I sweat. That's enough. its essentially a race, so yes, its a sport. I even went to the 'championships' this past weekend (as a spectator).
FWIW, a few days ago I received an email from US Officials that they will be handling all MLS Next assignments. A few minutes ago, I received a system automated message from assignr.com that "MLS Next Tier 1 was added to your profile". I don't pretend to understand what's going on as it used to be mostly the local assignors doing these matches.
My understanding is that OMG used to cover all MLS Next assigning nationwide. They assigned the four national events (Flex, Fest, Cup, and GA) directly and farmed out league matches to local assignors in some instances, but it was all under the OMG umbrella. For ... reasons ... MLS Next has moved away from OMG and now it's this RISE group doing the national events ("Tier 1") and local assignors doing the regular league matches ("Tier 2"). Lots of new assignors across the country now!
For people like me who don't know what happened behind the scenes, I'm dying to know what you guys are hinting at.
My bad. Since Steve Goodman was such a Cubs fan, I figured (wrongly) Sandberg had honorary cred, what with the ‘84 NL pennant and all… ::shuffles off mumbling::
For anyone near the Cedar Rapids, IA area, the Greater Iowa NISOA chapter is hosting a referee event for Terry Vaughn's memory on Saturday, August 16th. The link to register is here. Esse Baharmast is the featured speaker, and he will give the same handling presentation he's given at National Camps. Here is the full schedule of speakers. This is the first NISOA event that ECSR has "certified" (couldn't think of a better word) for its preseason training. Esse Baharmast – FIFA World Cup Referee, FIFA Referee Instructor Khalaf Al-latayfeh – NISOA Region 8 Representative, National Referee Coach Mark Kadlecik – NCAA Representative, National Referee Coach, PRO 2 Referee Coach Matt Tiano – ECSR Assignor Hido Tica – National Referee Coach, NISOA Assignor It shows what Terry Vaughn still means to the referee community in Iowa and throughout the country to have this group of speakers and over 120 referees register. Goes without saying we still miss Terry. I know that's true throughout the country, but it's particularly true in Iowa.
Got assigned two youth scrimmage centers this weekend, tomorrow morning a U17-16 ECNL intra-club 3 man crew scrimmage, then Sunday morning a solo U14 one, I think MLS Next vs another MLS Next or high comp team. $125 apiece and they fit around my afternoon schedule at a local tournament so that is a nice bonus
First scrimmage of the season last night, good to back out there after a few months off. Got to call my first 8 second violation. Good times!
My MLS Next solo scrimmage today ended up being U13s instead of U14s. It was more difficult than expected because of the ridiculous amount of hand action with players from both teams pulling, pushing, holding each other, had to keep deciding what to call and what to let go to not completely destroy the game. When I was rushing out at the end to get to my other games, I heard a few players on the bench while collecting my things and then a few spectators on the other side while leaving say to each other (but not to me at all) how the refereeing was better with one guy than they usually get with three. That was nice. And then the change in high skill but lots of fouling from that game to my next game, a U16 mid to low level girls tournament final just constantly barging through each other's backs and tripping each other was crazy
This was a weekend with some mentoring on the table... this evening's game was nice, because there's a young and upcoming referee in our area who is actually making great strides as an AR (still needs more confidence in the middle of the pitch), and I could see him implementing some of the things we talked about a few weeks ago at another game. Which meant that we could work on a couple of other things! Win! (Also, the game was quite exciting, with one team going up 1-0 in the 90+1, and the other team tying it in 90+3!)
Everyone around here talking about this are saying it won't ever be called, manage keepers now like you did in the past. What happened?
National Intercollegiate Soccer Officials Association Senior Director of Education Robert Sibiga is thrilled to announce this year’s Preseason Guide is now available! Robert has assembled some of the top minds in college soccer to help prepare our members to be their best on and off the pitch this season. With topics from Fitness and Handball to Managing Assignments and everywhere in between, there are great lessons for every NISOA member no matter how long they’ve been serving the game. Read More: https://lnkd.in/gpsZjRj3
I had to take a hiatus from refereeing since last October. Had a HS preseason double-header last week with a rookie dual partner who I used to officiate back when he was in HS. The heat was brutal and had one ambulance injury (kid's okay), but got to mentor a youngster and run the pitch again. A bit sore and heat-stressed afterwards, but it was a good day and I'm glad I returned.
Pretty much followed the USSF guidance ... counted to 3 in my head, then put my arm up and counted down from 5. This was the 6th or 7th live ball in the keepers hands, she hadn't gotten close to a violation before (I heard both coaches pregame talking to their GK about getting rid of the ball quickly). For whatever reason she just held onto the ball. It was close between my count hitting zero and her release ... since it was a scrimmage I decided to call it. Nobody complained.
Fair enough. Just trying to figure out how I will handle this. Never called a keeper on 6 seconds before, used my voice to manage them. Now with our hands tied (pun intended) on having to use our hand on the last 5, it is harder to verbally manage. I'm thinking my hand counts could be something not exactly one second each, while using my voice to tell them to release. Keeper trying to test me on this multiple times will likely find themselves defending a corner though...
I believe the intent behind the rule change is that we aren't supposed to "manage" it in the way we used to (avoiding calling a six second violation at almost any cost). Your hand counts are supposed to be exactly one second each. IFAB and US Soccer want us to enforce the laws as written.
There is NO question one of my partners will be whistling this, insisting there was a rule change, even though there are NFHS "New Rules" meetings held.