Here's the situation that got me thinking about this: U16G today, White vs Blue. White leads 1-0 with about ten minutes play. Blue #99, playing striker, commits a borderline careless-reckless trip on the opposing goalkeeper. The game is pretty chill, no misconduct to this point (and finished with no misconduct) so I just decide to have a word with her. A couple minutes later, White commits an impeding foul outside the penalty area about 20 yards from the White goal. Blue #99, frustrated with some no-calls on contact she wanted called for her team, runs past me and tells me, "Finally, your whistle works." I firmly told her she needed to be quiet. At this point, I'm pretty frustrated with Blue #99. A couple minutes after that, she commits a careless trip near the middle of the field. I made it clear to her that I wouldn't tolerate any more from her. There were about five minutes left at this point and she didn't do anything the rest of the game. On that second foul she committed, I considered a PI caution. I didn't do it, but I wonder if, when deciding on PI, we should take into account non-foul misconduct warnings. If three fouls in five minutes = PI, should two fouls + a dissent warning or two fouls + a DR warning in five minutes = PI?
Why not? If the player is not responding to your management and you feel the need to caution them in order to do so, then do it. I remember a time I had a player commit 3 very light fouls, and 2 dangerous plays for IFK, and all in the 1st half. His total was at 5. His fifth was a dangerous play, and I had already had a word with him after 4. I ripped him a new one, and a nearby defender noticed I told him he was on 5. The defender questioned how the hell that could not be a caution after 5, and I had to sell to him that all 3 fouls were barely fouls (simple careless) for the level they (USYS National League U17) were playing at and 2 were just dangerous play and not technically fouls. Defenders bought it, and the attacker didn't do a thing for the rest of the game.
Exactly. Also, I wouldn't get caught up, La Rikardo, with any formula like the ones you suggest in your final paragraph. The simple fact is that PI is a tool to manage the game and modify player behavior. There's no set threshold whereby you punish players. Pardon a war story, but I had a regional U18B semifinal long ago (billf, poster here, was AR). Match ended 1-1 and went to kicks. Five cautions, four of which were in extra time. Anyway, after the match, the assessor asked me if I considered giving a caution to #8, who was one team's captain and central midfielder. I knew immediately what he was getting at. The player had multiple fouls. I thought maybe 5, assessor said 7 (though at least one of them was handling and I think he miscounted an offside, but whatever, that's not the point). Anyway, I said (obviously paraphrasing) "yes, I started considering PI right at the end of normal time and then early in extra time, but there was never a pattern of fouls, his last couple fouls truly were just careless and nothing more, and he was really an asset in helping to control his team. Plus a couple of his really light fouls at the end of the match were right after much more reckless tackles which I did caution, so I felt it would feel and look imbalanced. I thought a caution hurt more than it would help and I didn't see what he was doing as true misconduct." Assessor, who was what you would consider a pretty high-ranking national one, didn't just accept the answer... he said it was exactly what he was looking for and he thought I made the right decision--he just wanted to make sure I was making it for the right reasons and was cognizant of both the little (how many fouls the player had) and the big (overall context of the game) pictures. There is no formula for PI. You could have a player with 7 fouls in a 120-minute game and be perfectly correct to never sanction him. You could also have 2 fouls in the first 7 minutes of a match, like Marc Batta famously had in 1998, and have PI for that. It's not a foul count only. And, for that reason, of course you should take the totality of behavior into recognizing and sanctioning PI.
Gotta partially disagree here. True, there is no formula for PI, but 7 fouls in a match is certainly PI and deserves a caution, your match and the assessor notwithstanding. I have several friends who are national assessors and I am quite sure they would expect a caution for a player with 7 fouls. Suppose everyone committed 7 fouls? Potter Stewart said it best. PH
One of the things that causes needless -- let's call them -- arguments around here is when people leave out qualifiers such as "it would be extremely rare, but...", or "if every foul was just absolutely barely careless, but careless nonetheless..." There is a big difference between seeking to make a point and seeking to be understood. We should all be trying to work toward knowledge, rather than taking up positions.
What bothers me is that most fouls in the more competitive matches are not called either because of advantage given, they were considered triffling, or the player was artful enough that the foul is screened from view. As a player and coach I accept that artful (unseen) fouls are always going to happen. But as to the other two categories, too often I see referees not managing them well. I think PI consideration ought to include fouls which were no calls due to advantage. Often a well-timed comment from the CR is all that it takes to keep it under control. When a CR effectively manages the no calls well, it really impresses me as a sign of experience and skill.
Fair point, but I think we are going to partially disagree. As I said, in the war story, I thought he was at 5, not 7 (so let's call it 6 and split the difference). At least one was a handling foul. He probably had 4 in normal time and the 4th one was right at the death of a game that only had one caution. I don't think anyone would say it's absurd to not give a PI caution for a guy who had 4 fouls in 90 minutes, when one of them was handling and there was only one other caution in the match. Just sketching this out so it's clear... let's say early foul in the 10th minute, foul in the 30th minute, handling foul in the 60th minute, careless foul in the 88th minute. Does that have to be PI? I'm very comfortable saying "no." So then we get to extra time. He has two more fouls. But at this point in the match--and where I think introducing context is important--I had 3 cautions, all for reckless fouls, within the same 10 minute span that he had two careless fouls. Probably worth noting there was also a penalty awarded early in extra time that was converted, so we're playing a 1-0 game at this point. The PI caution would have had to be somewhere in the 110th or 115th minute, would have been for a massively innocuous challenge, and it would have been sandwiched by two very reckless tackles and after a penalty decision against his team. It just would have been completely out of place. And I would have been sanctioning a guy who actually acted like a captain and was working with me to get his team in line and minimize dissent. I absolutely know what you're getting at, PH, and it would be very rare that I had the same situation again. So perhaps it's an extreme example to use. But I'm absolutely certain it worked there and I do think that's an important point. And I'm also absolutely certain that a lot of assessors--nationals included--would have said "why did you waste a card on #8 in the 110th minute for that?" if I had given a PI caution.
Some may say that, it is one school of thought, (wrong AFAIAC),, but referees must make their own reputations, and set their own standards. Where do you draw the line with laying off cards just because it is close to the end of the match? This is not a "wasted" card IMO. PH
Well, again, in this particular case I would have viewed at as wasteful because of the events surrounding it and the context of the match. It had nothing to do, in reality, with it being "close to the end of the match." If the same exact series of events had happened and, let's say, I had no other cautions in extra time, then of course I would have booked the player in question for PI after his first foul in extra time. Conversely, if I really felt like I needed to make a point going in to extra time, I very well might have booked him in the 88th minute. But the cautions are about trying to modify player behavior. The game was relatively smooth--incredibly so, in fact--for the first 90 minutes. So there didn't seem to be any need for a caution at the end of regulation. And what I was concerned about during extra time, in that particular match, was curbing the the reckless tackles and minimizing dissent that exploded after the penalty decision. Tossing a yellow at the one true leader on the field for an innocuous tackle just because he had 3 or 4 fouls in the first 90 minutes just didn't feel right and didn't make sense.
First of all, I usually don't try to verbally manage female players as they don't seem responsive to it. Second: If a player commits something very close to a caution that I manage and a few minutes later does something else that stands out (not in a good way) I usually tend to bring out my little friend (yellow card). I probably would've booked the player for the dissent depending on the feel of it all.
Precisely. And as MassRef has noted in his 2 responses, he might not be able to define PI but he knows it when he sees it. And in that game he didn't see it.
I wasn't going to continue this discussion, but the post by Gary led me to change my mind. It looks like you are grasping at straws here. 1. The story has changed a lot from when you first described it. It was 7 fouls, now it is down to 3 or 4 in the first 90?? 2. I mentioned "end of match" only because you mentioned the time in a previous post. 3. Cautions serve 2 purposes. Control and punishment. You are seeming to forget the latter in this case. 4. You had reckless tackles and dissent. A player running around committing fouls here and there can create just as much of a problem and annoy the other team. 5. Just because the player is a nice guy doesn't let him off the hook for a PI caution. Sometimes this can be a clever tactic by a player to get away with PI. 6. I stand by my original position. 7 fouls no matter by whom, or what type, in a match should be viewed as PI.
But my point is that he should have seen it. 7 fouls is just too many. Also see my responses to MR above. PH
Sorry, but with some of the things you assert in your points, it seems like you are grasping at straws to prove that I was wrong. Could another referee have booked for PI and been right? Yes. But I know what was going on at the field that day and strongly felt I made the right decision (wouldn't have retold the story and opened myself up to criticism if I didn't). You can't referee a match based on numbers and chronology of events alone. The story has never changed. Assessor said he had 7 total, I thought he had 5 total. And I always pointed out that one was for deliberate handling. I said, in the detailed post, that we can call it 6 total fouls and split the difference. Regardless, from the beginning I said it was a 120-minute match. So it was 4 in the first 90 minutes, one of which was deliberate handling. He then had two fouls in extra time. Fine, but you mentioned it as if I ignored misconduct because it was the end of match, which wasn't the case and I thought I explained that the first time. I hope I explained it better the second time. Right on the purposes but wrong on me forgetting. Bit surprised you're so forceful in your opinion here. I felt, in that match, I would be sacrificing overall match control in order to rigidly punish individually. And I did not think it was good for the game to do so at that juncture of that match. I think that's the sort of choice referees make all the time. Again, surprised at the force of your opinion here on a match you didn't see. The two careless fouls in extra time had absolutely nothing to do with what else was occurring. This was a regional semifinal with a penalty kick early in the first extra time that a team didn't agree with. Then there were some strong message fouls--both ways--right after. In between you had a couple careless fouls, who happened to be by the same player. I'm not going to escalate things by appearing to overreact to innocuous challenges when so much else was going on. Yes, sometimes. And sometimes it's not. This was not one of those sometimes not cases. Are you suggesting you know it was a clever tactic just based on my description of the sequence of events and without actually seeing what was happening on the field? Well, on this there we're going to disagree. What's your minimum threshold on a 120-minute match? If you have one, we just have a fundamental difference of opinion here.
By the way, PH, you know I respect your opinion greatly, so I do take your criticism seriously. But I am just very confident in what I did for that match, on that day was the right thing for the game.
OK, let me ask it another way. What is your limit under these circumstances? Clearly 6 is not enough, perhaps it is 7, 8 maybe, 9 even 10 if we have Mother Teresa in soccer cleats? Are you saying you don't have a limit? I would be amazed if you don't, so perhaps we disagree on what the limit is, not whether there is one. And BTW, there is not a "quota" for each period IMO. It is the match total no matter a 90 or 120 min match. PH
I knew you'd ask me this! Honestly, I don't have a number in mind, which was my point. Do I think that 4 fouls in 90 minutes would normally be my threshold? Yes. I'd say 85%+ of the time that would be PI for me. 5 fouls would probably be 90%+ and 6 fouls would get us into the 97-99%+ range. I'd be comfortable saying, 99 times out of 100 in a 90-minute match, I've got a PI card out for a guy who committed six fouls. No, but the idea of a "quota" wasn't my point. Sometimes, the possibility of PI diminishes when time has elapsed. For example, 3 careless fouls in the 8th, 12th and 18th minutes is almost always going to get a PI card from me (I gave one yesterday for two fouls--one in the 17th and one in the 19th, because they were the same foul against the same attacker). On the contrary, 3 careless fouls in the 8th, 33rd and 89th minute is probably never going to get a PI card from me. So, in a 120 minute game, where you are extending the playing period by 33%, the likelihood that this unspoken "good behavior" incentive might be employed increases. Are you going to always book a player for his fourth foul, if the pattern is: 8th minute, 30th minute, 79th minute, 118th minute? I would argue not. So my point is just that the 120-minute factor changes how you might view "persistence" viz-a-viz foul count.
^^^ Without actually re-reading all your posts, maybe I missed it. At some point in this, perhaps having the quiet word with the foul here, there and there.... could get the message across just as well. If this player is "the good guy", he should also realize what you are trying to tell him, before the card.
Any thoughts on how universal this type of numerical standard might be at the highest levels? My impression is that actual count isn't all that important. In particular, I think lots of defenders commit 4 fouls in a game without PI. Heck, I would even be willing to say they get away with 6 or 7 before PI. The only reason I back off that is because one of those is likely to smell yellow all by itself, UB or whatever. So odds are it would kill the string, but still no PI. PI's are relatively rare, after all, right? With no data to support me, only casual memory from what I see, I would have put the numerical standard for PI in elite soccer at something like 3 fouls in 15 min.
Type of foul and length of time between fouls is my criteria. Two fouls if they are tactical, three for careless/minor fouls. 10-15 minutes would be the time frame.
I know that my leash is shorter with attackers than defenders. Defenders have more risks to take and they are going to be caught more often.
I think the rest of your post sort of answers your initial question. Honestly, it's pretty rare for there to be a PI card in the 4-6 foul range, at the professional level, where one of the individual fouls wasn't worthy of a caution on its own. But that's why I put the threshold at about 4 per game. That's when you really start to notice someone has fouled "a lot" (rather than just identifying that he's fouled multiple times in a short span)... even if it's over 70 minutes. And if you notice he's not in the book, that's where the potential PI alarm bell goes off. I think your last statement is pretty accurate. Most PI cards, that get recorded correctly as such, are given for 2 fouls in 8 minutes, or 3 in 15 minutes, or something similar. I would guess that a lot of times, PI is often used as a more convenient way of sanctioning a foul that would be UB on its own (think this happens a lot of times on tactical fouls). You'll see two soft fouls and then another soft physical, yet clearly tactical foul. By going through the motions of pointing out it's the players 3rd foul, the sell of the yellow card is easier... even though it should have been a yellow on its own.
Good! Now we are beginning to agree! Excellent! Did this BS exchange have any subtle or sub-conscious influence on this decision? Me neither! You would mostly be correct here also. My general "rule of thumb" is 3 fouls in a half, or 5 fouls in match, max. It could be for fewer depending on the circumstances, but never over 5. No player should commit 5 fouls without getting a caution, although it may be for one of the fouls individually. This it seems is mainly where we really differ. As "sm town ref posted", the player gets a word, quiet or even not so quiet after 3 or 4. Then the 5th is his, overtime or not. It is still the same match. And that was the basis for my initial post in this thread. PH
I hesitate to post to a thread this old, but only finally got a chance to read it. Two comments: Evans and Bellion in The Art of Refereeing have an excellent discussion of PI. (To oversimplify, they suggest 4 in a half or six in game should always draw a card, drawing in part from an analysis of average number of fouls.) Some of the posts seemed to be "no counting" (or more lightly counting) handling than other fouls -- why? As far as I'm concerned, handling disrupts the flow of the game as much as other fouls, and I can't think of why it should not be counted just as much. (Nor am I sure that I'm treating IFK fouls that much differently, that one I need to think about some more.)
Besides the time gaps between fouls I would be much more concerned if the fouls were tactical in nature either to thwart promising attacks or committed against the most skilled of players directing or leading the attack. Small little fouls happening that infrequently over large gaps of time are not persistent infringement in my view. Counting off fouls is not not always indicative of persistent infringement. Three fouls that stop promising attacks are.