Eye Contact

This would imply that she put her flag down after raising it and that you missed it for a really long time.

There's a smell in the story here somewhere. Why did she compound the error by lowering it? Does she have a voice? Can she tell me what my first name is? I always always emphasize that to ARs that don't know me in my pregame. "Hey ref" is reserved for the cheap seats.

If she had done any of this on the first instance then it would have fair within the SotG and the second instance would likely have been avoided entirely.

 

This.

More than half of my small-sided games are solo, and more than half of the rest I am an AR or working a dual. Maybe 15% of my games I am center of a three person crew. More than half of those I work with grade 9s or teenage grade 8s. I always tell my ARs that eye contact with ARs is a rare thing for me, but I do work on it. If I don't see a foul/offside/etc and you do, hold the flag up and keep it up. If I still don't see it and don't hear from the fans/coaches/players, yell my name. Get my attention. Be assertive and let's work together to get it right.

 

Buy buzzer flags.

More seriously . . . it seems to me that two things have made missed flags more likely: (1) recent developments in OS make the flags later than they used to be, and often coming at at time when the R needs to be watching play; and (2) we have moved more toward "close to play" from "wide and deep" so the R often has a worse angle for seeing the AR out of peripheral vision.

But it's hard to know what would have helped without knowing the particular play and when/why the flag was raised and lowered. (Mirroring by the other AR probably doesn't help if the play was in the attacking third, as the R is not likely to see the mirror.) General guidance for OS is that the flag should be lowered when the defense has clear control -- so it's likely that there was no harm from not seeing the flag.

I do agree with @wguynes that calling a name can help -- though I know some refs actively dislike that. I tell my ARs to either use my name or "flag" -- but I'm also not doing games at the level you are.

 

I would add as a strategy the following: Every time you cross midfield line take a gander over to AR and again after 5 steps or so....The idea being that you will catch the "on-time" flag and the late flag resulting from AR determining offside based on involvement.

 

I disagree. The lowering of the flag is not necessarily compounding the error or mechanical fault on the part of the AR's actions. If play continues and it goes out of the defensive end and defending team has control (assuming an offside violation) then she was perfectly correct in dropping down the flag. The fault remains on the CR for not noticing the signal to begin with.

While not excusing her for not attempting to verbally notifying the CR of her hanging signal, I am also aware that female ARs can sometimes be reluctant to becoming publicly involved, thus drawing attention to themselves. Same for young referees.

 

As someone who actually owns and uses buzzer flags my ars are generally already in my peripheral before they have a chance to press the button except for in situations where comes from outside position to the onside position. This is where the buzzer comes in real handy, since more likely you will be focused on play and won't see your AR. Often times though, since the attacker is outnumbered in this situation and will quickly losing the ball, allowing defending team to press a counter attack. Most teams will not be happy if you take away their perceived advantage to bring it back to their defensive portion of the field. So once I recognize that the defenders have an advantageous position as an AR I would put my flag down.

 

That's broadbrushing. I have known plenty of vocal female ARs and plenty of makes who are vocal in the middle that completely quiet on the line.

 

Can you provide specific examples that were mentioned where you missed the flag? Otherwise, well meaning folks are just going to be speculating.

Communication is a two-way street. It's poorly taught that you can verbalize to the referee that your flag is up. I prefer my name being called out rather than "flag", so that I know it's not a coach that's yelling it out. That's what I indicate in every pre-game and I have never had anyone frown when I've done it as an AR if not mentioned in the pre-game (in fact, they're appreciative once we're off the field for the half or conclusion).

In the meantime, I'll share a story that happened to me a few years ago. Late in a match, a ball is played to a player I could have sworn was offside, towards the penalty area for a counter-attack. AR2 has his flag down, so I quickly run towards the play and the end result is a goal kick. As I signal, I hear "flag!" from the coaching side. AR2 has his flag up 30 yards from play.

Shocked how I could have missed it, I actually "apologized" to the AR during the post-game handshake saying that I could have sworn his flag was down when I quickly looked over. As he leaves for the parking lot, AR1 alerts me that AR2 had actually dropped his flag and didn't raise it until well after I turned my head. Instead of a moment where we could have shared a laugh about it, the guy wouldn't admit to the truth. In addition, he was already pouting since he perceived that I got the best of our 3-game set.

Sometimes, you have to take with a grain of salt the feedback you get because if AR1 didn't volunteer to me what actually happened, I would have thought I did something wrong.

 

Frankly, I don't care if it is a coach or parent yelling out, just so long as I see the flag and make the correct call. It is probably different at a D1 college game, with enforced technical areas and the fans sitting back from the field. But, at most of my games with vocal parents right up on one sideline and a coach roaming half the other, I don't think that they have let me miss many flags...

 

That's why it's important to stress it in the pre-game so that you don't have folks screaming from the sideline. I'd rather it come from my crew and not have him/her stand there like a mute. That's what we're getting paid for, not for the fans to tell us.

I had a case where a coach incorrectly insisted an AR had a flag up for an offside. I want to hear from my crew.

 

In a related situation, I am interested in your thoughts on the following situation...

I'm AR in a closely contested championship U17B match. Score is at 1-0 in favor of White. 10 minutes or so left in the match. At half-time we discussed the inordinate use of hands by both teams. A lofted ball comes into the an area approximately 30 yards from W's goal. Attacker and defender go up for ball. CR is straight on (in front) of the landing zone. From my vantage point (sideways to the play) I see W's forearm come into the attacker at the waist and nudge him off balance at the time he is heading the ball. Ball skims off attacker and defender and ricochets towards mid-field. Since I deem the contact to be an unfair push and I judge that based on the CR's position he did not have a view of the push, my flag pops up in the air. It stays up for an inordinate amount of time. 30-45 seconds. Even after repeated attempts to get his attention by yelling out his name. Play is all the way across the field from me, near the excited fans. Probably hard to hear me. Play is eventually stopped at mid-field for another foul.

CR sees my flag and calls for an offside violation. NO, I did not point to the field! I'm holding the flag in my right hand, I waggled it and point, thus it is a foul going in. Now he is truly puzzled and calls me into the field to explain. After doing so, he tells me and asks me: "REally, attacker didn't complain.....How am I going to sell the call?" My response: "You don't need to sell it. Tell them you missed the flag and we have a foul against W. "

Afterwards, he is still hot about the issue and brings up the assistance vs insistence issue. I remind him that based on proper procedure, the flag for a foul stays up until 1) CR acknowledges the flag, 2) CR waives it down, 3) the play is out of the defensive zone or aggrieved team has complete possession of the ball. I further inform him that in my opinion a foul was committed by the defending team. One which caused the attacking player to misplay the ball and an action which I deemed to be deliberate on the part of the defender. Additionally an action that in my opinion the CR did not have a proper angle to view it properly. Lastly I informed him that I would gladly stick to focusing on offside rulings and balls in or out of play. This from a long term State to a newly minted State.

Thoughts?

 

Agree totally. My point was that I am usually getting it from both the AR and the coach/parents. It's hard to miss them all yelling at me.

 

I feel like the only reason you should be holding a flag up that long for a foul is for something involving misconduct. Otherwise, you tried to give the referee information. If he didn't use it, for whatever reason, then that is on him. You did your job.

 

Buy beeper flags. Hmm, maybe that wasn't een funny the first time. OK, embedded thoughts below.

 

If I'm the center here, I think I'm saying "OK, I got it, good call. Sorry I missed your flag. Nobody's screaming so let's just play through it. Now nod your head up and down like you're agreeing with me, and we'll get going again." And if I'm the AR, I'm nodding my head up and down and saying "Got it, let's go."

 

Check with the coach to see if you can get a copy of the game video, if available. It is often zoomed out to see much of the field and maybe the AR's.

 

+1 on this. I think you were right to keep your flag up as long as you did, even though I understand how painful that can feel, and I have gotten burned not doing so - but once you're having the conversation, I think your job is less about insisting on the specific foul you have and more about getting the game back moving in a way that shows you're a team. (If it was in the penalty area, I could be convinced otherwise, I think - but at 30 yards it's not match-critical.)

And thanks for being honest about your frustration about what you were going to do afterwards, though I might have swallowed saying it out loud - like when we're talking to players, if it feels good to say it, we probably shouldn't.

I do remember a year ago when I flagged for a foul close to me ~10min in and my CR - new to me, I'd never seen him before, he got there as the game was about to start - waves me down and keeps going. I'm super pissed at this guy, thinking that how he could he know to wave me off, I had the better view, I'm just going to worry about offside, etc. Then at half his first words to me were "I'm sorry I waved you down, I was an asshole, I should have listened to you," and I immediately forgave him. I may have used that line myself since then.

 

This is an area I beat myself up about all the time. I'm very confident in the likelihood that I will see the AR's flag on a breakaway - but if they are behind me, or in some other position where I don't have a diagonal view, I miss it more often than I want to do, and it takes me a couple of minutes to shake it off. I do ask for my name to be called out too - my pregame says "if you put up your flag and I don't blow the whistle or signal to you immediately, count 1, 2, then call my name."

One thing I've done that helps me, even if it seems silly: as we're setting up for first kick, while I'm standing there with nothing to do, I look at each AR and envision him/her putting up the flag - I see the uniform against the backdrop and try to get a picture of it. I don't know if it really helps, but I do it anyway.

 

Usually people are going nuts when you miss a flag long enough for the AR to put it down - there was no commotion from the stands or the benches? that just seems strange unless she dropped it really fast

 

Good points socal.....a point of clarification...not a PK call. Event took place 30 yards out from goal. Only reason I held the flag was because he made a point of wanting to address the illegal use of hands during the run of play. He'd let the string out too long in the first half and wanted to adjust in 2nd.

There were no pre-game instructions so by default I fall back to guidance from GTP and off book instruction from past.

Although now that I think about it the instruction are indeed for an offside infraction. So it beckons the question, do the instructions also apply to a foul type of infraction? Does it only apply to match critical incidents?

2nd, there were no issues during the discussion about the call except he wanted to know "how do I sell it...." I informed him of the infraction and left it up to him to decide how he was going to proceed. If it was me, I would have gone back and proceeded with whatever restart was appropriate. In other words, i would have taken the information and would have ignored the flag. As an AR in that situation, my attitude is that I am providing information. You as the referee decide how to best utilize the information.

The interaction regarding assistance vs insistence took place after the match had concluded. IMO holding the flag up in this scenario is not insistence. IF I was in any way heated, it was only in the post-game when I was accused of "insisting" on the call by holding the flag. The comments on focusing solely on offside infractions and out-of-bounds etc. took place after the match.

 

Here's your answer for this situation, I think.

Flag up with play ongoing means to the referee s/he needs to stop play, which may have been best decision right after foul. If that's not what you want anymore and there's no misconduct, that's generally when flag would drop. If you need to communicate info at a stoppage/later you still can.