I probably missed something!

[Rufusabc]

Last night I was doing a season ending game where first place was up for grabs in a high level U13B. I'm going solo on a big field 120 in length and as wide as can be. It's early in the match within the first 3 minutes and blue has a corner, and I need to walk towards the corner to move white back from the corner kicker. The corner is taken and white recovers and swiftly they are on the counter. I'm going with it but I am now 15 yards behind the counter and it moves to the right and I stay down the middle of the field as I anticipate a cross, and then as the play enters the area on the right side away from me I am screened by at least three players and all I know is two players are on the ground and the ball has gone out for a throw. The white coach is SCREAMING for the penalty and calling it a horrible decision and so on and so. The body language of the players gives no hint and the way the ball went into touch signals to me that the defender got the ball first because of speed and direction and that white tumbled over the defender. And all the while I'm thinking you can't call what you didn't see. The coach although 50 yards away had the best angle on the play, as it was a clear shot down the sideline to the players, but he was 50 yards away. It would have happened right in front of the missing AR. So, I know I missed something, yet I'm confident the no call was the best call. I stopped play before the throw-in to deal with the coach's behavior, and he was petulant and unyielding, and I very well could have tossed him. The game ended 1-0 to the blue, and the white coach shook my hand at the end half heartedly. Anything different you would have done? Positioning? Thought process? Any other clues to the foul that I missed? (Besides the coach screaming?).

[ctreferee]

You do the best you can in a solo, these things are completely unavoidable when there is one of you and 22 of them. You do the best you can but you will unavoidably miss calls, thats just the truth of going solo.

[snolly g]

Last night I was doing a season ending game where first place was up for grabs in a high level U13B. I'm going solo on a big field 120 in length and as wide as can be. It's early in the match within the first 3 minutes and blue has a corner, and I need to walk towards the corner to move white back from the corner kicker. The corner is taken and white recovers and swiftly they are on the counter. I'm going with it but I am now 15 yards behind the counter and it moves to the right and I stay down the middle of the field as I anticipate a cross, and then as the play enters the area on the right side away from me I am screened by at least three players and all I know is two players are on the ground and the ball has gone out for a throw. The white coach is SCREAMING for the penalty and calling it a horrible decision and so on and so. The body language of the players gives no hint and the way the ball went into touch signals to me that the defender got the ball first because of speed and direction and that white tumbled over the defender. And all the while I'm thinking you can't call what you didn't see. The coach although 50 yards away had the best angle on the play, as it was a clear shot down the sideline to the players, but he was 50 yards away. It would have happened right in front of the missing AR. So, I know I missed something, yet I'm confident the no call was the best call. I stopped play before the throw-in to deal with the coach's behavior, and he was petulant and unyielding, and I very well could have tossed him. The game ended 1-0 to the blue, and the white coach shook my hand at the end half heartedly. Anything different you would have done? Positioning? Thought process? Any other clues to the foul that I missed? (Besides the coach screaming?).

um... the coach should've understood that it's the league's fault for having you ref a maximal-sized pitch on your own.

[DerbyRam54]

um... the coach should've understood that it's the league's fault for having you ref a maximal-sized pitch on your own.
A thought experiment: suppose you reacted to the players being on the ground, the coach screaming etc and awarded a penalty kick from which white scored. Imagine white wins the match, or it ends up a draw, anyway, blue does not win. Then after the match, the white player who was "fouled" comes up to you and says, you know, he got all ball.
How would you feel?

[snolly g]

A thought experiment: suppose you reacted to the players being on the ground, the coach screaming etc and awarded a penalty kick from which white scored. Imagine white wins the match, or it ends up a draw, anyway, blue does not win. Then after the match, the white player who was "fouled" comes up to you and says, you know, he got all ball.
How would you feel?

huh?

i'm agreeing that you can't call what you don't see.

the fact is, a pitch that size is far too much ground for a solo ref to cover on his/her own. it only stands to reason that calls will be missed.

if coach has an issue, he should bring it up with the league for not supplying a sufficient number of officials on a pitch this size.

[IASocFan]

...
the fact is, a pitch that size is far too much ground for a solo ref to cover on his/her own. it only stands to reason that calls will be missed.

if coach has an issue, he should bring it up with the league for not supplying a sufficient number of officials on a pitch this size.

Best answer!

[DerbyRam54]

huh?

i'm agreeing that you can't call what you don't see.

the fact is, a pitch that size is far too much ground for a solo ref to cover on his/her own. it only stands to reason that calls will be missed.

if coach has an issue, he should bring it up with the league for not supplying a sufficient number of officials on a pitch this size.

Didn't mean to quote you there! Sorry.

[blech]

if you don't see it, you don't see it, and you're going to get yourself into trouble more often than not if you do. although it does remind me of a baseball story i've heard told from over 100 years ago, when they didn't have full crews for major league games. a ball was hit down the right field line and Ty Cobb was on first and took off the running. the umpire had to go out to the mound to watch the play as he thought there would be a play at second base on the batter, while Cobb raced around the bases behind him. the play ended up coming to the plate and the umpire got back in time to call him safe as he beat the tag. the catcher then threw the ball to third base, and they appealed that he hadn't touched the bag. the umpire called him out, and Cobb raced back on the field, yelling "How could you call me out - you were looking the other way." To which the umpire responded, "Yes, but you reached home too fast." :) i don't know if it's a true story or not. i also don't know if i'd use it for anything other than awarding a goal or not if i hadn't seen the ball cross the line but it was in the net and i didn't see any holes..... there are some things you can deduce, but two players on the ground and the ball out of bounds seem pretty difficult to draw any conclusions.

[blech]

seriously, the only question to go over for yourself is if their might have been a step or two that you might have taken in a different direction that might have made a difference. obviously, hindsight is 20-20, so this only goes so far, but if you have this kind of collision in the area, you often can get a sense that it is coming before it actually happens. having the foresight to recognize when and where there may well be a tackle can give you an edge in minimizing the times when you have bad angles or have your view blocked, but your never going to be able to eliminate them completely, particularly given the circumstances you were dealing with. so, the goal is to limit them to more innocuous situations. you were there. you can judge for yourself if you might have adjusted your positioning or line. and that's all very subjective.

[OldAndNew]

I need to walk towards the corner to move white back from the corner kicker. The corner is taken and white recovers and swiftly they are on the counter. I'm going with it but I am now 15 yards behind the counter Anything different you would have done? Positioning? Thought process?

Sounds like you got caught in dead-man's corner! When you are alone (solo) don't go to that part of the field. ;)


You should have:

a) once moving in to get the defender to back off, held up play until you were able to get to a better position - somewhere about lead-edge of PA (18) - then you'd be better positioned for the break out - or, better still,

b) got your self in that position first - then held up play and get the defender to back up 10 yards - you should be able to judge (and impose) 10 yards without having to go over there.

That said, it seems that you still able to react well and were evidently only 15 yards behind play anyway - so at the foul / no foul incident, it was more a case of 'angle' than 'distance'. So, sounds like you did well to recover, but were doomed from the outset - because two others (ARs) were inconsiderate enough to not show up left you 'solo'. Sometimes, in spite of events to avoid it, you just get 'screened' - no fault of yours, that's the problem with having no ARs!

Don't knock yourself out over it - S* happens!

As for the coach, you have a silver bullet (it's #14) in Law 5. Use it if needs be. However, whenever I have to go 'solo', I talk to both coaches and captains before the game and remind them that as I cannot be everywhere, and will be operating with only one set of eyes (instead of 3 pairs), I'll be giving my best effort and I expect they'll keep that in mind IF I happen to miss something.

[refereejoe]

15 yards behind play is typical, so don't worry about that. As you allude to, it's about angles - not distance.

That being the case, when running solo you can't run like it's a diagonal. There's no reason to head towards the mixer in the PA when the attack is heading down the wing. Sure, the ball has a good chance to be crossed in and there's a high chance for contact to occur, but there's an even higher chance of fouls occuring in the attacking wing's corner.

Since you don't have an AR to cover that quadrant, you have to be there yourself. Ditch any notion of a diagonal and hoof it over towards the corner, then use angles to cover any cross into the mixer from the opposite viewpoint than where you usually would be.

In other words, working with an AR you usually would be looking into the mixer from the left side looking right. Without an AR, get yourself over to the right side of the mixer, looking right to cover the corner and looking left to cover the mixer.

[Rufusabc]

Thanks to all, and especially Joe for his positioning thoughts. You fall into a muscle memory-mind thing with a three man and you end up falling into a pattern that doesnt work at all going solo. That's what I was aiming at. I have seen football field set ups before but this one was HUGE!

[seanT]

I officiate swimming as well and one of things you hear a million times when training for that is "Don't assume something happened if you did not actually see it"

I have found that useful for soccer as well. No question there are times when a players body screens you from seeing clearly exactly what happened, but you can't call what you don't see.

[Sport Billy]

Solos need jet packs to hover and keep up. ;)

[ref53]

It happens even with a three man crew, especially if the ARs are not experienced. I was lucky to dodge a major bullet a few weeks ago when I was doing a U-15 boys game where I had been warned that there was bad blood between the two teams. I was about halfway between the center circle and the touchline, watching play move up the sideline in front of me. A black player passed to the middle of the field, and just as I turned 180 degrees to follow play (having asked my ARs in the pre-game to watch for fouls behind the play), I heard a crunch and turned to see the black passer rolling on the ground, with a blue player walking away. Unfortunately, my near-side AR also had looked away, and didn't see anything, either. ...oh s**t!

I immediately blew my whistle to stop play, rushed over the the kid, who was more stunned than anything, told him I didn't see it, but knew it was bad, and I made sure he was OK. I don't remember whether his coach came on the field, or whether I just held up play until the kid was ready, but when it came time to restart play, I decided that the best thing for the game was to violate a primary rule and give a DFK for a foul I had not seen. I think both teams recognized that I was trying to do justice, and were satisfied. Fortunately, most everyone knew that I had been facing the opposite direction, so they weren't angry at me.

I did keep my eye on the kid who was the most likely suspect, and he was on his best behavior the rest of the game, and was not subject to retaliation, so I think I just got lucky.

I will say that I used my "soft voice" more throughout this game than in any games except the real u-littles, in an effort tamp down on the testosterone.

In retrospect, I should have looked at the far-side AR for his contribution. If this had occured later in the game, I probably would have, because although he was a teenage 9, as the game progressed he proved to be a much better referee than the adult 8.

[Infernosoccer]

I'd have to agree ref53. There are times when you just "know" something happened and since it's a lower level game you "go with it". I think everyone has done something similar.

I am not saying to just make calls up but well there are times (such as when there's a throw-in or goal-kick/corner-kick and the officiating team has NO idea who's ball it is) where you just "let the players call the game".

I think that's where a little bit of Law 18 comes into play. Also, I have found that sometimes not signaling or saying anything can benefit you a lot. Something happens and you get blocked and both teams including the offending player acknowledge it, and actually stop and go to restart play with a free kick (or throw-in, or whatever restart). Are you really going to go against that?

I know what I'm trying to say can be hard to explain without actually showing what I mean but I think everyone has done something similar in the past.