headed to the hospital.
Injury 2: 37th minute, White keeper punted the ball off a lazy save. Red center back and Red holding midfielder aren’t talking as they both track the ball. Holding midfielder attempts to flick the ball with the side of his head while Red center back attempts to hammer head the ball down and forward. Center back crushes midfielder on the temple. Probable concussion.
Injury 3: 75th minute, White forward is going left to right onto goal, Red defender is fronting him with supporting defender getting on White’s upfield hip. Forward makes a sudden turn to goal and lowers his level for a shot that goes wide, supporting defender rides up White’s leg and goes flying, landing several yards upfield. No foul (if anything to be called against defender) but his back and pride probably bruised.
Injury 4: 83rd minute, White midfield plays a very long cross ball to oncoming White forward. White forward making a 100% speed run as the ball lands 25 yards in front of him. It skips funny so instead of rolling towards the corner flag, it curves and starts to roll straight to the end line. The forward shifts his run and then collapses, grabbing his knee. I think I heard a pop. Possible ACL/MCL as the trainers packed his knee with ice. He was on the phone with the surgeon as we were leaving.
That is the most injuries requiring long term removal in a long while, and none of them were from anything ugly or illegal. Strange.
The game ended up being 3-1 with White winning. It was a rather low-key game as White got their three by the 35th minute and Red did not score until only a few minutes were left when White had 8 subs on the field. I thought the game went well as I handed out 3 cautions, one for unsporting behavior (tactical pattern of fouling) and two unsporting behavior/shitty tackles. For a men’s college game, that is not an unusual card count. One player was working on persistent infringement but the coach caught the clue and pulled him before I needed to do anything.
The assessor made three good points in the post game debrief. The first was that my work rate mirrored that of the teams. When they were hauling ass, I was hauling ass, when they were playing slow and lazy, I was slow when I still should have been moving at ludicrous speed. I got away with it this time, but a game where the tempers were higher closer proximity would be needed. The second point was proximity. It took me about twenty minutes to figure out where I wanted to be on the field.
I initially crowded play and attempted to hover at 6 to 10 yards. I am not maneuverable enough to do that, as I can’t dance out of the way of spin moves and smart players who want to use me as a pick. I then backed off to 20 yards which loosened up and gave me a much nicer view of the game, but I lost contact with the hot spots. Finally I figured 15 yards unless I felt a hard tackle was coming on was a good spot for me. I was trying to figure out what the combination of skill, tactics, and speed was for the game, and I never quite got the perfect fit. As I do more games at this level and in this conference, I’ll find the sweet spots.
The last thing that I found very useful from the assessor was a talk about my first caution. I gave that caution at the 23rd minute to Red #14 for unsporting behavior (tactical pattern of fouling) against White # 21. White #21 had scored the first goal and was the most creative player on the field and over the course of 9 minutes, he had been whacked three times by Red (14th minute by #14, 16th minute by #8 and 23rd minute by #14) as he was transitioning from the middle third of the field to the attacking third on the outside wing. At the 17th minute White #12, the holding midfielder/team goon, had gone in hard against Red #8 and I called him for a simple direct free kick foul and had a brief word with him as I knew he was protecting his star.
The assessor had me talk through the sequence and he agreed that #21 was being targeted and it was tactical in nature. After the caution, White got 2 more goals as #21 assisted on the next one and scored the third goal. After that, they say 10 men behind the ball for the rest of the game. So my caution served the game well by allowing a skilled player to demonstrate his skill safely and fairly. However the assessor asked two questions. The first question was why did I wait for #3 instead of cautioning at #2? I wanted to make sure I was seeing a pattern as two could be coincidence. The assessor pointed out that at this skill level, the coaching is good enough that we can assume there are few coincidences in short periods of time but three was defensible.
The second question was did I see where #14’s hands were on the first foul? I did not, I was paying attention to the legs as they were running shoulder to shoulder and the foul was a trip as #21 attempted to turn the corner. I assumed his hands were just hand fighting.
They weren’t. His body side hand was on #21’s hip and pulling him backwards and into the trip. This transformed the foul from a simple tripping foul where the attacker just beat the defender to a spot and the legs got tangled up, into a deliberate tactical foul to stop the attack. The assessor saw that as he was near the goal line and looking straight on, while I was in the center of the field attempting to look through both bodies. My AR had no support as she was 70 yards across the field and looking through five bodies for an offside line. I missed it. If I caught it and cautioned there for a tactical foul, I probably would have avoided the three following fouls and given #21 another 10 minutes to safely and fairly demonstrate his skill.
I can work on looking at hand placement during shoulder to shoulder runs… this is a good take-away.
MomSense
Glad it went well. Would have been even better if you had a couple cups of coffee before the game.
benw
Richard, you already seem pretty cool with how the game went down. So look on the bright side, if you had missed a call like that in any of the U.S.’s three major sports, the play would have been shown on the Jumbotron 50 times while the home crowd screamed bloody murder, the head coach had a complete fit on the sideline, and the announcers talked soberly about the need for video replay to correct for the incompetent buffoonery of the refs. At the speed and physicality that pro and college athletes play now, I’m impressed that refs/umps can keep up with everything, even if occasional mistakes get made. And on the brighter side, “Ride the Lightning”!
Omnes Omnibus
@benw: How many Metallica fans are hanging around this joint? It disturbs the proto-hipster in me.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Omnes Omnibus: Likewise. I had no idea.
Omnes Omnibus
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): I am not trying to be a snob…. :D
benw
@Omnes Omnibus:
Well, there’s me and Richard so all of us! And Fuck your Hipster bullshit! Your hipster crap does not Rock. Why don’t you go listen to your hippie Beck albums, hipster? Me and Richard are going to Rock with Metallica!
Edited because edit.
Roger Moore
@benw:
Master of Puppets was better.
Omnes Omnibus
@benw: Aside from “Loser,” I never liked Beck. I did see him in concert once and he was a total douche. BTW, I said proto-hipster. I am too old to be a Brooklynite. Mine was college radio music in the ’80s.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Omnes Omnibus: Me neither (much). I’m just old. : ) And Beck never held much appeal.
Corner Stone
@benw: He has horrible taste in music.
benw
@Roger Moore: No, it’s a demonstrable scientific fact that they both Rock equally.
@Omnes Omnibus: college radio in the 80’s? Fine, REM suuuuuucked.
Alright, enough goofing around. I’m going to bed. (Actually, if you like Loser, you’d probably like most of Mellow Gold, it’s a good album.) Night.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: My taste is exquisite. You are a silly person.
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: Exquisite if one enjoys inverted pig rectum.
Otherwise…
Omnes Omnibus
I am trying to watch The Bastard Executioner. But…. Bored.
burnspbesq
@benw:
Maybe, but X and Los Lobos kicked the living shit out of whatever you were listening to at the time. And still do.
burnspbesq
And the wait for Corner Stone’s first useful contribution to any thread at Balloon Juice continues.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: Fuck the fucking Bears.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: This one doesn’t approach that. It is simply dull so far.
Steeplejack
@benw:
Not to mention spotlighted, second-guessed and ridiculed nationally on ESPN for a period of up to two days, depending on severity, public outcry and possible slow news traffic.
Eric U.
@Steeplejack: I hate to even mention what the two high school football players did to the ref after he made a call they didn’t like.
Steeplejack
@Omnes Omnibus:
Pretty good World War II stuff on TCM. Currently the censored (never released) version of Gregg Toland’s December 7th (1943). A Private Snafu cartoon at 1:10 EDT and then one of my favorite World War II movies, John Ford’s They Were Expendable (1945), at 1:15. John Wayne is uncharacteristically and tastefully muted and shares the lead with Robert Montgomery. Donna Reed is a vision. The movie deals with a bleak episode—the fall of Corregidor and the Philippines, as seen by a PT boat squadron—and it is surprisingly nuanced, probably because of Ford’s experiences in the war.
You probably know all this. I threw it in for any uninformed lurkers.
Steeplejack
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’m not a big Beck partisan, but I love, love, love “Deadweight.”
shirk
Thank you for this glimpse into the referee’s world. As someone who’s flirted with the idea in the past of trying to ref at the youth level, I found the description pretty fascinating.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steeplejack: I am switching to They Were Expendable” now-ish.
Steeplejack
@Corner Stone:
Welcome back! You must tell us of your journeys in distant, exotic lands (and/or the mountains of the mind).
Steeplejack
@burnspbesq:
You must have missed this:
Omnes Omnibus
@Steeplejack: I had missed that.
Steeplejack
@Omnes Omnibus:
His finest hour, rivaled perhaps only by: “You would not make it an hour there. I mean, you just would not.”
Omnes Omnibus
@Steeplejack: I didn’t miss that one. For some reason.
Steeplejack
@Omnes Omnibus:
Damn, Donna Reed is gorgeous. I feel almost unpatriotic saying that in the middle of a sad war movie, but what the hell. Her movie presence is miles away from her ’50s TV mom image. Great that she made the transition, but something was lost.
J R in WV
@burnspbesq:
Los Lobos live is one of the best bands I’ve ever heard. I like their recordings, but live they are just wonderful. Good Morning Aztlan, brothers!
Whooot.
We’ve been to two live Los Lobos shows, just so gifted. So together.
J R in WV
@Eric U.:
Those boys were guilty of a felony, and should have left the field in handcuffs in the back of a cruiser, and still be in jail. Maybe their coach, too. Worst, most unsportsmanlike thing I’ve ever seen in any sport.
Should never be allowed to put on pads again, ever.
Richard Mayhew
@J R in WV: from the ref’s point of view, I agree. But honestly, ban from football for high school career and 1 year sports ban. Let them golf or run cross country next year if they want to.
Richard Mayhew
@benw: play list was 5 tracks of RtL until gas/coffee, then the Killers, She and Him finished off by the baseball game
Richard Mayhew
@shirk: the interesting thing, to me, about refereeing, is that once a baseline of physical ability has been achieved, is the cognitive load of shaping and riding a game. At my best games it is 90% mental
MazeDancer
So glad the assessor turned out to be helpful, Richard. Plus sounds like he would give you good marks as well. Thanks for update.
Richard Mayhew
@MazeDancer: I definately got “Continue to assign him these games of this level” grade. If I was grading myself, I’m split between either a B or a B+. AR 1 got an A+ in my eyes, a great off side call to keep the ball out of the back of the net, and AR 2 had an A game as well as I got great support from him and he solved a couple of player interaction problems before I had to. I’ve had better games, but I’ve also had far worse games.
I was being set up for success (good crew that I trust and have plenty of experience with, a game that does not have a history of being ugly, teams that are close enough to play decent ball but one team is usually better than the other), and I don’t think I fucked it up.
Richard Mayhew
@benw: Unless I was at the Super Bowl, the TV would not have had the camera angle. It was visible from maybe a 15 degree cone in front of the players that the assessor just happened to be standing there as he was walking to the other side of the field for a different view.
But yeah, the greater point is that this is still fairly low pressure — maybe 150 people in the stands (30% parents, 30% the women’s teams that were playing the second game of the doubleheader, 10% random locals and 30% partially drunk students). I’ve been in stadiums with 2,000 -3,000 people screaming their heads off and I’ve been on games televised at 2:00 AM for the local non-big 4 network affiliates that are looking to space fill but could not sell infomercial time. That is more pressure.
A colleague of mine is a FIFA referee and his description of going to Azteca in Mexico City with 110,000 people ready to riot is something that I would like to avoid in my life although in some detached way that sounds awesome as well. If I can send my doppleganger to do that game, that would be fun.
MazeDancer
@Richard Mayhew:
All you need. Opens the door to whatever you want. All that nice support you had for this first big game is lovely. But if assessor had wanted to be a jerk, it wouldn’t have mattered. And would also mean he was making game life in the whole area grimmer for others. Good to hear not the case. So, yay, for new opportunities for wider fun.
WaterGirl
@Richard Mayhew: I am so glad you got that rating and that you got some good stuff from that assessor. I bet you’re glad to have that first game behind you!
I feel bad about all the injuries, though. Yikes!
MobiusKlein
Can you send a good assessor out west? My daughter’s team went from U13 silver to U14 gold, but it seems the refs are getting worse!
That, or just the expected level of pushing around the goal is much higher, especially for the home team. Or I am biased…