Restart following injury

[DerbyRam54]

This scenario is based on an actual incident in an English professional game. I'm interested in how you would handle it as a coach of a youth team.

Red attacker attempts to take a shot on goal, misses the ball completely, pulls a hamstring and goes down in considerable pain. Ball rolls clear to Blue defender who is under no pressure and about to play the ball safely out of the penalty area. Before he can do so however, the referee stops play out of concern for the injured Red attacker.
The referee restarts play with a dropped ball 10 yards from the goal. The dropped ball is won by Red who immediately kicks it into the goal. The referee points to the centre spot for a kick-off as the goal is legal.

What would your response be as the Red coach?

[Ray Luca]

This scenario is based on an actual incident in an English professional game. I'm interested in how you would handle it as a coach of a youth team.

Red attacker attempts to take a shot on goal, misses the ball completely, pulls a hamstring and goes down in considerable pain. Ball rolls clear to Blue defender who is under no pressure and about to play the ball safely out of the penalty area. Before he can do so however, the referee stops play out of concern for the injured Red attacker.
The referee restarts play with a dropped ball 10 yards from the goal. The dropped ball is won by Red who immediately kicks it into the goal. The referee points to the centre spot for a kick-off as the goal is legal.

What would your response be as the Red coach?

First of all the official screwed up. He should have put the red player 10 yards away from the drop ball and the blue player near the drop ball.

Most kid coaches here if they were the red coach would cheer their goal because they don't really get what the game is all about yet.

However, experienced youth coaches here would tell the red player when they saw him near the drop ball to move back off the drop ball until the blue player cleared the ball out. First the red coach would seem like a gentlemen. The red coach would also know a long clearance is less then a 50/50 ball because his guys are facing the ball. So the odds are with his team in getting the ball again. So he is not stupid.

I did not hear about this in the EPL. If the game was lost by the blue team by a goal. I would not be surprised if they replayed the game at a later time. You can't not count the goal because it was scored, but you can replay the game. After you consult the league.


That is why our game is better then any other game.

[NHRef]

The ref can NOT force either team away from the drop ball, its perfectly within the rights to be there and within the laws of the game for them both to be there. That said.....

There is also nothing in the laws of the game that say the ref must wait for them both to be there ;)

The red coach should have pulled his players back, or at least instructed his player to just stand still for the drop ball.

Best the ref could do was a comment about sportsmanship, if they don't take the hint, not much can be done.

[DerbyRam54]

I did not hear about this in the EPL.
It was a Carling Cup game last August between two teams from the lower divisions of the English league. The way it was sorted out is pretty amazing:
http://www.4thegame.com/matchcentre/carling-cup/reports/158461/yeovil-fc-vs-plymouth-argyle-fc.html?cC=1

[Ray Luca]

It was a Carling Cup game last August between two teams from the lower divisions of the English league. The way it was sorted out is pretty amazing:
http://www.4thegame.com/matchcentre/carling-cup/reports/158461/yeovil-fc-vs-plymouth-argyle-fc.html?cC=1

I could not connect can you just post how they setled it.

[DerbyRam54]

I could not connect can you just post how they setled it.
I sent you a PM with the story.

[blech]

i also couldn't open the link.

i had a situation coaching a few weeks ago where my player went down and the other team played the ball out of bounds. after tending to my player, i shouted to my player taking the throw-in to give it to their goalie and to my forward who might have been thinking about intercepting it that he needed to back away. they understood once i reminded them, but i'm not sure they would have done it on their own.

in the case you discuss, the goal has already happened. i was able to prevent that by getting my players to do the right thing in the first place, but had they scored the goal, i would have shocked the parents of my team by calling my team to the sideline and basically allowing the opposing team to score a goal off the kickoff without any competition. it would then be our kickoff, and everything would be even.

it is correct that you can't force this if you're the ref if the player refuses, but you probably can do the restart in a way that doesn't allow it to happen by giving it to blue before red is ready, or placing yourself between the drop and the goal such that a shot is virtually impossible. you also can "ask" the red player to back off (which i've done in a youth game where they probably didn't know any better). s/he well may not know that it is only a request and not a demand. as for this being a professional game, i'm a little surprised at the lack of professionalism....

[Ray Luca]

Derby told me it happened in the English 2nd division. The Red team told his team let the blue team take the ball down the field and score and they did making the score 1 v 1. That coach had class.

[DerbyRam54]

The incident occurred in a Carling Cup match last year between Yeovil (League 2) and Plmouth Argyle (Championship). The Yeovil player had actually intended to play the ball back to the Plymouth keeper, but the keeper was having a nap or something and the ball rolled into the net for a goal. Yeovil's manager told his players to stand still as Plymouth kicked off and let them equalise to erase what was an accidental goal. Yeovil went on to win the match 3-2. And they've gone on to win promotion to League 1, a nice illustration of sporting play and success going together.

I raised this topic because I've reffed a few youth games where players don't seem to understand this tradition of kicking the ball out if a player is down and how to do the restart. I realise coaches have a lot of other things to attend to, but at some point your players will go on to a level where this piece of etiquette is expected. Beyond all the technical and tactical preparation, I would hope you'd instill in your team some sense of the history and traditions of football. Hope this story helps.

[mzbrand]

I'm a little confused here. It looks like no official rule was broken but that there is an unwritten rule which was violated, and that this rule is considered very important. I have to admit (as a rec coach) that I wouldn't have even questioned the actions if this had happened in one of my games. Could someone clarify what the "rule" is?

Thanks!

[DerbyRam54]

You are absolutely correct in that no breaches of the laws of the game have been committed, you are within the letter of the law to score the goal in the above example.
However, there's an unwritten law that runs like this: if a player is injured, whoever has the ball puts it out of play to stop the game and allow the player to receive attention. At the restart, possession is returned to whoever put the ball out.
The ref is instructed to stop play only for a serious injury or if the player is in a dangerous location. At the youth level "serious" will be interpreted differently than at higher levels, but it's still better to have your players know how they can control the situation than stand yelling at the ref if he doesn't think the situation is that bad. If the ref does stop the game then the restart is a dropped ball. Courtesy and tradition again suggest that you don't take advantage of that. As a couple of people have noted, it is best if only the team in possession when play stopped takes part in the dropped ball, but quite a lot of folk are under the mistaken impression that there must be two players present at a dropped ball.
You don't have to do any of this, but I think it's better to preserve these traditions of fair play and sportsmanship.

[BC_Ref]

Courtesy and tradition again suggest that you don't take advantage of that. As a couple of people have noted, it is best if only the team in possession when play stopped takes part in the dropped ball, but quite a lot of folk are under the mistaken impression that there must be two players present at a dropped ball.
You don't have to do any of this, but I think it's better to preserve these traditions of fair play and sportsmanship.

The tradition is that you don't take advantage of a stoppage in play because of injury - and scoring from a drop ball on the edge of the 6 is a very "cheap" goal in my view.

A one player drop ball is perfectly legal - and if the other team is being uncooperative, the ref can arrange for a quick drop ball before the other team is aware of anything going on. Not fun having to do that as a ref, but better than a cheap goal.

[blech]

apparently, Chivas-USA missed the memo, attempting to score a bush league goal like this in the closing seconds of this past week's game:

http://www.mlsnet.com/MLS/news/mls_news.jsp?ymd=20050515&content_id=29844&vkey=news_mls&fext=.jsp

it looks like the ref fabricated a call to prevent the goal (questionable in itself) that would have tied the game in the 95th minute. would have been interesting to see with basically no time left if the Chivas coach would have adhered to tradition and allowed Colorado to come right back down the field to score the gamewinner???

[NHRef]

This is being discussed in the ref forum with some interesting points, there are a couple of "valid" calls he could have made, I would like to hear what he did. A ref can NOT make up calls, if the team does not want to participate in the sportsmanship of the injury restart there is nothing the ref can do.

However.... In this case there appears to be two legit calls he could have made:

- interfering with the keeper. The keeper appears to just about touch the ball before its kicked away. Once the keeper has 1 finger on the ball, its his possession and can't be touched.

- trickery, basically unsportsman behavior. Now not throwing the ball back is not enough to get called, however, if the entire team gives every indication that that is what is happening, and 1 player then takes advantage of this "deception" that is USB. Same as yelling "mine" on a ball to keep the opponent from taking it.

Another thought on the ref board which would have been ok, but the ref would have had to be VERY fast, is blow the game over before the ball is in the net. They were already in stoppage time and probably adding more to cover for this injury. How much added time is up to the ref and the game is over when he says it is. If he had time, he could have blown the game dead before the ball went in the net.

And, the player who did this, you can tell he knows he did something bad, he is trying very hard to leave the area after the "goal".

The end result was right, the ref however can not make up calls just to make it "right" he needs a rule to be broken, not an unwritten one, but a written one, fortunately there is usually a way.

[Roush]

On the one-team drop ball.....

Is there any part of the law that says the ball must be dropped straight down? I would think that in situations where an official was intending to favor one team he could "toss" the ball (i.e. towards the goalkeeper) with the stipulation that it's in play as soon as it hits the ground....

[kebzach]

What would your response be as the Red coach?

Much like what has already been posted already.

[DerbyRam54]

On the one-team drop ball.....

Is there any part of the law that says the ball must be dropped straight down? I would think that in situations where an official was intending to favor one team he could "toss" the ball (i.e. towards the goalkeeper) with the stipulation that it's in play as soon as it hits the ground....
Law 8 simply instructs the referee to drop the ball at the place where it was located when play was stopped (with the usual note about restarts in the goal area). The ball is in play when it touches the ground. Since you're supposed to drop it you can't toss it to any particular player.

[NHRef]

On the one-team drop ball.....

Is there any part of the law that says the ball must be dropped straight down? I would think that in situations where an official was intending to favor one team he could "toss" the ball (i.e. towards the goalkeeper) with the stipulation that it's in play as soon as it hits the ground....

Yup, there is a "real" description of the drop. Basically you hold it in the palm of your hand and then drop it straight down, you can't toss it one way or the other.

[usscouse]

A similar thing happened a couple of years ago in a FA Cup match with Arsenal (and I've forgotten who else :rolleyes: ) Arsenal had a player down and the other team kicked the ball out. On the throw the gunner player tossed the ball to the opposing keeper. Kanu, being new to the EPL and not knowing what the intention was, intercepted the throw and scored.

The game was replayed a couple of days later. The "Unwritten" rule is taken very seriously!

[DerbyRam54]

A similar thing happened a couple of years ago in a FA Cup match with Arsenal (and I've forgotten who else :rolleyes: ) Arsenal had a player down and the other team kicked the ball out. On the throw the gunner player tossed the ball to the opposing keeper. Kanu, being new to the EPL and not knowing what the intention was, intercepted the throw and scored.

The game was replayed a couple of days later. The "Unwritten" rule is taken very seriously!
Fifth round FA Cup, 1998 I believe, v Sheffield United at Highbury.
Initially the FA did not want the tie replayed, Arsenal then said they would withdraw from the competition rather than go through on a "tainted" victory. The FA then changed their mind and allowed the replay which Arsenal won 2-1