Have you seen anybody shielding without holding off his opponent with his arms or body in the pro games ? They practically wrestle the opponent to the ground in some cases. ( if one considers the shoulders part of the arm ) Seriously, I have come to accept this as the norm, but I do think the older version of shielding was not an aggressive stance, keep the opponent away from the ball at all costs, bar kicking or double hand shove them. And the distance from the ball by the shielding player has an alarming stretching ability variance from referee to referee.
Do you think that maybe the word "can" was in that sentence, and the player didn't hear that: the ref says you can't shield the ball unless you CAN touch it first! Changes the sentence meaning, and is much more accurate to our understanding of the rule.
I understand that, but where I see discrepancy is in the evaluation of the ability to touch it first, and it comes from two obvious factors : distance from the ball, and active displacement of the opponent by the use of the body or arms by the shielding player.
Well, here you bring up a few things that aren't related to possession. If a player is shielding the ball with his body, but then decides to use his arms to hold the opponent off, then it's no longer a legal shield, it's a foul: holding. IMHO, more often than not, it's trifling. As for the ball being within playing distance, that's ITOOTR as you said: "variance from referee to referee". But we're getting off topic. -ZL
The geometry doesn't work. The shielding player is usually facng the ball with the opponent behind him. I rarely see the player with the ball wrestling the opponent to the ground, more often it is the player being shielded trying to go through or move the play who is shielding. Another thing I see is the attacker with his arms behind him in a way that is almost certainly holding. But usually the defender has a handful of jersey or he is measuring his opponent for a new bra If there is mutual fouling MLS refs will not call it. I don't see the "alarming stretching abilty" varience that you see. Not because I think they get it right, but because there are so few instances when a referee has to decide if the ball is withing playing distance (rule of thumb is two paces, which has lots of non-alarming variance) to determine if he needs to call impeding or let it go. I see impeding in youth games but in five years of attending MLS games there have only been a handful of times when I thougt impeding should have been called.
I don't know if this rises to the level of malfeasance, but over the weekend, I had a ref set a wall about 5 yards from the FK. He even walked it off, taking very small steps. Later, the wall was almost 20 yards from the FK. I couldn't believe it as we were playing on a turf field with Football markings on it. The first FK was placed between the 2 and 0 (twenty yard line), but the CR didn't notice that the wall was at the 15. DOH!!
Ah, referee management. In some situations, it IS worth the caution for DR. This happened to me playing indoor. Supposed to get 8yds, got 3 (a short 3). Ref, that is not 8, can I have my 8. "Ref, it's good, play." Me, keep eye contact, and wait. Ref, caution. Me, thanks ref, now that you are here, please give us our 8, take your time, we are not restarting until we get it. In the end, we have our 8. Dissent, DR, yes. Respectful, I think so. YMMV.
Time to revive this thread. And, no, it is not because of my two ARs who showed up without one watch between them. (Glad I wear two. ) From a referee report: And the reasons: Dissent and Leaving the field without permission. Shit. I've got nothing against sending a guy off if he deserves it, but at least write up the report to support your actions. After the game, does a player need permission to leave after dissing the ref?
I agree with you that it is a huge pet peeve of mine when the other refs don't have the kits but don't you mean 5? All different parts of the referee uniform are major problems where I am from. Socks (lack there of), watches being worn around the neck like flava flave, shorts with multiple colors and half way down there legs, wanting to wear pants or a windbreaker when it is almost 50 degrees outside. I have sent many a young and old referee home without having worked the game for some of these things. First year referees I am pretty lenient but as an instructor I get to find out very quickly if they are trying to BS me on how long they have had to get their stuff together. Unfortunately like you, our assignors are often lax people that hide behind the smoke screen of wanting to get referees experience and make sure the kids can play with any refs they can find. Its a total lie on their part but they don't dare question me when I send one of their refs home for being out of uniform.
I'm AR2 on a U16G match at a decent tournament. At half time, having met at the center circle, we the crew are walking off the pitch as a unit and are "greeted" by one of the coaches, who addresses the Referee and complains that AR1 was yelling out onto the pitch telling the opposition players when they were in an offside position. AR1, probably 55 years old, takes about 5 steps backward and sheepishly says, "I...I've been doing that for 20 years," taking up a more confident stance now that he is out of range of the coach's left hook. The coach asks the Referee (also a man in his 50s) what he thinks about that, the Referee says nothing, and the coach walks away dumbfounded. As we sip our water and recap the half, I lambast them both (never met either one of these jackalopes before this match). The referee then explains the free kick he restarted with just outside the penalty area for a foul, which, after he blew the whistle and looked my way, I signaled was IN the penalty area, his reasoning being that it "wasn't worth a PK." The following season on a college match I am assigned as an AR for AR1 in the story above.
I had a game last fall at a very strong tournament where a hs girl was given her first center on a u10 game. She had offered me the center for it, but it was the middle of a 95 degree day and I was in the middle of a 7 game set (8 total won't make that mistake again). She had a rough game, as most of us did when when centered our first game. I did the best to signal fouls that I saw including one where she was trying to keep eye contact and was glancing at me when a kid was pushed off the ball. Gave her feedback at halftime, mostly "Blow the whistle. They need to hear it." Spent most of the second half talking through with one coach who had two pk calls go against him. While he wasn't happy, he kept a lid on it. At full time, I see the fan side AR turn to engage parents and a couple of parents from the losing team stand and take a step to come have a 'discussion' with the center. When I saw that, I was at full sprint to get between them. I turned her around, marched her straight to her bag (with a look of death to a coach to stay away), took the score card away, and handed her off to a tournament official with a cart to take away. There are just some times where you have to do your best from the line to help the center and pray they do better next time. Why do full grown adults think it's okay to scream at a 16 year old girl and bring her to tears? Of course I felt terrible because she had asked if I wanted to take the middle. But she got the first one done, and she was still going last spring.
This could be Embarrasing Moment or AR malfeasance... Past Sunday, I am doing a line for my 4th game of the day. I was center for the 3rd game and it was mentally challenging. So I am a bit brain dead. Did I say we were running behind, so the game started in kind of a rush--for me, anyway. At half time, the center asks what color shirt we recommend as a second color. I answer, IMO, around this area, Green is the favored second color. At that point, I look at the jerseys that the other two refs are wearing, Yellow; then look at the jersey I am wearing. It's Green! LOL. I had no idea. Quickly changed it. Moved on to solve other world problems.
Ha! Thanks, now I don't feel nearly so bad about blowing three times for the half on my sixth match the other day.
A few years ago I was working a high school dual double header. At half-time of the JV game the AD came up to us and told us they would put 20 minutes on the clock and run it as soon as the JV match ended (the state requires the teams be provided with a 20 minute warm up). I'm thrilled as I see the prospect of an early start on the varsity match. My partner, on the other hand, apparently had a hot date later and started arguing vehemently with the AD insisting that the teams warm up during the JV match so we could start the varsity game immediately. He claimed that not starting the game immediately wasn't "for the kids" (never did figure that one out). Then at half-time of the varsity match, he walked straight to the technical area, set down on the bench, grabbed a novel out of his bag and started reading without so much as a word to me.
We need to recall the classic team building exercise, which I saw as recently as last night, in which the ball goes into touch, the referee looks to his AR for the throw-in direction, which the AR gives and then the referee over rules him. Love you, too!
Last nights middle school matches had a start time of 5:15 for the girls. Boys followed at 6:30. The away team bus arrived at about 5:17, so my partner and I proposed we allow about 10 minutes to warm up after getting off the bus pushing the start time to @5:30. We would cut four minutes off each half (making the halves 26 minutes each) in both matches (gender equality and all that) so we could be sure to end before 1) we ran out of light and 2) state mandatory finish time. Everyone eventually agreed, but the home girls coach walked away saying, "I wish my girls could play one full game!"
