Scoring from a dropped ball

Before it gets questioned, above was as an assigned mentor.

 

Interesting article from a few years ago!

http://fortheintegrityofsoccer.blog...eing/2012/03/one-season-too-late-from-ed.html

PH

 

Balderdash. Nothing about sporting behavior remotely usurps the power of the referee to stop play. The referee stops play when he or she sees fit. If a team wishes to stop play, there is nothing wrong with a team choosing to kick the ball out of play. They can choose that for any reason they wish. For example, they might choose to do so to create a sub opportunity as well as for an injury.

Specious reasoning. The DB changes have absolutely nothing to do with players stopping play--the DB only occurs when the referee stops play, which you argue should be the only time play stops following an injury.

Your view that the laws regarding DB should not have been changed is a completely reasonable position. But the idea that there is something "wrong" about players deciding that it would be fair to give the ball back to the team that had clear possession when play was stopped is utterly baffling.

 

your formatting doesn't allow quoting it.

• You keep conflating what the players choose to do with what the referee should do or compel players to do. They are completely different issues.
• We agree that the referee should not be picking and choosing what happens on a DB. But that is completely separate from the question of whether it is appropriate for the players to do so. (And I think we disagree about younger levels--I believe it is completely appropriate for referees to educate young players about the tradition.)
• The same is true on throw-ins after a ball is kicked out. We agree the R has no right to say what should happen. Whether players should expect the other team simply isn't a referee issue. There is simply nothing wrong with a tradition of sportingly returning the ball to the team that had it.
• Where you really fall apart is when you falsely state "the laws stating otherwise." The laws say not a whit about what players should do after the ball is in play on a DB. We agree that R shouldn't tell players what to do (except at younger levels, where we disagree).

I completely disagree with this. There is nothing wrong with contested dropped balls, handled properly, at any age. I have done many and not had any problems. The referee controls when and how to drop the ball. IMO, he two mistakes that referees make that make DBs messy are (1) dropping the ball too high, and (2) dropping the ball without enough space. The ball shoulld be dropped at waist level of the players. When referees drop the ball at their own waist level in young ages, it is coming from too high up and gives time for mayhem. When the players are too close together, the referee needs to remind them that they have to wait till it hits the ground and ask them for space to drop the ball. (My standard mantra is "OK guys, two important things to remember-- let the ball touch the ground first, and don't kick me.")

 

Just wanted to emphasize something here... on-field referees were born out of necessity. The need for an objective arbiter was necessary because players couldn't always agree. One of the most poignant things I've ever heard about refereeing was from a great instructor and mentor, Angelo Bratsis... "The job of a referee is to manage the event, with minimal unnecessary interruption"

In a perfect world, referees aren't necessary (insert jokes here). If the referee can foster a situation where the players feel comfortable managing themselves and each other in an amicable manner, there isn't a much better outcome that I can think of.

 

Originally the referee only ruled when called upon to do so. The teams referred the question to him, thus "refer-ee."

 

This. I see many many dropped balls at my kids games because of the inadvertent headball rule in USSF. They are always a cluster. The ref always seems to drop if from about his chest -- which ends up being about the kids heads -- and the kids are about a ball width apart. The result is that the ball bounces high back up to about the kids' chests and they then end up getting into a karate kicking contest.

 

Check my restarts knowledge folks?
Per USSF youth soccer:

USSF youth heading for U11 is IFK for opponents.
Inadvertent heading, which I interpret as ball contacts with head with no intent, is not an offense.
Obviously if it results in injury and play is stopped for that reason then dropped ball.

Maybe I'm just misreading this thread.

 

Which reminds me of those situation where both teams are lining up for a corner kick and the referee signals goal kick.

 

Correct--unless, of course, the referee stops play because he is concerned about an possible injury. And referees are encouraged to be particular aware of potential head injuries. (But this should be no different now in the no-heading era than it was before--if anything there should be fewer of these as anything that was deliberate would be an IFK whereas it could have been a DB before)

Can't tell from @Schlager 's post if he is referring to those stoppages to check for injury, to ill-informed referees who stop every time even a slow moving ball inadvertently touches a head, or a league that adopted a misguided rule to stop each time.

 

No...here in Maryland, guidance from the SDI and SRA on the implementation of the USSF policy was to stop the game any time the ball hits the head (at U11 and under of course) in order to assess injury. We are not to do that during active play no matter how slow the ball was traveling when it hit the head.

The full guidance is below, and I did not add the emphasis...that is how it was published. The key point is in the third bullet: "Whenever the ball strikes a player’s head, the Referee MUST immediately stop play."

 

Ah, it's a whole state that adopted a misguided rule! . . . OK, that is overly snarky. But so many of the inadvertent plays are balls moving slowly enough that there is no issue. The only rationale I can think of is a lack of trust in referees .

 

Sounds like someone trying to drop the responsibility for assessing all head injuries on the ref if they are being made to assess EVERY time he ball touches a head.

Troubling.

 

I would disagree. By stopping, you are allowing the coach to asses if there is an injury or not in all but the slowest of glancing balls. In those cases, when I do those games I just ask the kid if he is OK and if he says yes then we go with the DB and keep playing. Anything more and it is on the coach to assess if there is an injury or not.

On the other hand, if you were to try to judge if there is an injury on the fly, then it is more on you as the ref.

 

So you're stopping play to assess an "injury". Does the "injured" player have to leave the field since you stopped play?

 

Important distinction. Some states hedge the law to protect the players/teams/referee/state/whoever even further and say, in some cases, verbatim, "If the ball lightly grazes their head, stop the game, DB."

 

Actually, really originally, there were two "umpires" usually one provided by each team. If they did not agree on a decision,
(usually whether to award a goal or not) they referred the problem to a third (neutral) person, off the pitch, known, as you say, as the REFER-EE. He made the final decision but only if asked. Actually this is sounding a little like VAR without the video replay!

Some very early games reported scores such as Team A won by 4 goals and 2 disputed goals over team B which scored 2 goals and 2 disputed goals! Of course these were games played by gentlemen.

PH

 

It depends on the ROC for the league, which gets to the last point in the guidance. For most of the travel leagues, yes....but they typically only have one age group of travel subject to the heading restriction.

For the lower level rec leagues, they typically dont have the requirements that the player must be subbed out if you stop to assess an injury (or for the coach to do so).

 

Tennis, anyone?