Updated the thread title. Please carry on. Still awaiting a 2020 assignment and looking forward to the snow storms this weekend!
That’s our forecast for this evening. HS tournament games were moved to earlier in the day or canceled.
I was AR on a high school game. A few young kids were playing around on the track around the field, yelling and (apparently) not paying much attention to the game. All of a sudden I hear a little boy yell "She's cheating on you with a fourth grader!"
Yesterday, I had a couple rec games at a local indoor center. Both were u12. The place basically is IFAB outdoor soccer played on a smaller field 7 v 7 with all kicks direct and no offside. First game, u12 boys. The ball is between two opposing players who are about 5 feet from each other. Both players raise their legs to get the ball but go nowhere near the other player. The closest coach yells, “High kick!” I respond, “Yes, but it’s not dangerous and they both did it.” He responds, “If they both did it, call it on both of them.” Next game, u12 girls. Yellow team kicks the ball down the touch line. It’s obviously going out for a thrown in. For some reason, a purple player sticks her foot out and the ball barely (but obviously) touches the ball just before it goes out. I award the thrown in to yellow. Purple coach asks, “Why do they get it? They kicked it out”. I respond, “They kicked it but your player touched it before it left the field.” He responded, “But it didn’t change direction.” After both, I wanted to say, “That’s not how it works. That’s not how any of this works” like that old Gieco commercial.
Why am I thinking that U12 indoor rec coaches should be exempt from The Things We Hear? It doesn't seem fair somehow ...
An oldie but goodie: last weekend, for the first time in 2020 I got the: "REF! He played the ball while he was on the ground!!!" When I explained that is only dangerous play if he is dangerous to himself or other players I got a very perplexed look.
HSB last night and as is often the case the JV coach has the soccer IQ of a green tree frog. 2 minutes in and a through ball is played and he’s screaming at me “Ref that’s offside. You have to call that!” Of course from my position right in line with the 2nd to last defender I can see that the player is onside by 2 yards. Ok. Whatever. He’s going to be that guy. 2 minutes later we have a throw in and the thrower has both feet planted on the touchline. And now he’s on me for a foul throw. “Ref, he’s on the line that’s a foul throw!” I took my chance to politely explain to him it’s perfectly legal as long as you are touching the line and all I get is the eye roll. Fortunately the V coach took a different approach. He quietly sat on his bench, calmly coached his team and never said a word except for “next sub please sir”. If only they were all like that.
I had that happen to me last fall. Player has part of her front foot over the line, but most of the foot is on/behind the line. Parent near me motions that the thrower was on the field. I know I shouldn't have done this, but at a stoppage I let him know that one foot has to be COMPLETELY over the line for the throw to be illegal. His response was, "Well, I was playing in a game a few years back, and the referee in that game called me for that." My response: "I can't speak for that referee, but I can assure you that I understand the laws on throw-ins. She can have part of a foot over the line, just not the whole foot." He nodded, said "Sorry", and went back to supporting his team.
I have been lucky to have been a lot of good soccer the last few years. Today, we did two middle school matches. About half of the players had some skill, the other half were struggling to play reasonable soccer. One of coaches' best advice for his players was, "Boot it away!" It didn't matter if the player was marked or where he was on the field! "Boot it!!!" A sad way to learn soccer! He also had his backline stationed near the top of the PA, no matter where the ball or opponents were.
That's what makes doing middle/junior high school soccer so easy. You hardly ever have to worry about a player being offside!
Or the guy years back who was coaching for an away team with a nationally-known name franchise on it. "Drop, drop" made up about 80% of his remarks to the team. Granted it was probably a very low-level team at that age group, something where they ran out of all the normal color names for the level - else I wouldn't have been reffing it at that local venue. Still, the parents are paying exorbitant fees to get their kid on that name-brand team, presuming they will get high-quality coaching.
Some years ago now, I was doing a smaller schools' league game, varsity girls. The home team was so obviously going to be dominant that the visiting coach told her sweeper that she was to stay in the goal area at all times. Even on the rare occasions that the visiting team got the ball into the home team's penalty area, that sweeper (and goalkeeper, of course) were back in their goal area, having a good talk. And I'm AR at that end for the second half.
Was doing a tournament semifinal the other day, U11M. Coach's team losing 8-2. It's about 10 mins till close and a trip happens in the box. I call it but i'm not 100% sure it's in the box/out (they paint over a full-sized field..) Anyway, I go over my AR to double check and get clarification, as I confirm and call for the penalty, the losing coach goes "You know you can call those, right ref?" I should have gone back with a yellow but I just told him to zip it. Coaches...
I think that I have told this story before but I was the Center on a girls HS game where visiting team had been mercy ruled every game up to that point (at halftime no less) and the coach (IE former football coach) was sick and tired of not having played in the 2nd half of a single game. His genius idea was to have all his girls hang out on the goal line whenever the ball was down there to prevent goals from going in so they could make it to second half. Spoiler alert: He didn't even finish the 1st half.
"How in the world can that possibly not be our throw-in?" "Coach, if you had not been standing on the line, I would have had a better look at it." "OK."
I had something similar when I was being assessed once. Every 2 minutes I was trying to back the coaches on the far bench up then there was a bang-bang out of bounds with 2 coaches on the line and I couldn't see even though I was less than 20 yards away. The center looked to me for the call, and I signaled against the coaches in the way. During the debrief, the assessor said something like, "You had your hands full keeping the coaches off the line. You had that one throw-in call with them in your way and I don't know how you got it right." "I got it right? I had no clue, but they blocked my view so they didn't get the ball."
The great part now is you can give them an easy caution once you've asked them a couple of times to stay off the line.
Whenever there's a situation where the technical areas aren't marked well, I keep a few training cones in my bag and mark the front edge of the technical area before the game. In the (usually rare) event a coach asks what I'm doing, I explain that I want to make sure AR1 has a clear line to view and run. It doesn't always work, but more often than not it does.