RefBlog

Winning team's burden

As mentioned before, I'm skipping the high school season; in this case because I've got other regularly occuring activies that happen the same days as high school games - and frankly sometimes I just need a year away (see many many rants about high school soccer). But I am working games at the same sport-centered school I've been fortunate enough to work for the last two winters. As a quick recap, they've got players on the youth national teams, and always work you physically, even if it's not a close game.

One of the interesting things I've noticed, and as a realization that I'm getting old, is that I'm recognzing players on the U18 boys teams from when they played on U13. At U13 you could see this one player's potential, but also see a big temper issue - given that he's also a good six inches taller than the next tallest player, it makes him easy to remember.

It also makes it easy to remember how frustrated a losing team can become, if they're getting blown-out - even moreso if they've traveled five hours to do it. Tack on more when the game is expected the be close; when you're the top youth team on your club and you play in the USL's Super-Y League. But it wasn't close, and early on you could see that it wasn't going to be close. And although the game was very clean for 85 minutes, when you're down 7-0 it won't take much to set people off.

In this case, I think I was on top of things, even though I issued three yellow cards in the final five minutes. As I said earlier, the game was very clearly a blowout, and but not terribly physical for a U18 boys game. There was one guy on the visiting side that talked trash in the first few minutes that I had some words with (once the first goal was scored he shut up), but after that things were pretty smooth. Then with about five minute left came the first cynical foul; two players banged into each other and fell down, and instead of just getting up, the visiting player jutted out his foot further to purposefully trip up his opponent. Now, yellow cards don't mean much on these games - there's no league or yellow card points to enforce sanctions, but since the teams are almost always pretty disciplined it's unlike like the "Wild West Days" that were the adult co-ed indoor leagues that I wrote about for the first few years on this blog; meaning they're usually taken with the proper intent, and usually play like it could mean something later (and that, and pay attention because it's me saying this, is probably because of good and respectful coaching). And truth be told, that player didn't do anything else, but a teammate did another cynical foul, and even though my whistle was blazing and my yellow card was already out, the home player retailiated.

When it comes to retialiation, I have a pretty simple guideline I follow (assuming the retialitaion isn't worse than the origional action): if it comes before I blow the whistle, I might give them some slack - I leave the option open for me. If, however, I've already blown my, "There will be plastic" whistle and there's retialiation, I don't forgive. Added in this scenario that I was also charging in and was only a few feet away, with yellow card already drawn, when the player decided to shove (hard) the guy who fouled him, I knew I was going to book both players. I briefly considered red for the retialiator, but pretty quickly dismissed it as I checked my back pocket (which is why it's there, to give you that second to think while you fiddle with the pocket flap).

People like to talk about the referee losing control of the game, and while I think that can be true, I also think it's an incredibly over-used assessment and incorrect at least every nine our of ten occurences. As referees, we have two primary tools and two secondary tools at our disposal: The primary are the whistle and the cards; the secondard are our ability to talk to players (but only if they're willing to listen), and the ability to slow a game down at free kicks. About the only time the later can be used is after a booking, as you really don't want to take away a legitimate quick-kick scenario. Sometimes, the players have to see that you will use the book, and use it to protect both teams, which is what I hope came across when I booked both players in that second action.

But ultiamtely, it's the winning team, not the referee, that has to deal with frustration fouls; it's the winning team's burden. More and more, especially in the older youth and in adult games, when things have become clear that you can't win by skill, the tactic changes to winning by prodding the other people into getting themselves ejected. Now, I don't think that's what happened in this case (I just think they were frustration fouls, without going into the very cynical territory that I see in adult games) - but they have to deal with it the same way.

Teams that are blowing their opponents away need to understand that they may be feeding that frustation by their own perfectly legal actions. The second game, where I was AR2, was even a bigger blowout than the first. Same two teams, but different ages (U17 boys instead of U18). But where the first game finished 7-0, the halftime score of the second was 8-0; and every goal, up to their 15th was met by players running toward the goal-scored, celebrating, hugging, and generally making a big deal out of things. Now, scoring a goal is a big deal, especially if you don't score many - I can count on one hand the number of goals I've scored as a player, but when it was at the expense of a blowout, I knew enough to keep outwardly mellow and I jogged back into position. Again, I have to applaud the (warning: this may cause long time readers to be short of breath, because I'm about to compliment a coach again) visiting coach in keeping his team so well disciplined - I know I wouldn't have, hell - I know I haven't, been that calm in their situation.

01 November '09 - 10:33 - - default| No comments yet - § ¶