The USA-Cuba video reminded me of a situation I had earlier this year. Thankfully not nearly that bad. U12B. Black player tries to play the ball with a high kick near a red player's head. Red player's back was to me so I did not see the contact. I blew the whistle and said "playing in a dangerous manner." I then look at the red player and see he is holding his mouth. No blood but below and to the side of his lower lip is red. I quick confer with AR1 and he confirmed there was contact. I then said "Correction, foul. Direct kick this way" pointing. I then pull out the yellow card and show it to the offender. Black coach goes nuts. "You already called Dangerous Play. You can't change your call." I said "There was contact and it was reckless, coach." Looking back, I think I should have given the moment a few seconds to see what transpires. To see if contact was made as I did not see for sure one way or the other. Any thoughts and/or similar experiences?
As threeputzzz stated, you can change your call until there is a restart, but it won't look good. So you original thought of waiting a bit before saying anything is correct. This way the coach or players won't have anything to argue about. BTW, well done on getting the right call.
You can't win though. Somtimes you wait and you hear, "That was a late call/whistle. You need to make it sooner!"
Of course how you managed it was absolutely fine. Personally I think the play as you describe is a quick whistle, esp so if the level is young/low and/or early in the game when you are setting expectations as to how you want the game to be played. Unless the level is elite/sophisticated and very good advantage is possible, a slow whistle here will lead to more anger/frustration than a coach who is irked that you changed a call based on additional info. The coach is playing you, trying to sow doubt, or he is ignorant of the laws, you pick. Either way, my response to his ire would be "coach your player kicked an opponent in the face, so be happy it's not red."
We want to get the call right and look good doing it, but, if you have to choose between them, choose to go with the right call.
Part of my pregame almost word for word, and later in my pregame I reiterate it with "I know you probably hear this from other referees, (pause) but I MEAN it - do whatever you have to in order to get my attention if you believe I am about to restart wrong or make a game critical error. Remember I want us to get it right even if it doesn't look good."
Part of my pregame almost word for word, and later in my pregame I reiterate it with "I know you probably hear this from other referees, (pause) but I MEAN it - do whatever you have to in order to get my attention if you believe I am about to restart wrong or make a game critical error. Remember I want us to get it right even if it doesn't look good."
Wait -- do you understand that I really want you to wrestle me to the ground if that's what it takes?
One of my long time friends was doing a game at Far West Youth Regionals. It was a very hot day and he had not hydrated. Late in the game, he was completely out of it. This did not go unnoticed and a fellow referee went to the halfway line and, at a stoppage, yelled "Sub!" My friend turned to him and said something like "sub?" "Yes. Me for you." "Okay." But no wrestling was involved.
Then where were you Sunday morning?? Or better where were you when I let the assignors talk me into taking to 2 extra matches Sunday evening
This needs a whole separate thread. I accepted two small sided games in one city this Saturday morning and two AR full sided games in another city Saturday afternoon. I was then talked into a third small sided game in the first city, completely forgetting about the two that afternoon. I never did five small sided games in one day, let alone five with two of them being . Good thing the high is supposed to be 70°.
I had two games Sunday afternoon. AR on a U19B at 1:00, and Center on a U15B at 3:00. I had put some extra effort into the second game thinking that would be all for the day. At halftime of the second, the coach of the home team said the assignor needed the three of us to cover another U19C game at 5:00. It was actually scheduled for 3:00, but the assignor didn't have it on her schedule, and didn't have anyone else available.
I hope the coach said something like, "Check your phone, there should be a message from the assignor that says ..." It sounds to me (a scheduler for our rec league) that the assignor wasn't given the game in the first place, and the coach is trying to get his mistake covered. I could be wrong, but there's more errors from the teams than there are from schedulers and assignors.
Absolutely, Gary V. Our high school assignor has the schools enter their own schedule data in the website. It has completely eliminated the finger pointing of "we told you that game was changed to Thursday." Trying to deal with it by asking them to confirm their information is like getting someone to rotate their tires. If they don't change the information, they pay for the officials that show up and find there's no game. She did have a call one Saturday during the high school playoffs. "Uh, we forgot to tell you that we have a league playoff game today." "Okay. What time is the game?" "When can the referees get here?" Yeah, they didn't realize what they hadn't done until the teams were there, warming up. To her huge credit, she had two referees there within 45 minutes.
A buddy and I drove an hour and twenty minutes to do two duals, only to find just the home teams at the field. At my urging the coach made a call to the other school's coach, and sure enough they were warming up at their field (two hours away). The home team paid us for the games (and later collected from the missing team) and even fed us excellent chicken tacos prepared by parents to sell in the concession stand. A long drive for good Mexican food, but the hourly wage was pretty nice.
And hug-er credit to the 2 referees! And YES to this - our assignor does this as well, AND when they "forget" to go back and take a game out for whatever reason and we show up, we get paid for the full match. Schools are 100% responsible for entering all games and changes so as you mention the finger pointing is always right back at the schools.
I do a little HS assigning. I have one school that insists on entering their own schedule. It is always a mess. They have the JV running from 5:30-9, and the Varsity from 7-10, so Arbiter won't let me schedule a JV/Varsity crew - they can't get put on the Varsity game, because they are on another game at the same time on the same field (the JV game). I have to go in to each one and fix it. I've never had finger pointing on who screwed up. I got a call the other night "Hey, we've got a first round district game here with two teams and no refs. What's up?" "Well, I don't have the game on my schedule, which explains why I didn't assign refs. No way I can get anyone there right this second. Let's not talk about why the game isn't there, let's focus on what to do now. Can you reschedule for tomorrow? I can get you a crew. What time?"
The 'finger pointing' comes into play when a game gets cancelled but the school doesn't tell the assignor. Do the referees get paid for showing up? That's why the assignor put it on the schools to enter the schedule and make changes. A couple of weeks ago, I showed up for a college game only to find out that it was actually scheduled for the next day. That assignor does not put it on the school to enter the schedule. I haven't heard yet whether I will get paid.