No, that's a different Mike. Craig was my assessor. I've known Craig for over 50 years, even BS (before soccer.) I didn't choose him to do my assessment. That's the SDA's job.
U10 rec. First year many of these kids played with a keeper, let alone be a keeper. One female keeper did great keeping the ball out of the net, mostly, but learned a lot about what else you can and can't do. We had the buildout line, so she couldn't punt. She did, the weakest punt I think I have ever seen. But I was told by the coaches they wanted this to be "real soccer" so I enforced it. IFK just inside the PA. She saved that one, too. Then she came way out to gather in an errant shot. Too far out. Her feet were in the PA but the ball and her hands were outside the PA. DFK just outside the PA. She saved that one, too. After another save, she didn't wait for the other team to back up and just threw it to a teammate, who caught it on a bounce inside the PA. Handling, PK. She saved that one, too. But then she picked up the ball at the goal line, and took two steps inside the goal. Only goal she gave up all night.
As socal lurker said, you could quite plausibly penalise this as USB, specifically under the category of:
HSBV D1 last night. School toward the top of the division (home) against one towards the bottom (visitor). Visitor gets a early break away and scores. Home gets chippy early. Dumb player challenging for a ball in the 7th minute and the ball goes out of play. As the ball goes out home player takes a little shot at the visitors leg right in front of both benches. I whistle at the same time my AR1 raises his flag. Easy YC (one of the earliest I have given out in a match) so both teams know early we aren't playing that way. It was a great match with home team tying it up in the 65th minute. Then visiting scoring in the 70th followed by home team in the 72nd. Visiting team thought they scored again in the 75th, but player in offside position tapped in the ball after a keeper save. My AR and I were both on the same page, he raised his flag as I came running in to signal the IFK. In the 81st minute home team threatening, player with his back to the goal was run over from behind. This is a turf field with white pointy ball lines and black soccer lines. At first glance I think the foul happened in the PA, but as I move closer and see where the player went down I determine that it happened just outside. Give them the DFK and player sails the ball over the cross bar. hard fought game until the final whistle. Both coaches came over to thank me for a good game. Home coach says he agrees with the foul call in the PA. He didn't want his team to win on a PK and was glad I moved it out. I told him when I approached the foul it looked like it was outside. He said 'No, it was a few yards inside, but he wanted the call I gave anyway. I wanted my boys to earn the win if they could, so I have no problem with the call.' Made me feel bad about missing the location of the foul, but glad I guess that I gave the call the coach whose team was fouled wanted. Anyway, it was a good match.
From a referee's game report on a game last night, high school varsity boys: #9 had "pretended" to be injured (referee's word), so the referee stopped play, called on the coach and the player leaves. Seven minutes later, he's back. A little later, he goes down, "pretending" to be injured, this time in an almost fetal position. The referee chose to ignore him, as the opponents were on the attack. But then the ball comes to the "injured" player's feet. He forgot that he was supposedly injured so badly and jumps up to play the ball. Tweet. Caution for unsporting behavior - simulation.
You didn't miss the location of the foul; you disagreed with the coach on the location. The facts are what you decide them to be. Nice that he was happy anyway.
The way I saw it, he was fouled outside the area and landed in the PA. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!
Not a best story but this weekend I was working a men's adult league match as AR1. Before my game even started I showed up 45 mins before the game (which of course on a Sunday league men's game is way too early). The referee (who is going to be with me on the next game) in the middle is having a rough game. In the 5 mins I was there he had 3 yellow cards. As I begin getting ready I look down as I put my socks on and I hear a commotion in front of me about 15 yards away. Two players are scuffling with one player holding and punching the other. A player runs at full speed about 25 yards away and does the biggest Bruce Lee Enter the Dragon karate kick I have ever seen. He catches the player who was punching the other player in the back of the head and knocks that player out cold. 30 mins later and after the cops and medics show up (a fire station is right adjacent to the park). We get my game sorted out and ready to go. The referee in the middle is an Italian man who has lived in the states for maybe 4 years. The AR2 is a Persian man who has lived here for about 12 years (the referee from the karate kick game). In the first 8 mins of the Italian referee called an offside in front of AR2. AR2 never raised his flag. The players were a little confused and some of the players weren't sure what he was calling. A couple yelled out from what I saw, however, we moved on. At halftime I noticed the AR2 didn't run towards the middle of the pitch to meet the Referee and I. He walked over a few mins later and began talking sh** to the center referee. They both got into a heated argument about how each other was a motherf**** or a f****** as******. Me and another official who was filling out paperwork had to break them up to prevent a fist fight. Both teams stood and watched as the two officials were ready to fight each other. Once things cooled down we asked him why he felt a need to call the offside and he said "it was good of the game" in an Italian accent. I had a brief talk with him about teamwork. The assistant referee was very frustrated/hurt. I had to explain to the assistant what we do is communicate information to the referee and the referee either acts upon it or doesn't. Its not a matter of him trying to undermine or insult your ability as an assistant. I guess I said enough for him to be willing to finish the game. At one point he was going to put his flag down and not return for the 2nd half. Afterwards he grabbed his stuff said goodbye to me and another official who was getting ready for the next game and took off in his jersey and everything to his car. That poor AR2 had two fights that day. The things that happen in men's amateur games.
The aggrieved AR also said he was going to report the referee to the assignor in my game... I think he had like 6 send off reports. Plus he had to pull cards and all types of a mess.
I'm sorry to hear about this kind of behavior. That may be the way things are in your area's men's league. It is NOT what happens in our area. Yes, guys earn red cards but an outright fight is very rare and I read all of the league's game reports. For referees to act like this towards each other is totally unprofessional. We have a professionalism committee that deals with behavior like this. IMHO, a verified report of this kind of behavior would normally result in a suspension as a USSF referee of several months, maybe even a year. Our high school referee association also honors any USSF suspension.
A frustrating game yesterday. Community college women. My third game this year with the home team, second with the visitors. AR this time. Home team's coach is not there. Assistant AD tells me "He has a conflict because he teaches on Wednesdays." That' interesting because the conference's SOPs say that games will be played at 2 p.m. on Wednesdays. Whatever. Just before the game starts, the referee notices that home team's #16 has ear rings. He sends her to the bench to remove them, while everybody else waits. Two minutes into the game, he sees that she didn't remove all of them! Sends her to the bench and, by NCAA rules, there's no sub for her allowed until the team's next legal sub opportunity, so she's waiting to return. (This conference does not use the NCAA restrictions on re-entry.) While she's waiting, the referee spots another player with ear rings! He sends her to the bench to remove them, so her team is playing two short. They don't get to return until the first player had been out for over eight minutes. NCAA rule 4.6 doesn't provide for a caution when a player returned and was still wearing ear rings but ...... Of course, the referee should have inspected the player before letting her return. Then that second player is on a run into the opponent's penalty area, 'marked' by an opponent who is on the wrong side of her. As the attacker goes to take a shot, she gets her toe into the artificial turf and goes down like a sack of potatoes. Stoppage, trainer and coach come out and help her off. A bit later, just before halftime, she has an attempted clearance go off her knee and smack her in the side of the face. She's down and staying down. The referee reported that she said, "I can't see anything." After the trainer spent at least five minutes with her, the referee declared it to be halftime. They then called 911. The fire department responded from their station, which is across the street, with a truck and a dune buggy. An official fire department dune buggy, flashing white and red lights on top and a full red "Fire and Rescue" paint job. They drove the dune buggy out onto the turf. Ambulance shows up and they take her off, finally, on a backboard with a neck brace. Halftime took about 30 minutes. The shot count at that point was 0 for her team, 23 for the opponents, who were up 3-0. Just not a great day on the field. The last time I was there, we had a 45 minute delay due to lightning and I'm due to do another of their games on Sunday. Oy.
Actually in my area our men's leagues are usually very well behaved since a lot of teams try to play in the Adult State Cup. However, this particular league was unaffiliated 2 years ago and there are a still bad apple's around. Not to put this as a scapegoat but a lot of the regular guys who work this league are doing college. This particular weekend we had the normal guys out doing D1, D2, and NAIA college matches. So I worked with 1 guy from another state and another official who normally does youth. Not to say this is an excuse for the behavior of the players but the players who play in this particular league are very smart.. they know the officials they can get away with sh*t and others they know they can't. Case in point last year I had some player try to use a 2012 player pass Im not sure if our state has a professional board committee (Honestly, my state is pretty big so I think we do) but one of the league representative was there, and a field Marshall (who is also a referee for the assignor) was present. He told me he was going to speak with our assignor so I just left it at that. I considered sending a report to our assignor but it didn't even cross my mind to send one to our SRA.
I haven't done an adult game around here in over a year. Best time I've ever had. The guys just rode our asses like Zorro all game long, just a total lack of respect. They'd keep saying "I wish we'd get good referees one time". Two years ago after a Sunday of adult games I very nearly quit refereeing altogether. The game itself wasn't that bad, just the lack of respect in many, many ways (getting there right at game time but still expecting full roster/player inspections and 90 minutes of soccer, bitching about EVERYTHING, etc. etc.) Reminds me of the joke Ron White used once when he was at an Army base of 20,000 soldiers and a woman yells "and they're all lousy in bed". He said "after the first 19,000 maybe you'd figure out it's you".
I almost quit referring after I got punched by a player and the adult soccer association gave him a slap on the wrist. I stopped doing adult games for a good year and went back and did some this Fall and remembered just how awful they are to referee. Everything is a crisis and the drama is just too much. Now I just don't do adult games and I am happy as a clam.
You guys that work MBB leagues I hope you're getting something out of it like a good payday or needed assessment. Otherwise I just don't see the appeal.
I do a bunch of men's league games, as well as our adult co-ed league and an occasional women's league game. Yeah, some players can be a pain. Most just want to play. We've worked the real bad apples out over the years, like the guy we once had who was whacko. He once got suspended by the league after he attacked a player at a game where his team wasn't even playing! He went to a game between two other teams and, after the game, attacked one of the players. We have had unaffiliated leagues choose to affiliate because, essentially, they didn't trust each other about player discipline. The typical unaffiliated league has the managers meeting on Monday night, where somebody will say something like "Jose got red carded yesterday in his game, but he's not that kind of player. That referee is out of his head. I vote that he not be suspended for next week." And there's a certain social pressure to agree with that motion because next time you might need his vote to not suspend your guy. We (our state adult association) require leagues to have formal suspension procedures that are automatic. E.g. a standard one game suspension for a red card can not be appealed. Oh, and it will cost you $50 to get your card back from the state office, because the referee keeps your player card and sends it to the state office. AND not having your card means that you can't go play in any other league until you have served your suspension in the league where you got the red card. Yeah, we have players who don't show up until kickoff or a little later. The clock starts at game time. You got seven? We're kicking off. You don't have your roster ready? The clock starts at game time. There is no added time (Okay, technically 0.1 seconds is added) because the league pays for fields by the hour. You don't like today's referee? Too bad. He's on three of your next five games. Referee assault goes directly to the state discipline committee, chaired by a pretty savvy woman attorney. You'll get a fair hearing before they suspend you. Their attitude is that it is NOT a question of 'we have to protect the referees or we won't have any referees." It's mostly "We don't want to play against guys who are just as likely to attack us as they are to go after a referee." It's the committee's understanding that USSF (probably USOC) does not allow suspension "for life." So a couple of years ago, for a particularly bad assault, they suspended the player for 99 years and noted the exact date in the 22nd century when he could come into the state office and pick up his player card.
Only one more story for today. I promise. High school JV boys dual yesterday. The home team is in bad shape. Their coach is telling us before the game that they will have to play short because they need to save some of their players for the varsity game. (State rule is that kids can play up to three halves in a day, but the referees are not the enforcers of that.) The coaches agree that they will play 10 v 10. Lots of further explanation from the coaches of both teams. And it's a blow out. We're something like 0-4 by 13 minutes into the game. The visiting coach starts laying down the law to his guys. One of his big kids is up there and scores the fifth goal off a header. He calls the kid over and I hear him tell the kid "You didn't need to be up there like that. You're embarrassing them. I don't want to see that again." He's continually joy sticking the players, telling them to get everybody involved, how they now need to pass it to their keeper, every defender has to touch the ball before they can pass it to a midfielder, etc. At halftime, the visiting coach comes to us to apologize for how many goals his team has scored in the first half. We start the second half 8 v 8. White's coach tells me that he's trying to "get some offense going but they're just too injured [from previous games.]" The visitors are passing the ball at will in midfield amongst themselves. Two minutes in, I notice both coaches at midfield talking. So I walk over to see what they're discussing. Play's going on but there's no reason I really need to be out there. My partner can handle anything anyway. The visiting coach says "This isn't helping my guys and it isn't helping your guys either." The home coach agrees. The visiting coach says "what can we do?" I said "You want to shorten things up?" Home coach says "Yeah, let's play half the half." "Okay." (Cf, 7.1.2) So the visiting team coach wants to do a sub, but there are no stoppages. He asks if he can sub on a corner kick and I tell him 'only if it's your corner.' And then I add, "but you can sub on a goal kick." So he tells his right mid to take the ball forward and "kick it over the goal line. Not a goal." The kid can not figure out what the coach wants, but he takes it forward. The ball stops short of the goal line, at his feet but he's got an opponent behind him. Rather than just kicking it again, he tries to get away by turning and kicking it back to a teammate! The coach's head snaps back, as he looks up at the sky, giving the body language of "I'm coaching morons." On the second try, after his coach yells again at him, "We just want a goal kick!" the kid finally gets it over the goal line and the three subs can enter, one of them for him. This game was one of the finest displays of sportsmanship I've ever seen. Two coaches that absolutely focused on the life lessons they needed to teach their players and they didn't care what the score was.
BV exhibition yesterday, a private boarding school hosting a nearby-ish small public HS. Home team featured lots of internationals, and the chatter was various and exotic. The play was fast and skillful, and very different from the "three yards and a cloud of dust" I often see @ HS. But the players. Hardly a peep, and when one aggrieved defender insisted he'd been fouled in the run-up to a goal, his teammate instantly shushed him. Home got up 3-0 at half and hit the depth chart for the 2nd half. Away tied it up late, and then a minute or two later home got the winner on a back post upper-90 swerve job. Afterward several players from both teams shook our hands. That's rare around here. Time to chat with coaches of both teams, also rare around here. It was an absolute pleasure.
I wasn't happy with my start of the HS Boy's match. 2 man system. Within 1st minute, team is attacking toward my end. Player is fouled about center circle high on my side of the field. I delay as ball goes to teammate. He has 3 defenders that immediately close in on him. I do a quick scan and call for the original foul.... Just as attacker lays off a beautiful ball to overlapping midfielder. He is running into the open space and has the speed to get past the defenders. CRAP! Had a perfect opportunity for advantage. My body language and comment to the attackers, "My Bad" they knew I missed it and the knew I felt terrible about missing it.
A lot of those games felt like the ball was rolling downhill towards one goal. Seemed to switch to the other goal at half time.