Caution him for UB. Either bringing disrepute to the game or for dissent. Unfortunately “mopery” isn’t an option.
"(Not that I judge too harshly when a parent just saw her kid get clocked in the head.)" A wise approach. I still remember the time I was coaching my son's team, probably U-11 at the time. His best friend was on the team and the best friend got clothes lined by an opponent's flying arm. He's down. The (youth) referee hadn't quite yet figured out that he needed to stop play and call me on. The mom of my player is marching onto the field and she's heading towards the kid who whacked her son. Apparently, the mother of the perp recognized what was developing and she runs to her son, grabs him by the arm and hauls him off the field, on the side away from the parents and teams, out of the park. They did not return.
First games back after my heart ablation ten days ago. All U7, 4v4, no keepers, kick ins instead of throw ins. Final game, boys. White does a kick in and it goes straight in goal. I do the baseball "safe" sign, saying no goal. One parent gets loud. "What do you mean no goal?" Young girl, I'm guessing older sister, 10 or 11 years old, says "Dad, you can't score directly from a throw in in my games. This is just like that." Sign her up for referee class!
A few months ago, I worked a HS BV game that was televised. The visiting team could clinch their section if they won. Visitors won 1-0. I was the lead referee, and the goal was following a very close offside decision. I was in position and judged the player to be onside. But it was so close I was not certain. The home crowd disagreed with my call, of course. Since it was televised, I looked for some highlights. About 30 seconds in, you can see the play in question: Lancaster Mennonite & Cocalico clashed tonight in a typical, aggressive boys soccer battle between these Section 3 foes! Eagles defense held as long as they could but the Blazers squeaked by with a 1-0 victory… winning the Section 3 Title outright! ⚽️🏆 Here are the highlights! pic.twitter.com/ZFmnOV4HSz— Blue Ridge 11 Sports (@BRC11SPORTS) October 8, 2021 Yikes, he certainly looks offside there doesn't he? This guy certainly thought so: opinions on the goal. looked offsides to me…anyone agree or disagree?— Bryce Popolis (@BPopolis) October 8, 2021 I felt pretty shitty about this, to be honest, thinking I blew a call that could have changed the whole season's outcome! I ordered a DVD of the game, hoping I could get a better view. Here are my best attempts to draw an offside line based on the defender's back leg. First image is the point of contact with the ball. A bit hard to tell where the defender's back foot is here. Second image is the frame after the contact. The offside points have not moved. The attacker's lead foot is planted. Defender is stationary. But the attacker's back foot moves up which lets you see the defender's foot more easily. Looks exactly even to me. Not conclusive, but I agree with my original determination. Onside but very, very close.
Onside. Offense moving one way at speed and the defender taking a step up/stationary always looks worse than it is. We all know it and its deceiving.
Video to me shows, at most, a situation where benefit of the doubt goes to the attacker. I think you’re good.
Okay so granted that VAR lines are a 2-d assertion in a 3-d reality... To me the attacker appears not conclusively offside (as in, if you're not sure, don't pop a flag) based on where you have the line(s), and furthermore I think you would be justified in moving those lines "back" to align with the most goalward part of the defender's foot. But if you are at the point of drawing lines, and I'm at the point of quibbling about where the lines are, I go back to not conclusively offside. I applaud you for the post-mortem, sincerely. I would just say you are still pre-mortem!
Just like you didn't have AR's, you also didn't have VAR or this video on the spot. You can't blame yourself if the video, might, differ with you. In real time, just like with fouls, if you aren't sure, you can't make the call.
Every time I did those onside/offside video exercises, every one of my errors was judging onside as offside in a dynamic attacking situation like that. What I learned from that is what has been said above, i.e., tie goes to the attacker, because the visual cortex lies to you in that direction. You got it right. Go have a beer. Cheers.
Thanks all. Yeah, it's close enough that even if I was wrong, I don't feel bad about it! Quite a relief because I had thought I blew the call for over a month
It can't be overstated enough how much every single referee needs to take one of those video tests. Attackers are onside way more than we think they are.
My daughter once told me that CONCACAF administered a 20 situation video test for FIFA AR's. Of course, none of them was one where the attacker was five yards offside. Everyone's score was posted afterwards. The top AR got 16 right. The average was something like 14.
Probably a red card to Brady here, but I'm guessing he gets the superstar downgrade to yellow. You'll have to go to YouTube to watch it.
It's unfortunate that there is no sound. If you watch the attacker, it's very hard to tell when the ball is played versus the windup. OT: I love the defender in clip 5 raising his arm to indicate offside.
As I understand it, at the top levels they are taught not to rely on sound--especially in a loud stadium you can't always hear the pass. So I think the lack of sound in the video is a feature not a bug.
Not to mention that relying on the sound exacerbates the thinking-they're-offside-when-they're-not thing, because the speed of sound is really surprisingly slow. Ever notice the lag between the smoke and the bang from the starter's pistol when you run a hundred yard dash? (I ran one 55 years ago and remember it vividly.)
See, I wasn't going to open that can of worms . . . the speed of sound is 1125 feet per second, let's round to 400 yards per second. So if the kick is 50 yards away, that is about an 1/8 of a second--definitely perceptible and could make a difference. (Listen/watch on punts as the far AR--you can tell the separation.) Put if the kick is only 10 yards away, it is only 1/40th of a second--which is less than we can really process and not really going to affect a decision.
Well, yes to all of that, and I should have said "slightly exacerbates" ... but I did say "not to mention." And to be further imperfectly honest, I frequently relied on the sound myself, and frequently advised young ARs to do the same -- especially when I was coaching them against ball-watching. But if we're quibbling, your calculations have a kick 25 yards away with a 1/16 second delta, not an infrequent distance from the AR, and maybe actually enough to slightly influence those "split second" judgments -- and to influence them further in the wrong direction? Just sayin'. EDIT: On the other other hand, it appears (sounds?) as though our auditory processing times are faster than our visual ones, so maybe it all balances out: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4456887/
A player moving at 15mph (fast but not blazingly so) will move 16 1/2 inches in 1/16 of a second. More than enough to flip a close on/off decision. Of course they are, because we're blind, remember?
Well, actually, on reflection ... I think I was accused of being deaf at least as many times as blind.
OMG this is ridiculously hard. All the early clips I was sure were WAY offside. And they are mostly not. I think this proves that watching a video is nowhere near as real as standing on the sideline using all your senses.
Many times! And that's why we don't use stop watches anymore, at least not in races. The timing system (Fully Automated Timing or FAT) now starts from a device next to the starter that receives the sound/concussive bang from the gun. No more smoking gun, literally, or flash required. Indoors, starters use a 'gun,' which makes a crackling sound, and is connected by a wire directly to the clock.