Do you give them advice on where they should shoot on a PK? It is not our job to offer advice. It is not our job to make certain players are nice to each other. When referees interfere beyond the LOTG, it causes more problems than it fixes. Let me ask, if you tell a player that"Custom is to play it back to the keeper" and the player says "Drop it, I'll play it back" and he doesn't, what are you going to do? Under the laws? There's not a damn thing you can do. If you can't enforce it, you shouldn't be encouraging it in the game. It's much like driving. Follow the laws and things work out. Letting the drivers make up their own laws as they go along or, worse, you creating your own, is just going to lead to disaster.
That’s fine, I was more pointing to the fact that many states don’t do live recertification classes anymore so the likelihood that someone absorbed more than the barest of minimums is pretty unlikely.
Hmm. Espola didn't say anything about the referee getting involved; you criticized players for developing a custom of sportsmanship. You seem to be unable to separate the two issues. Players deciding to do something on their own is different from the referee dictating or even encouraging. The MLS POTW was a good example of a referee going too far--insisting not only that there be a "fair play" restart, but the manner in which it was done. (And the type of play that led to the new language about referees not determining how DBs play out--which should already have been apparent.) As far as encouraging, I'm also going to disagree with you when it comes to low levels of play. At the lowest levels (and we can differ on what those levels are) the referee is as much a guide as arbiter. At those levels, it is not inappropriate to educate the players on the traditions of the game. At higher levels, the players should be doing what they choose and the referee should simply referee.
I remember way back when the kids were just starting in club soccer an ancient semi-retired and well-respected referee who would only do little kids' games in the twilight of his career telling one of my sons that their opponents had kicked the ball out to stop the game because of someone being hurt, and that everyone expected him to give the ball back with his throwin. His coach said "Do what he says" and that was the last instruction of that type I ever saw.
I had to heckle my son yesterday. He stops play for an injury in the defensive half and restarts on a dropped ball. And by dropped I mean he overhand throws it on one hop back to the GK from 20 yds away. I suggested he might find a more subtle way of pulling off that act.
"Keep, don't punt it out there until I'm close enough to see if your forward gets pushed in the back." At that point, they usually wait until I wave at them from midfield.
I've seen a lot of refs doing the underhand toss to the GK from 15 yards away. I guess it works at U13 but it looks poor.
"You've got hands but give me a second to get back downfield, OK?" Never gotten anything back other than "OK."
You felt you had to heckle him? As in publicly yelling aggressive, derisory or abusive comments at him? That sounds a little extreme.
Oh, I don't know about that. The laws give a referee some fairly broad powers. Here are some suggestions I have seen on other refereeing forums. One option is that you can stop play and caution a player for USB if you decide that a player has shown a lack of respect for the game. You could also, if you so desired, decide that although you initially tried to drop the ball in the position where it was when play was stopped, you now realise it did not hit the ground exactly where it should have done, so play needs to be called back and the ball dropped in the correct position. Another option, if there is a nearby opponent (and there usually will be at least one player from each team somewhere around if you haven't sent them away) who hears the player saying they will kick it back and so does not contest the dropped ball, is to penalise the player for verbally distracting an opponent. Now, please note that I'm not saying that I would necessarily recommend doing any of this in the situation being discussed but as a referee, you have a fairly broad authority to do various things if you really want to and so to say that a referee has no power to take action when they think that a player has done something wrong, is (IMHO) to underestimate the scope of the referee's powers.
This is making my point. It is not our job to do this. It certainly is not our job to be dishonest or invent ways to penalize legal play just This is making my point. It is not our job to do this. It certainly is not our job to be dishonest or invent ways to penalize legal play.
Of course, a referee always can make stuff up and do whatever he wants, as he's the one with the whistle. To say that a referee can caution here is, IMHO, a gross misunderstanding of the proper exercise of the referee's authority. (Indeed, IFAB feels so strongly that these types of acts are beyond the proper exercise of the referee's authority that they added language to the LOTG saying that the referee does not have the authority to dictate what happens on a DB.) (All that said, I still think IFAB missed the mark with the DB-becomes-indirect attempt to cure this. It would have been far simpler, and in my opinion better, to have simply said something like. "In the tradition of the game, teams may some time agree at a DB to return the ball to the other team. When a team makes such an agreement and the other team does not contest the DB, the referee may enforce that agreement with a caution for unsporting behavior." That would have addressed the actual problem without making DB's complicated.)
I completely agree this would solve the actual problem. Unfortunately, it seems that the higher up you go, the more reserved people are to admit shortcomings of the laws. Don't stone me for saying this, but this is one area where NFHS and NCAA (at least with the keeper) get it right. If one team is in clear possession of the ball, why should referees not have the ability to stop play and check on the injury and start with an kick for the team in possession? What's the harm? 1) that prevents fans from thinking referees are cold and heartless 2) it prevents the derision that arises from teams screaming "play it out! can't you see our mate's hurt?!" 3) if the player is found to have been faking an injury, it becomes very easy to card him and not have any consequences to the team in possession and 4) there's no more accidental scoring off DB's. And if neither team is clearly in possession, what is the harm in having a contested DB? That's probably the most fair thing in that moment, anyway.
In the attacking third, the IFK could become a powerful scoring opportunity where the mere possession was not.
I believe I posted this before, many years ago. 1986 - World Cup match in Mexico City which I was able to attend - don't recall the teams. Drop ball situation, player from each team gathers round the ref, so it's contested. The ref turns half way around and drops the ball in the open field. Don't recall the players' reactions - but at least they didn't kick the ref!
NFHS gets it right only a third of the time. They force us to take the ball out of the keepers hands a third of the time; and they force us to give a free kick in the attacking third; a third of the time; a third of the time it makes sense... Much of the time in my LOTG games, one team wants to give the ball to the opponents keeper when they had possession. Sometimes its like pulling teeth to get a real contested ball. But what do I care, really...? Kick it back to the keeper and lets all reset and then resume play
I've always wanted to do a water polo start. Ball on the center spot, teams on their own goal lines, aaand... GO!
NO, NO, NO and NO! Others have already tried with you. When we have recreational soccer, we are teaching the laws and the game. I have seen this go poorly with the U10 and U8. We have to do a drop ball. But what do U8 and U10 players do to get themselves hurt? Two things cause most of these stoppages and the brief period of tears until someone can acknowledge their feelings. One, I got kicked and two, I got hit by the ball. So you want to avoid lining two of them up next to each other to kick each other, or kick the bouncing ball into the other player. Seems kinda logical doesn't it? I was watching a new referee from a distance, not going to hover, comment or otherwise intervene in the first half, when he had to do three drop balls in a row for these reasons. Needless to say, I couldn't wait for halftime to instruct him that for the safety of the players he needed to find a way to manufacture a safer outcome. It was like watching a car crash coming, easy to flip your analogy and we shouldn't let these wrecks happen. At least one of those restarts caused a ball directly to the face. Thankfully he didn't have parents blaming him for the individual outcomes. We do try to discourage referees from having contested drop balls at lower levels for exactly that reason.