HSBV game between two rural schools. Home team down a goal with a couple of minutes left. A foul occurs on the touch line and he breaks though attacking the penalty area alone. I yell advantage and they cross and score to tie it. What do I hear from the fans after the goal? They're mad I didn't call the foul. And for the next couple minutes they're going off about me not calling this foul. I look at the coach and he says "I'm sorry they don't know the game".
I find that at many schools here, varsity parents know less than a lot of U12s. Or know about the same. This is because many kids do not play soccer outside of school, so they started playing in 7th grade at the earliest or even 8-9th grade, whereas U12s often have been playing for longer and have a more soccer background because of that extra involvement. Obviously, YMMV and many here can have totally opposite experiences - but for me, most of the high school varsity games are less skilled than same age club play.
One the top HSGV teams in my state has a well-known blowhard that loves to wait until it's quiet then spout off about calling fouls after a CR has clearly signaled and called advantage for all to see. His kid's also a longtime starter on a club team that's won multiple State Cups advancing to Regionals... how can one see so much decent level soccer yet absorb absolutely nothing about how the game is played or called???
Last night, two good HSBV D1 schools. At one point, I heard a kid from the visitor's bench say "This referee is waaay better than the referee on Friday". Ok, don't hear that every day. So I looked it up. Friday's game was a Varsity make-up from a weather suspension, but it was on Arbiter as a JV-Reserve game due to crossed signals somewhere, so the younger referee on that dual was about 72, and the older about 86. Not sure which one I was better than.
There is a theory among coaches (I think stronger among basketball coaches than soccer, fortunately), that the squeaky wheel gets the grease and that the more they whine and complain the more calls they are going to get because the ref gets tired of hearing them. (C.f. discussions about not calling fouls that no one asks for.) So complaining about calls the coach knows are right is just part of the plan that some coaches believe gets them the important call later in the game. (These are the guys that need to see a little piece of plastic . . . .)
My best story of last week: Beating two college women chasing the ball to the goal line, on a dead sprint, from the halfway line.
Past weekend, ECNL match. Giving a free kick about 25 yards outside the box. Mark off the wall inside the PA. One of the attacking players is standing right next to the wall. Keeper starts yelling at me how the attacker can't stand there. I don't want to give away the fact that I'll award them an IFK, so I just pat my chest and say "I got it, I got it". Suddenly the coach starts screaming HEY REF SHE CAN'T BE THERE SHE CAN'T STAND THERE. So my hands is forced, I blow the whistle, force the attacker to move and then tell the keeper "okay I was gonna give you guys an IFK but if you want this then ok", keeper tells me "well ref why didn't you verbalize that?" I go over to her and say "would you really want me announcing to the opponent that I was going to give an IFK if she didn't move?", she relented.
She was right. If you have a ceremonial free kick where you are setting a wall, you should also be proactively managing attackers near that wall. That management is what allows you to make the call if necessary without everyone going crazy
Interesting. I actually did the wall and everyone was clear, but an attacker came in after to intentionally stand there. I've had players/coaches upset at me before for the same situation, making an attacker leave the wall if it's in the defending PA because the coaches wanted them to stay there and get an IFK going out, so I decided to stop announcing it because I figured that it's giving the defending team a disadvantage.
If the kick is ceremonial and you haven't blown the whistle yet, you're best bet is just to get the attacker out of there. After all, that was the entire purpose of the law change. Now hey, if the attacker decides to go into the wall after you blow the whistle to restart then that's their decision.
Totally agree with the advice here. This was never intended to be a "gotcha" rule; it was intended to stop problems before they start. If the defensive team doesn't like that, just too darn bad.
"Sorry, coach, we have to take the goal away. The fans wanted the foul call instead of the advantage and the score."
Yeah this is my first year in a while doing Illinois High School games mainly because I didn't want to pop for the kits. I still don't have the new kits (because the sole supplier is out of stock in anything close to my size) but apparently this is a known fact and nobody is saying boo when I show up in a USSF kit with an ISHA badge attached, even for 2- and 3-ref crews. I haven't had a problem with coaches or players here in Chicagolandia; they're actually much better behaved and have a basic awareness of the rules (as opposed to the junior high coaches and teams - I nearly had to abandon a game this spring because half of one team's players didn't have shin guards).
JV boys, middle size high schools. Home team has one sub. Visitors have none. Back and forth, 2-1 for visitors at half time. We're doing a dual. When I count the players before starting the second half, I discover that there are only nine players out there. Then the coaches tell me that they had agreed to play the second half 9 v 9. Typical football size field, so things are going to get spread out a bit. Halfway through the second half, there's an injury to the visiting team. The coach tells me that he has no sub, so they'll just have to play short. The home coach then pulls one of his players off. Good guy, one of the organizers for our adult co-ed league. So we're at 8 v 8. With 45 seconds left, another visiting team player goes down, this time with a leg cramp. (Seeing a lot of leg cramps this year.) We play the last 45 seconds 8 v 7. Visitors win, 3-4. No cards or even the need to verbally warn a player.
Worked a girls varsity game in the two-man with the nearly retired NISOA National who helped fast-track my late entry to the college game. MY LORD is it nice when your foul recognition is so tight that both referees are consistently blowing up the same fouls at the same time. We were way overkill for the game on hand, but that game made me hate the two-man a little less, and we should have a more competitive and enjoyable boys game on Monday.
I finally got the chance to referee with my son this weekend in a local tournament. We ran lines in a U12 game last night. After his last game this afternoon, the referee organizer says he needs me to center the 5 PM U14 game on the adjacent field. My son had his referee shirt in my backpack from last night, so he put that on over his jersey and ran my line tonight. He made a great offside call with impeccable mechanics in the 2nd half. The parents on the side even had a couple of "ooohs" and "great call" (and it was against their team). He's actually a REALLY good AR. Still a little tentative in the middle, but understands the game well. He was even giving me advice about making sure I was continuing to call the cheap little fouls (which I had given a couple of cautions on for one of the teams in the first half). He got to watch Dad manage a U14 game with six cautions, one OFFINABUS sendoff for a player for calling me "a f***ing joke" after I let a little handfighting go between players of both teams, and a 2CT sendoff for the second time a player recklessly barged into a player. I was thinking about waiting around for the college game on the stadium field to finish so I could compare card counts with the men's center for the night, but thought better of it.