In fall 2003, the town where I live installed its first turf fields, replacing alleged grass fields atop an old town dump adjacent to some wetlands. A year later, I was assigned a (solo) U14B (call it town-based travel rec) game on one of those fields. The afternoon was sunny—but the day before the remains of a hurricane had passed through, dumping several inches of rain. The field did not have water standing above the turf. Instead, it had many large “bubbles”, perhaps six feet across, where water under the turf had lifted the turf a few inches. While I stared at these before the game, the kids had a great time: jumping on a bubble to discover that waves would slowly ripple away from them; and sliding into bubbles. One of the design “features” of these fields had been to limit the rate at which water would drain from the fields into the wetlands. So either water had somehow drained through the turf and then been trapped, unable either to drain or to return to the surface, or (seems less likely to me) the wetlands had backed up under the turf. I judged the field unplayable.
I have been involved in construction of a turf field or two. Basically, you dig a hole, and build a concrete box, with drain holes at the bottom of the sides of the walls. Then you fill it with gravel, going to finer rock as you get towards the top, usually finishing with pea gravel or smaller at the top. then you lay the carpet on top, ending with adding the fill material, that black pebbly stuff that always micro-welds to your shoes in wet weather. The depth of the fill depends on whether it is primarily a soccer field, gridiron football field or ...... So if the field isn't draining, that may be the result of a design flaw in how much water can come out the drain pipes in a given period of time. It may also be that the drain holes are plugged, usually by dirt. If it's near a wetlands, it may very well be that the 'greens' deliberately limited the drainage, because they know better than the earth does about how much water should be allowed into a wetlands. (sarcasm mode off.) I have seen fields built without the box and the result is that soil infiltrates under the turf and that's when bad things happen. Fields wear out at about eight to ten years, in part because field owners think they're maintenance free but the fill is suppose to be replaced periodically and fluffed up. I don't know of anybody who does that, however.
I recall seeing it done at my son's high school. Only field I've ever noticed it being done. I wonder if it is one of those false savings that schools have tight budgets, so they don't refresh, meaning they spend more in the long run to replace the whole thing. (Though sometimes that makes sense from a micro perspective of the decision-maker as it may be refreshing comes from the decision-maker's budget, but replacement comes from someone else's.)
I would say that is accurate. The maintenance budget has to pay for the refill and fluffing, but a replacement comes from the capital budget that is someone else's problem. It's similar to roofs. When I was on our school board, we had a lot of square footage under roof, the largest owner in the county (although Intel and/or Nike may have passed the school district since then.) We budgeted every year for replacement of some percentage of the roofs. But, when the staff salaries and benefits increased faster than their revenue, they stopped replacing the roofs. Then there was a big bond measure proposed to build a new school or two 'and replace the roofs at many other schools." That made the bond measure more appealing to everyone in the District not just the people whose kids would be going to the new palace, I mean school.
In the case of the field I was discussing, it was definitely the case that "the 'greens' limited the drainage." The alleged grass fields that preceded the turf were trying to grow grass with essentially no topsoil directly on top of a clay cap. Zero drainage from those prior fields; the water sat on top until it evaporated. Those fields were mud pits in the spring (made worse by lacrosse) and concrete in the summer. With bits of glass occasionally working their way to the surface. I was on a local bird-watching walk a few years later, and one of the other people on the walk exclaimed to a friend how terrible it was that the turf fields had been built. I sweetly told her that I thought this was the best recreation expenditure the town had ever made.
WHY THE HELL DOESN'T MLS NEXT HAVE A LIGHTNING CANCELLATION POLICY! Okay, rant over. On Saturday I was centering a U15 game and 36 minutes in, the lightning alarm went off. I went and sat in my car. The good news is that the park website has a monitor that will countdown to all clear and reset, without reloading the page. About 70 minutes into the delay the countdown to clear got to 20 minutes so I let my wife know when I would be home, a little more than an hour before guests showed up. Two minutes later there was another strike at 8 miles resetting the countdown and less than a minute after that, there was a strike under 2 miles. I was very generous and waited around until there was a strike more than 2.5 hours after kickoff, let my assignor know, and left. The teams were still of the mindset that they could restart. There was also another game after mine that they wanted to play. I get it, 4 hours isn't a nothing drive, but I did not set aside 4 hours to referee a game with 40 minute halves. There should be a standard for restarting a match. It doesn't have to be universal, if most of the team flew, it can be longer than a 3-6 hour drive, which would be longer than the 3 Houston teams trying to play each other. But no standard at all leads to abuse.
Ready, fire, aim e2a: okay so I went hunting wabbits (or at least going down wabbit holes) At https://www.mlssoccer.com/mlsnext/resources there's a Health and Safety section with no mention of lightning The "U.S. Soccer's Play On Guidelines," in turn, in a sub-section of Phase 3 Grassroots Guidelines, has this: No 30 minutes, no hear it clear it, no real guidelines of any kind apart from consider looking like you have something in place. Sorta.
I don't know about "best," but it was definitely different. HS boys (with some girls) playoff game, first round, 1A schools. In our state, 1A means less than 80 students in the school. It starts raining just as I get within 10 blocks of the field. The wind was cross field most of the game, making the wind chill factor probably in the low 40's. The field is grass, with about six feet elevation difference between the goals and about three feet from one side to the other. The field is no more than 75 yards long. The goal lines, touch lines and halfway line are very, very faint. There are no penalty area or goal area lines at all. Flat orange discs were used to mark the penalty areas. Schools this size play 8 v 8. With the field size, quite a few goalkeeper punts were really shots on goal, especially when kicking down hill. Surprisingly, very few throw ins and only two offside calls. Given the length of the grass and the field condition, most balls played out to the sides didn't keep rolling. Of the seven goals in the game, however, four were scored going up hill, only one of them rolling through the keeper's hands. Player names like Micah and Caleb. No cards. More parents than players, all huddled under umbrellas along the fence, cheering like crazy. The field was so short that there was virtually no opportunity/reason to run, so I was about frozen by the end of the game. Everything I was wearing was sopping wet by the end. And I had a big schools varsity boys game still to do, elsewhere..
Had a Black Swan last night, HSBV, Round of 16 game in the state playoffs. Ball is served in to a spot about 16 yards out in the center of the PA. Attacker, with back to goal, is trying to receive it on his chest when the keeper comes out and mugs him. Clear foul. But wait! The ball squirts through to another attacker, who now has the ball at his feet, maybe 12-13 yards from goal, not bouncing, completely open and free on goal. No, not offside, there are defenders (and attackers) off on the right wing, but in no position to defend. This attacker could easily have dribbled the ball in to goal. He could have set the ball, switched feet, and shot and scored. Instead, you guessed it, he skied the ball over the crossbar. I called a goal kick. Replaying it in my mind 10 times, and I get the same result. What's a better advantage, a PK or a clear, uncontested shot on an undefended goal? This was like a PK without a keeper. These calls are never easily described; you had to be there. One team was going to feel hard done by no matter what I did. I made my call and stuck with it.
When I first started seven years ago, I was taught the only advantage to a foul in the PA is a goal. If a goal isn't scored, you give a PK. Seven years later, reading and seeing situations as you described, I'm not so sure anymore.
That's a tough one. One of those rare times when you might wish you had time to signal and yell Advantage, and no personal rule about never ever doing that in the PA. Like you said, you were wrong no matter what you did, so let it go.
As you described it, I think you made the right call. An uncontested breakaway 12 yards out where the attacker could have walked the ball into the goal is better than a penalty kick. If the attacking coach complained, I'd simply say his player could have dribbled the ball into the goal. Is a penalty kick a better shot than that?
That was the USSF official teaching for many years--though I never heard anything similar from outside the US. My sense was that USSF got aggravated by referees using advantage to avoid calling PKs when the resulting opportunity was far less than the 80% chance of a goal from a PK. "He got a shot off," is not the same thing as there being an advantage--only if the shot opportunity was better than a PK. I think the powers that were at USSF and felt that a bright line rule that the only advantage in the PA is a goal would have far fewer bad decisions than what was happening on fields. With the demise of the ATR and the withdrawal of position papers, I don't believe the "only a goal" standard survives. (And in my opinion was never conceptually correct--as above, it was a lesser evil than inappropriate advantage calls in the PA.) But as @RefGil said, it's a black swan--it should be very, very rare that we apply advantage in the PA without a goal being scored because it is very, very rare that there is a DFK offense in the PA and there remains a scoring opportunity better than a PK, which is the standard for applying advantage. I've still never had the black swan myself, but as described I think Gil did.
You are leaving out a lot of juicy nuggets in their cancellation policy....or might not be aware? According to their "Referee Handbook" in Section 6, only an MLS Next Representative may postpone a game...not the referee. In theory, you could be waiting for 12 hours in the parking lot waiting for someone to call you back. I know some folks that would. They tend to make up their own rules as well. Before a game is postponed, they want both coaches to contact them as well to confirm that they are okay with a referee's decision to abandon the game due to lightning or poor field conditions. In other words, if I am adamant that the game should be postponed because the field is under water, unplayable and dangerous, I can be "overruled" if both coaches want to play. PS- They don't seem concerned that they are other games on the same field that follow yours and will overlap.
I have to admit to using "advantage" as a defense when I don't call a borderline PK (or a play I didn't see very well). I should get out of that habit. I've gotten better, though, about accepting that my calls aren't going to please everyone. I had a case this weekend in which a player went down in the PA and immediately protested to me, while the defenders protested to me about his protest. Either way, someone's going to be mad. In this case, two players went for a 50-50 ball, and the defender's foot was simply stronger. Saw it clearly. No foul. Waved my arms to demonstrate that I'd seen it and wasn't calling anything. Attacker was mad. But he was wrong.
Reminds me of perhaps my best retort to players. U19 boys tournament final, and I'm in the middle. There's a corner kick, and a defender and attacker are doing the usual "dance". A little bumping and maybe both guys doing some shirt pulling, but nothing even close to warranting a foul since both are giving as good as they are getting. As the ball goes out for a goal kick, both players come up to me protesting that the other should be called for a foul. My response - "I'd say that since I have both of you coming up to me griping I got the call exactly right, so let's keep playing." Silence from both as they separate and run up the field.
I think we all know some referees that don't have boundaries. If someone wants to try to punish me for leaving after 3 hours, that is their choice, but there are plenty of opportunities in South Texas for me to referee soccer.
This is actually a great thing about soccer here vs my home country. In Poland, you referee under the Polish FA which goes down to regionals etc. There is no decentralization like we have here. You fall in bad graces, you're done. Here, I can referee youth soccer for 2 or 3 different assignors. I can referee college for at least two different assignors. And then I can referee high school, which is a separate assignor and organization. If I really wanted to and had a compelling reason to (and I don't at all), I could referee high school in a neighboring county, which would add 30 minutes one way to my drives, but I could - for a totally different assignor and chapter. I am not going to the MLS, I am not even going to upgrade to a regional, I just do the best I can and I want the best games I can get at a reasonable cost - it is a hobby after all and I really love it and enjoy it, but I am not trying to kill myself over this. I treat every game as professionally as I can and I give it my all, and if somebody thinks that is not enough, that's great, they can find someone who will give what they want.
I am always surprised about refs commenting on how the players or coaches feel about our calls. Why do you care? You KNOW that their feelings are colored by their desire to win the game and therefore is hugely biased. You do your best and let the chips fall where they will. In any given game, I figure that at least 50% of the participants will be unhappy with me and often 100%. Nature of the beast.
GV first-round District game, 8-seed hosting 9-seed in the biggest (4A) classification. Lots of club players and a (mostly) pretty genteel affair. , We are scoreless and darn-near shotless after 2OT so we go to kicks. I head down to the chosen goal to talk to the keepers, good luck to both of you, at least one foot on the line until the kick, side to side all you want, etc. I explain that I'll ask if they're okay (was thinking/meaning ready) before blowing for each kick. They both look at me and then each other and say, "Well, not reeeally okay!" and we had a laugh. First five wraps up 4-4, so we need 5 more per team. That takes a looong time to sort out for some reason, and after a few moments of standing outside the PA the home keeper comes over near me and the away keeper, in position for the next kick, saying "It's kinda lonely over there." I kind of participated tangentially in chat while the next kickers got sorted out, wanted them to not be driven by the ref, but didn't want to be a statue either. It was kind of a neat window into sportsmanship, a moment between two competitors in a situation they didn't like but were facing using each other for support and strength.
Tomorrow, for the 4th time in my 28 year high school soccer referee career, I will be on the crew for the Boy’s State Soccer Championship game in Kentucky. This will be my 3rd time as the referee.