Day after the prom late morning girls HS match (awesome scheduling guys!). Alpha striker looks like death during check-in. As we are lining up for kickoff I checked with her to make she was okay to play, she responds, "I feel awful but I still plan on running you into the ground today". She had a hat trick on what felt like about a million 80 yard counter-attacks. In the handshake line she comes up to me says with a big smile on her face, "Thank you sir I got through the game focusing on making you run".
This is a double or triple dip. "That doesn't matter. I'm an instructor." Decent level U14B. Blasted ball richochets off knee and hits hand and falls back into play. CR elects not to blow the whistle, to the displeasure of one of the coaches. "Hey call that hand ball. It was right in front of you!" Centers ignores; play continues. Coach continues. Me (AR1): No handling there, coach. Not deliberate." "That doesn't matter. I'm an intsructor." Me: Wut. Other coach: "Yeah. Unless it falls to his feet and is an advantage." Me, Out load to Coach2: "Don't be provocative". I thought Coach2 was pulling Coach1's chain, riffing on common misconceptions regarding 'Handball'. Apparently, I was a victim of something called Clark's Law: Any sufficiently advanced cluelessness is indistinguishable from malice. It turns out that Coach2 was serious. I learn this as five minutes later, Coach1 and Coach 2 are chatting together, reviewing the elements of Handball with all the sophistication of two U10 soccer moms. Luckily play took me away from this glorious exchange before my head exploded. The story gets worse at the end of the game, when Coach2 comes up tocompliment the ref crew. (We had done a two game set with him at the helm of two different teams. No issues.) He says he appreciates our knowledge and the hustle we put in, since he is the director of the whole club. (!) Seriously. You are the head of a whole (medium sized) soccer club and you have no clue about the Laws of the Game?! Our ref work, clearly, will never be done.
Maybe that club is an all-volunteer club like AYSO? Our last commissioner of our AYSO region has been around soccer for years and didn't know all the laws either. And simple ones like throw in to a keeper, or which fouls were direct or indirect free kicks. But, he put in tons of hours getting over 500 kids playing soccer each year, so...
Handling is probably one of the most inconsistent things coaches see called so I'll never be surprised that they carry misconceptions about it.
When I got my D level coaching license, the curriculum included one hour on the Laws. A coach taught that section. He appeared wearing a referee uniform and started by asking "How do you like my clown suit?" We just played soccer and occasionally, very occasionally, we would discuss whether what we'd just done was a foul or not. We always decided that the answer was no. And most youth coaches don't have a D license, much less anything higher.
I wonder what would happen if for the next time I taught the AYSO Referee Class, I wore a tracksuit, whistle around my neck, and held a clipboard and called it my "clown suit?"
I saw a video on Twitter that reminded me of something I saw a few week ago. Not so much a "things we hear" but a "things we see." U12 girls, I'm CR. Best player on the pitch, red team. She gets tripped inside the PA, stumbles, regains her balance, then shoots and scores. After the ball goes in the net, she glares at me. And I mean a death stare. I guess she wanted me to call the foul. I started to ask her if she wanted me to disallow the goal and let her take a PK, but I figured discretion was the better part of valor.
Meh, I just had a CR tell me that at halftime of a HS GV game on Monday. After he called a "handball" on a girl who had her back to the ball was running away following a player, the ball hit the back of her naturally positioned arm and fell to her feet. He asked at halftime what he missed and I brought up that call. I said it wasn't deliberate and her arm was in a natural position. He said, "yea, but it was an advantage that it dropped to her feet. I said there is nothing in the laws that use "creates an advantage" as criteria for making a call. He just smirked, called 5 handling calls that game. I agreed with 2 of them. Just kept quiet and knew this is the fuel that coaches use to burn up on the sidelines.
These are the referees that, if they say anything in response, it's usually something like "Listen here, I've been refereeing a long time, so I know what I'm doing."
I hate when referees say that! It's one of my pet peeves. Personally, I have been a referee for 19 years, but I am still learning from the game. Last night, both my ARs were brand new, and I still asked at halftime and at the end of the game if there was anything that I missed or anything that I could do better. They both said, "No" though.
That's a good attitude on your part - realistically, they probably won't have a lot to say unless (a) it's something egregious and/or (b) they have a little experience and know you - but it is important you ask. I can tell you're an intelligent, thinking referee - because of the club you support.
I generally ask this a little more directly. As in "what did I miss?" rather than "did I miss anything?". Slightly more likely to get a response from newer referees, in my experience.
“USE YOUR EYES”- U17 captain I was AR1. Called the center ref over and told him to give said player a yellow. On another game, I thought I heard a player mutter “F*** you” after I made a throw in decision against his tram. However, I was not 100% positive, so I let it be.
U12B. I'm AR2. Blue player fouls an orange player. CR blows the whistle and signals for the foul but an Orange parent is still going on about the foul. Blue parent said "He called the foul. What else do you want the ref to do? Handcuff him?"
Here’s a new variation of an old canard.... I’m reffing in a tournament yesterday and we are discussing some HS vs. USSF things during a break. I was only half paying attention when he said “It’s a state rule.” I hadn’t heard the rule part of the discussion until much later..... And here it is...I was the referee and he was AR1. He had had a quick flag most of the day, but I was maybe 25 feet from him when he waggled. It was at the halfway line. It was an innocent whistle in a 4-0 game. His flag work left me guessing which way the foul was supposed to go. So, since I was THAT CLOSE to him, I asked. “Against RED, its for kicking the ball while on the ground.” That was the fictitious state rule.
I’m just back from doing a set of ECNL matches. This is currently considered the top tier of girls soccer in the country (until the DA for Girls takes shape). I only bring that up because there was a coach today who claimed it couldn’t be handling “because she only used one hand!”.