A few things to think about as the season is wrapping up and my legs are still feeling surprisingly good.
Scenario A
Division 3 college women’s game in a 0-0 tie with 72 minutes played so far. Green plays a deep through ball. Orange keeper leaves the box and makes a very hard but fair challenge on the forward. The referee and the assistant referee both hear a snap-crackle-pop. The ball pops 30 yards into the air as both players go to the ground and half a second later, the keeper lets go a blood curdling scream.
The ball falls to the ground inside the box and there is a single on-rushing Green attacker who has a clear run onto the ball. Two Orange defenders are sprinting back but it is questionable if they can get a fair challenge on the ball.
What do you do?
Scenario A-1
What do you do to #10? Is there a caution or a pat on the back?
Scenario B
The score is 8-0 with 19 minutes left in the game. Blue plays a ball that should have been angled to the corner through the defense. It goes linear instead of diagonal. The Red keeper collects the ball with his feet and drags it back into the box. The Red keeper futzes around with the ball for thirty five seconds and there is no pressure on the ball.
What do you do?
Oh yeah, Red is the team that is down eight.
Scenario C
The center referee has not been having a good game. He is missing calls, he is inconsistent on what he is calling and his positioning leaves a lot to be desired. So far, the players have become visibly frustrated and the coaches are not happy but there has not been an explosion of chaos on the field. As an assistant referee what do you do?
C1: It is seven minutes to half time
C2: It is seven minutes in the second half and the players are grumbling but not whacking
C3: It is twelve minutes left in the second half and the players are taking their frustration out on each other.
Scenario D
More effective than the Bills defenders: pic.twitter.com/PMWw1dzlJ2
â Rich Hill (@PP_Rich_Hill) October 30, 2016
Look at the arrow… what do you do?
Scenario E
It is the final game of the season. Yellow is sub-.500 and Green is out of the conference and NCAA play-offs. It is Yellow’s Senior Day and between the two teams they are starting fourteen seniors. What do you expect?
Scenario A is tough. The center referee can not win.
Our first priority is always player safety. Â Our second priority is fairness. Player safety wins. Â The referee, a NISOA national, killed the play as soon as he heard the snap-crackle-pop. Â I was AR-1 and in my experience of mumble-mumble thousand games, that sound is an indicator that surgery will be needed. Â All of the players accepted the call, although Green’s coach was rip-shit. Â He calmed down by the time the ambulance had arrived to take both the attacker and the keeper to the hospital as their legs were hanging like farm gates.
A1 is interesting. Â I have a handball and nothing else. Â Once the keeper is tended to and we can restart I am having a brief word with the defender who is kicking the ball. I’ll remind him that the ball really, really, really should go back to the attacking team around mid-field. Â At the professional level, that is not needed. Â At the high college and high youth development level, that is not needed. Â At D-3 college, high school or recreational levels, that reminder is very useful.
Scenario B is really simple — pray for lightening.  Referees can not tell teams which tactics to use.  A keeper is allowed to futz around with a ball in the box for as long as they want to.  The attacking team has the option to pressure the keeper to force him to make a decision to either distribute with his feet or pick the ball up and get the game moving  again.  At this point in the game, neither team wants to do anything to get hurt or get ejected, so the referee should respect that indicated preference and call the game really tight so no one can get hurt even at the cost of blowing up flow.
Scenario C relies on trust. Â A good referee needs feedback from their assistant referee. Â If the assistant referee determines that the referee is having a rough game in the first half, the obvious course of action is to continue to watch the referee’s back, get the obvious, notice the frustration and then talk to the referee at half time. Â The conversation is broad and it can be specific: “What’s going on, the players are getting frustrated as you called the trip in the 13th and 27th but did nothing on worse fouls in the 22nd and 29th… What do you want me to call, do you need me to take more of my quadrant and expand? Â Watch out for #22 he is getting whacked every time he distributes the ball out….”
The assistant referee has limited power. Â All we have is privileged information. Â The referee is the only one who can make an active decision based on our information. Â So if the referee is still blowing chunks in the second half and the players are starting to grumble the assistant referee has to walk the fine line between “assisting not insisting.” Â If the referee is looking for help, we can expand our foul zone, we can talk to players more, we can try to calm down coaches. Â If the referee is waving down flags, or not taking our information into consideration, our options decrease.
As the players get more and more frustrated and they start taking it out on each other, the ability of the assistant referees to help without insisting gets narrower. Â We can ask for cards, we can ask for fouls, we can ask for game control. Â At this point, the center referee should know that the game just has not gone right. Â IF that is the case, we might escape the game with way too many avoidable cautions and a defensible but preventable send-off or three. Â If the referee still thinks the game is going well, the most important thing the assistant referees can do is map out a path to either the locker room or the parking lot and remember exactly where the keys are. Â Gear may be abandoned to be collected an hour after the final whistle.
Scenario D — you laugh and hope the ball does not hit the dildo as that is an outside agent/outside interference report that I really don’t want to write.
Steeplejack (tablet)
Mayhew, are any of the players named Trump? If so, don’t bug me with your stupid rules, man! And why is anyone playing that stupid soccer game anyway? Sad!
Crusty Dem
Scenario E prediction
Davis X. Machina
DiCanio is probably the first open Fascist to be awarded the FIFA Fair Play Award.
Victor Matheson
Scenario A: Yeah, the referee is screwed either way. It’s great for the referee (but obviously not the players) if an ambulance is needed, as you can pretty much shame the protesting coach with a “Really? A potential goal scoring opportunity is more important than the safety of two players who needed to be taken off the field into a waiting ambulance? I am sure the NCAA and your AD will be happy when I share your opinions about that with them.” The real risk is that there is a shout, you stop play, and the goalkeeper then pops right back up.
Scenario A1: Of course no caution, and no one on either team will complain. That is a bit off a tough ball to easily give back to maroon based on the position of the restart, but yeah. And I always remind players to do the right thing and they always do.
Scenario B: Right, no call here, and it actually doesn’t matter which team has the ball. Since the GK can be challenged at any time and since the GK has not yet used his or her hands, the “6-second” count hasn’t started. If this is an amateur match, you can easily have a quick chat with the captains and see if we all just want to go home now and call the game. That’s a bit harder to do in high school or college with the time up on the scoreboard.
Scenario C: We’ve all been there. The only thing I can recommend is to start flagging way more from the line. In the case of a game going into the toilet, better to have too many fouls than too few. At least that way you minimize the chance of a mass confrontation.
Scenario D: Well, if the ball hits the dildo while in play, you need to stop play, remove the dildo from the pitch, and restart with a drop ball at the point where the dildo was struck. Of course, this just highlights the importance of a thorough field inspection prior to the match. Probably not a scenario I will bring up in the typical Grade 8 clinic, however.
Scenario E: Had two of these this season and each ended up with a red card. Just like health insurance buyers, players respond to incentives. Remove the threat of missing the playoffs (since they are already out) and the threat of missing the next game due to suspension (since it is the last college game of many of the players’ careers), and the threat posed by playing in a manner that may result in a red card is also reduced.
Just did my last college game of the season in short sleeves, a huge rarity in mid-November in New England. One day later and we would have been shoveling snow from the lines.
Unknown known (formerly known as Ecks, former formerly completely unknown)
@Steeplejack (tablet): If any of the players are called trump, you might be blowing a lot of whistles for hard hard fouls against them
Victor Matheson
Scenario D: I should point out that while this is not one I would bring up in the typical Grade 8 clinic, it is a situation I would bring up in literally every single post game conference at the bar for at least 5 seasons. (Or at least until every referee I work with starts saying, “Vic, I will pay for the beers as long as you don’t tell the dildo story again.”)
taras
Scenario A: instantly blow the whistle and stop play. Drop ball where the ball lands, and hooefully, green kicks it over the end line. Orange gets a goal kick.
DiCanio gets a yellow and a pat on the back
Scenario B: Ref does that thing with his palm up and hand moving up and down, signaling to pick up the play. As long as his carpal tunnel will allow or 19 minutes, whichever is shorter.
Scenario C: you do your job to the best of your ability and support your boss.
Scenario D: no homo?
Scenario E: Shenanigans
Amir Khalid
@Davis X. Machina:
Yes, Paolo diCanio was an offensive right-winger in more than one sense of that phrase. i think his fascist salutes from the pitch would be a booking nowadays, at the very least, and a sending-off if the ref were to see it as a deliberate provocation towards opponents and/or their fans.
Donalbain
Scenario A: Whistle, and not even think about it. The sound of the breaking bone stupid play. Not a question at all.
A1: Obviously no card, and if I was team captain for the side with the free kick, I would expect the resultant free kick to be sent off to the sidelines, about level with where it was caught, rather than back to midfield, or possibly even off the back for a corner.
B: No idea what you are asking about here. No rules have been broken, just keep watching. Think about old episodes of Columbo if it gets too boring.
C Just keep being the best lino you can be. Have a chat at half time, but not much else can be done. You are the lino, not the ref.
D Keep playing until the ball hits the D. But not the one at the top of the box. The one that had made an unwelcome penetration onto the grass.
E No idea what ANY of that meant.
Donalbain
@Donalbain: breaking bone STOPS play.
Wyrm1
I’m curious about your thoughts on this video (it was on Deadspin).
http://www.sbnation.com/lookit/2016/11/16/13654498/this-d3-soccer-game-had-2-red-cards-a-headlock-takedown-and-a-ref-getting-headbutted
Obviously, looking in isolation is unfair in a sense, I guess the bigger question that I am curious about is whether you think that the game have been abandoned after the headbutt on the official?
cmorenc
Scenario A: You include the loud *crack* and scream (as in, bona fide scream rather than player trying to sell you a dive) as clues this is indeed the sort of “serious” (rather than “slight”) injury or possible unsporting “simulation” – which makes determining the correct response much easier – center ref stops play “immediately”, most especially if this is high school rather than club – where in the high school environment, the mandate is toward presuming injury-warrants-immediate-stoppage if there’s any doubt which it is. I only do H.S. and club, but I assume the college directives are more similar to high school than club. Without the *crack” and implicit presumption the scream is bona fide, in the club environment the decision is harder – but unless players have been trying to sell dives or exaggerating bona fide fouls all game to try to sell them to you all game – anything close to 50-50 uncertainty should be decided in favor of stopping play, at the youth rather than pro/international level anyway.
Scenario B: Absolutely nothing. The ball is in play, and if the team down 8-0 is content to take the air out of the game and the team up is content not to challenge for the ball – your job as referee is simply to watch for any signs of players who may be inclined to do silly, unsporting things out of frustration, but not to try to liven up the teams’ mutual decision to make the game boring. You might note the mutual pact to waste time with ball in play in your match report if you suspect there might be a conspiracy here to thereby affect the larger league standings picture – but you must leave it up to league authorities whether there’s any issues to address with sanctions or not.
SCENARIO C: I BOLD-FACE THIS ONE because just this past weekend, I served as referee coordinator for one of the match sites for one of the biggest high-level competitive-level club showcases in the country (i.e. where college coaches come to evaluate prospective recruits) -AND FACED THIS EXACT PROBLEM in one of the matches. In this particular situation, I did not make the original assignments (the tournament’s head assignor did) but had the power to make on-site changes to crews as needed. I don’t fault the head assignor for the situation – although most of the referees for this tournament (especially centers) are experienced and capable, the need for referees for so many games is so great that it’s hard to entirely avoid a few zingers slipping in who really shouldn’t be doing games at this level. This particular CR was significantly overweight (wearing a “pony keg” about his midsection) and clearly past whatever prime he once had – and did not wander far from the center circle, nor on free kicks did he move toward the area where the incoming free kick was foreseeably going before the kick – but frequently was caught moving (if at all) at a slow stroll 40-50 yards behind hotly contested play deep in the PA. FORTUNATELY, these two particular teams in the game were less inclined to be contentious or physical for much of the game, and removing a center referee for reasons other than injury in the middle of a game is a “nuclear option” level move to only be used in truly untenable circumstances – and so I left things alone and wrote a full report on the guy to the head assignor. However, the game did get very chippy toward the end, and the ARs were clearly getting frustrated with the guy.
Scenario D: On a multi-field complex, a ball from an adjoining game getting kicked into potentially interfering proximity to active play on this field is the most likely realistic scenarios (or players from teams for the next game warming up too close to the field in this game) – and I had to deal with both situations as proactively as possible this past weekend, while leaving the actual decision whether to stop play to deal with it to the center referee(s) in the potentially affected games.
Scenario E: For refs who have been there, done that in games with lots of players in end-of-career type situations (final h.s. or college game or final club game) – also, final game of tournament involving out-of-state teams – we recognize that the problem is that many of these players feel they have nothing to lose by misbehaving if they get frustrated. So what if I get red-carded? Let’s go out in a blaze of glory if I get frustrated against these a**holes from opposing school X, or else show the ref my ass. (Their assumption may prove problematically flawed in the case of high school – there *are* sanctions their school may impose on them even if the ref lacks any effective on-field options). In club, their home state USYSA association *should* (but not necessarily *will*) do anything about a red-card earned in an out-of-state tournament.
Richard Mayhew
@Victor Matheson: I like how you think
john
I’m a newbie ref, and in our training they said that the rules now state you can’t determine the outcome of a dropped ball, i.e. can’t tell a team to kick it to their opponent, or out of bounds, or whatever. I’m sure at higher levels they know to do this out of sportsmanship, but at lower levels it seems to be verboten to give that direction. What do you think?
Richard Mayhew
@john: Oh we can never tell a player what to do with a drop ball. We can just make a very strong observation that something would be a really good idea if the player taking the uncontested drop ball likes having his knees attached and working at the end of the game. The retaliation might get the retaliator a red card but that does not help with rehab.
The difference is “You shall” vs. “You might want to XYZ as a good idea”
Victor Matheson
@john: I always tell the teams what to do (although at the college level most players will tell me that they are going to kick it back to the other team before I even have to say anything), and it is almost never a problem. And if the players do question what I am telling them to do, I explain why I am telling them to do it, and they always agree to kick the ball back (although they occasionally grumble).
If I ever did have a player refuse to do the sporting thing and try to dribble away with the ball, I would just blow the whistle and say that the ball didn’t touch ground before the player played the ball (whether it did or not) and therefore the drop ball needs to be retaken.
Or I might say that my AR signaled me just before the drop ball and I need to discuss something with him or her before restarting again with the drop ball. All in all, that player is not getting away with disrespecting me, the opponents, or the game in this way even if it requires a “referee error” to get there. Sometimes Law 18 (Common Sense) is more important than Law 8 (The Start and Restart of Play).
ORiver
Thanks. One more question for the experienced – how do you determine if a pass back to a keeper is “deliberate”? I reffed a U13 rec friendly yesterday. Black Team shot on goal, it bounced off the post to a Team Orange defender facing the goal about 8 yards out. He neatly side-footed the ball back at the keeper, who caught it about face high (thus preventing an own goal). I called it a pass back because at the moment it didn’t look like he miskicked it – it didn’t spin funny, he didn’t swing wildly, or anything like that. On further reflection, he likely was trying to put it over the goal line and just was not that skilled, and probably didn’t mean to give it to the keeper. But I’d made the call and set up the IFK, to much grumbling by team Orange (which my son plays on!) Not a high stakes situation, but wondered what you think 1) about the initial call and 2) any advice on ways to change a bad call once made.
cmorenc
@Victor Matheson:
Instead, you should ask both teams two quick questions: 1) who had the ball; 2) to do fairness, should one team be given back the ball on the drop? And be sure you are standing between the ball and goal when you drop it, so there’s no possibility of someone taking unfair advantage of a ball either side assumes the other will (or should) be given back to them.
Richard Mayhew
@ORiver: let’s go backwards.
By law we can reconsider our decision up to the next restart. You have an IFK at the 6 so you will have plenty of time to sort things out.
A kick from 6 yards is game critical so let’s get it right even if we look bad. If in your judgement you goofed it, run over to your AR tell them to gesture like they are telling you new information and then declare inadvertent whistle. Be ready to give an explanation to the coach. 99% of the time this will get accepted especially if everyone knew it was iffy.
We make mistakes so lets fix the ones we can.
Now how to avoid this mistake. Read play and skill level. At u13 rec unless the ball was barely moving, the defender was square and there was plenty of reaction time my assumption is bad touch first. U18 DA or d1/D2 college is another assumption. Victor in his highest and best games has tighter assumptions than I do.
But read the skill of the players… Are they making those connection in open field with space? If no, then not deliberate. Are they making the same connections in tight space and similar pressure think deliberate
g
Scenario A: At least for the ‘pop’ you had a ‘neutral’ start. My college (D-III as it were) teammate did that with a 50-50 ball (both kicked the ball at the same time) and it was only the opposing player who’s leg did the ‘hanging gate’ thing, but, instead of a ‘neutral’ start they gave my teammate a yellow card and the opposing team a free kick;(. But, I must say that sound of the breaking shin was quite memorable, that and the blood-curteling scream will be in my soccer memories.