RefBlog

Let the junior AR be the bad guy

I'm not sure why this happens every year, but every year there's a snit about jewelry. Actually, I know why - because other referees let it go, but I don't know why some many refs don't bother with enforcing that rule. And because of this, every year the league presidents come to us and tell us, no jewelry or no play, no exceptions (medi-alert bracelets are not jewelry and must be taped down). It's been that way from U-little all the way to adult.

In this case, the two assistants, myself included, were clearly in a mentoring position - the center had only been in the middle a few times, and so we were there to help her out, make constructive criticisms and help her out. She also got to hear me play the bad guy over an earring. This woman made all the excuses, too:

• I just taped it last game.
  
• The last ref let me wear it.
  
• All the refs this season let me wear it.
  
• Even in high school they let me wear it.
  
• I can't take it out.
  
• It'll cost me $70 if I take it out. [I like how this one came after, "I can't take it out."]
  
• It's not supposed to come out.
  
• I don't think that's right, if I just put it in, that I'm not allowed to play soccer. [Again, note the placement over the other excuses]
  
• Fine. But I'm writing a letter to the league, and they can pay for it.

AR2 is a nice position to be the bad guy - since you're not in the middle, or near the benches, you won't get ridden on over-and-over again. And if a referee needs to be the one to enforce the rules, and get the players pissed off, why not let it be the one the players will see the least of?

11 August '10 - 15:02 - - default| Only one comment - § ¶

Search function fixed

Just an administrative note: the search function on the site has been fixed. I didn't even know it was broken for quite a while until I tried to look up something myself on it. :)

15 July '10 - 23:09 - - default| No comments yet - § ¶

Why can't we just enjoy the game as a game?

This is kind of an additional riff on an entry I made last month, Entertainment and Fairness. With all the World Cup stuff going on, there's been plenty to talk about; most of which I don't talk about here, because most of it isn't relevant to the 99.9% of us who don't play at that level.

But over my years reffing, I've noticed that when World Cups happen, certain things float down to the level of even the recreational player; and I hope to god that the crap we saw in the final isn't one of them. From a referee perspective, I think Howard Webb did a great job in the middle, with the exception of that incredibly brutal attack by Nigel de Jong on Xabi Alonso. And I'm sorry, it's not a tackle, when a player is upright, and your spikes are less than a foot away from that player's face, it's an attack.

It's always interesting to hear other referees perspectives on the games, and SocRef is still the best place to get reasoned discussion on it; there have been some National and former FIFA referees on there that have speculated that Webb handed the yellow, because that is what's expected on a game at that level - that yes, referees at that level are expected to take the entertainment value that would increase or decrease because of a call or booking. And that may be true; and in which case Webb made the correct call by FIFA; but my god what an awful way to do things.

Why can't the game just be entertaining on its own, without having to make allowances for TV ratings. Heck, maybe the game would have been more exciting if de Jong was sent off? Maybe the Dutch would have cleaned up play and we'd have seen a more free-flowing, and dare I say it, entertaining, game because of it. Most of the media critics have said this wasn't an entertaining game; would a straight red when deserved made it any worse?

And again, god help us if that style of play filters down into the trenches the rest of us play and ref in. If what those FIFA and National refs are saying is true, and that style of play does filter down, then FIFA's decision to have refs ignore the Laws in order to make the World Cup more entertaining, may just take the entertainment out of the rest of the game for us.

15 July '10 - 00:21 - - default| Only one comment - § ¶

Additional referees and video replay

(pardon the spelling errors - I don't have access to a spell checker for this one)

What I really wanted to talk about is a common topic every four years: reffing during the World Cup. Not about the individual blunders or bad games that happen - there are plenty of places that go into that, and I don't have the time, nor inclination, nor ego to critique FIFA Referees on this soapbox. I'm thinking in a more broad term, something I've been thinking of since I had a conversation last week with my father as he was driving me to the airport for an out-of-town tournament. He mentioned that he read an interesting article (I don't know what it was, sorry) where the author was advocating for additional referees on the pitch, because the speed and complexity of the game has gone beyond a single referee (this was before the England-Germany game, so he never mentioned anything about additional assistants or goal-judges).

What people don't realize is that FIFA did an experiment with an additional referee on the pitch back in 2000 during the U. S. Open Cup (before Lamar Hunt's name was added), and it was pretty conclusive that it wasn't going to work. On the surface, sure, it sounds great: because of the extra set of eyes you should be able to have fewer missed calls, fewer incorrect calls, referees in better position, better communication with the ARs, and generally, cleaner play. The problem is it didn't work, and in fact worked very poorly for the same reasons the Dual and the Double Dual systems fail: soccer is not a system, but a philosophy. Let me explain that analogy a bit: you can fit most, if not all, of the player movements in baseball into a logic diagram (ball is thrown from pitch, if hit, player runs to first base, if players on other bases, they will try to advance, etc.); soccer, not so much. Yes, you can group players into areas you expect them to be based on strategy, but not nearly as rigidly as, again to use my example, baseball. Furthermore, reffing soccer is much more an exercise in referee opinion and temperment than almost any other sport out there. It's that conceit that the referee is there not only to enforce the Laws of the Game, but also keep the game moving and flowing that produces those, "What the hell was he thinking moments," that come up during moments like US-Slovenia, but also allows the game to be the Beautiful Game in more than just words (could you see Brasil playing in a "call everything" mentality? I didn't think so).

And that's why the dual center-referee system failed. You can have two referees who call the game much different (one very tight, one very loose - one uses cards early to keep players in control later in the game, one uses verbal warnings, but uses plastic late in the game to keep players in-check); beyond that, with a second whistle, you've opened the game to another set of incorrect calls. When I've done dual-system games, I hate it when I call advantage or no-foul, only to have a whistle blown and the play have to stop. And just like in my high school days, the games got cocked-up because of them - and when the stakes are that much larger things blow up that much more. I remember hearing from a referee who was involved in that experiement, was in a brutally fouled-up game during that Open Cup where the two centers had differing philosophies, saying it took years for that to get past him professionally.

So, if you want additional referees (I'm not referring to Assistant Referees or goal judges or instant replay (yet) - and I think you'll see the former two well before you see the later, if Sepp Blatter stays in power, although I don't know if his closest opponent is any different), you have to radically alter the philosophy of the game. There is, in my opinion, a better way to keep the game flow as we like it, without having to resort to Michey Mouse tricks: have the players and coaches stop engaging in, "it's all OK if I don't get caught". I mean, c'mon, FIFA has let players and coaches get away with the garbage they do, because they haven't the balls to go after them; the talk about adding referees and technology only exists, because we as a football-viewing public, FIFA, our confederations and national associations have allowed players to be dishonest, admit it later, and still be rewarded for their deeds.

In other words, yes - the referee and assistants may be overwhelmed and over their heads trying to keep up with the speed and the amont of douchebaggery going on in a game, but ultimately the decision to end it will have to come from someone without a whistle: Be it adding more whistles and changing how the game is seen by its fans (heck, you might as well add timeouts, lines every ten yards and helmets, too), or start using some of that technology to go after the miscreants who are spoiling the game. Would Thierry Henry deliberatly handle the ball and disguise it if he were hit by a sizable fine (and I mean that as a percentage of what he makes) and a suspensin-length that threatened his employment? So yes, I'm for video review, but it need to go beyond analysis of the referee. If you tried this at your work, would you be allowed to keep a job? Why should they? (more)

29 June '10 - 14:55 - - default| two comments, already - § ¶

Was it assault?

One of the things I decided early on, once the initial euphoria of finding that I enjoyed reffing faded (rather suddenly as it turned out, since my first outdoor game involved an adult verbally abusing a 14-year old), that if I was ever physically assaulted, I was done. After all, I started reffing because I wanted more time running (which I wasn't getting between the sticks) and because I was less likely to get hurt. It still stands.

This was very close to being the last entry I wrote about my reffing soccer on this blog. The only reason it's not is because there's no way I can prove intent when it happened outside of my view.

Men's league, division 3 - which means a lot of people who think they're better then they actually are. For the most part, the game is fine - no issues. There's a couple people on each team that embellish fouls against them; most of the time, they're real fouls (there's a quote I've heard attributed to a US Women's National Team player, to a referee, after getting a foul called in her favor, that she didn't want, telling the referee that when she wanted a foul called for her, she'd fall down). The problem is, when you do that crap, if you're getting the call or not, you now force the referee to judge, on every subsequent occasion, if you've embellished too much and you're trying to pull a whistle from trifling contact. And that happened to one of the guys who screamed bloody murder at each foul, and I judged one as, well, the best way I could describe it, was I looked at the actual contact, subtracted the screamer's actions post-contact, and went, "Nyaa."

One foul, and it sent one of their players into a fit. And I'm sorry, but even if it WAS a foul, the fact that his guys made sure to emphasize any contact for my benefit, is a gamble. And if it was a legit foul, their gamble lost, because after the first one I had to start thinking twice before making any decisions. In other words, players: stop acting like dipshits and you'll get the fouls called that you're supposed to.

So, five minutes of this guy, who's a good deal taller than me, bitching every time he goes by, and then bang, I get popped in the chest with his elbow. I'm about 15-yards behind play as the ball moves upfield, he comes up behind and then that's where I get hit. Not especially hard, but hard. He then immediately goes onto a defender who took the ball and grabbed his shirt. Whistle, yellow card, and I'm left considering if I should upgrade it to red for assault. Still am, really.

At halftime I let the ARs know he was at "A card and 7/8s" - and apparently he had time to cool down, as he wasn't a problem, nor did he say anything, for the final 45 minutes.

He said I just got caught as he was running up to the ball. And calling bullshit is pretty easy, he was one of the best players on the pitch, and he doesn't have that lack of control. But I couldn't see behind as he came up, and the elbow could be more surprise on my part instead of actual force of contact. You can see why I'm not totally sure. I think I'm going to alert my assignor, in case others have had this same issue with that team. (more)

21 June '10 - 21:43 - - default| Only one comment - § ¶