Domestic Leagues 25-26

very interesting call just now in the Newcastle match and their goal...Newcastle attacker deemed in the offside position by the AR, but VAR decides that the Bournemouth defender who had played the ball forward so the Newcastle goal is allowed. In my looking at it, not sure if the defender truly played it forward or deflected it forward...but either way, an interesting decision. While this was being looked at the CR had probably 8 players milling all around him politicking...it's just totally ridiculous.

 

AMÉRICA 2-1 TOLUCA | Las Águilas vuelan en partido intenso ante el Toluca | Con México C26 J15

nasty stuff...you can start the video at 12:30 and while I understand that AR1 was trying to defuse things, she got in the middle of it and could have easily been the one slapped in the face instead.

 

While indeed the 4th official was there, the 4th was not involved in physically trying to restrain a player. While I commend AR1 for the bravery directly in the line of fire, they tell us to stand back and observe and record numbers for a reason, even with VAR.

 

In the AFC champions league they used VAR to determine that a substitution hadn’t completed yet before a throw in that led to a goal so they took the goal off the board

https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/s/tLXbCxXibt

 

I agree with what you are saying here, but I do not recall getting this advice or training during certification class. My point being that there is a whole lot more "figure it out as you go" than "this is the procedure to follow" when it comes to referee training. I have run into a whole mess of "you don't know what you don't know" with this refereeing than I thought possible after having been "certified."

I go out of my way to find additional ways to learn, hence why I am here on this forum. Woe to those refs who don't take it upon themselves to do the extra classes and webinars and such before getting to a level or type of match where the less likely to occur things shade to the more likely. Thank goodness I have been able to be exposed to some really experienced refs in some low pressure (for me and my role) situations and just was able to observe and learn. Seems like every match I do I learn something new.

 

Essentially, every time you are assigned as a CR you want to try and have a pregame. Every pregame should include what happens when you have a mass confrontation. My ARs would hear, never touch a player nor even try to get in their way to restrain them. Your job is to stand away from the fray (maintaining your safety at all times) and observe and record if you can the main "combatants". Physically restraining a player and if they get injured, guess who they are coming for in the lawsuit...you! What is not part of this video is the brawl which also took place on the way down to the lockeroom out of earshot of the referee crew.

 

First off, the basic certification class isn't going to cover material that will only per pertinent if you stick around long enough and get good enough to do adult/high level youth games. That's something you'll pick up along the way from various sources; advanced training, fora like this one, assessments, experience...

Second, you'll get a lot of feedback from a lot of sources. Assessors, instructors, and people with varied levels of expertise and experience. Much of it will conflict. Soak it all in. Watch what other people do. Try stuff. If it doesn't work, stop. If it works, do more.

You'll certainly hear from various sources that you should NEVER do X. X is often some variation of "exhale near a player, or you'll get sued to the moon". If that works for you, then certainly go for it. At some level of games, you might even have a pregame with the CR that is more than "DFU". If your CR tells you to do certain things in certain situations, by all means do your best to comply. Teamwork.

My personal experience is that when two teenagers, or two amateur adults, square off, both are looking for a way to save face. What they really want is to be able to say "I would have kicked your butt, but that ref got in the way. Aren't you lucky?" So I've been successful getting into the fray and breaking up the handbags early. Will it eventually backfire? Maybe. Do I really think that there is a significant chance that I'll get sued for trying to stop two idiots from escalating? Not really. I do have various insurance policies (like NASO) that I don't expect to ever need.

Your mileage may vary. TWIAVBP. Some settling of contents may have occurred. Image enlarged to show detail.

 

What I don't undestand here is that Blue was substituting and Red scored the goal. VAR then gets involved and the goal is disallowed because the Blue player wasn't completely off the field. Law 3 (3.9) states:

"the referee must allow the goal if the extra person was:

• a player, substitute, substituted player, sent-off player or team official of the team that conceded the goal
  "

So...??? is this just a case of misapplied laws?

 

Yikes

1) How does this happen at the professional level? Did the referee blow his whistle to allow for the restart? If so, why? And why didn’t any of the other match officials stop him?

2) I’m trying to figure out how this is even reviewable under the VAR protocol. I thought erroneous restarts weren’t reviewable? But I’m not an expert so I’m genuinely asking, if someone knows a good explanation.

 

2 - It was a goal and a serious missed incident? Except the laws as I read them should not have resulted in disallowing the goal as I mentioned above.

 

That is part of the problem. I got into reffing already pretty darn old. Because of that I have been mostly assigned the older age groups including adult games. What one is expected to know and what one is taught before being anointed "certified" and shot out into the wide world of refereeing football matches is disparate.

IMO it points to a larger problem we have (in the US?). We are so short of refs we are giving the absolute bare minimum, pass the red-faced test level of training and shooting folks out to the fields. The Laws and flag mechanics are simply not enough as the curriculum I got completely missed dealing with hot players, hot coaches and hot parents. I am 40+ years old and have no problem using my dad voice or giving the stare where they know I have had enough.

We talk about losing refs but I don't think the things implemented thus far are effective. The answer given to dealing with dissent is talking to the coach or issuing cards or abandoning a match. How about a portion of the class or a class on de-escalation? There is plenty of information out there, even from US Soccer Referee program on it, but you have to want to find it. Maybe we need to assign someone to follow up with new referees at set intervals after their certification date to chat with them on how things are going for them? What they think are their strengths and weaknesses and any situations where they didn't have the answer. All that breeds confidence in the calls and confidence goes a long way to quelling dissent. I didn't even know mentoring was a thing or what that process looked like until I was blind-sided by it.

There is so much that is unexpected when it comes to refereeing, even for people who have been in and around the game for a while, that I really think the whole process of training, mentoring, retraining and retaining needs a very hard look at and more firm processes established around it.

 

Similar thoughts on both points. Very confusing. Is this simply an "oh #$##" from the R who feels like he unfairly disadvantaged the Blue team as he lost track and didn't realize Blue hadn't finished the sub and wasn't ready and therefore felt the goal was unfair? Would love to find out more about what actually happened and the aftermath.

 

I hope people don't mind me chiming in at the risk of derailing the thread since it's about "Domestic Leagues" since you're very sincere about doing well as a referee.

In our state, we are back to pre-Covid levels. A few years ago, they would offer to detail your car to come out for paltry ref fees for matches/tournaments that were only days away. Now we have these "assigning groups" that somehow accumulated refs that none of the serious assignors would ever use doing full-sides games as an AR at $40. They somehow tapped into a desperate market. Perhaps it's still an issue in other states (my understanding is it's gotten better), but no longer one in mine.

Last year, USSF made it mandatory that each state have a certain number of Referee Mentors. Many states would only have a handful of guys and only went to higher-level matches or tournaments.

I enjoy mentoring new referees as much as officiating games because of my extensive training background in 2 industries and a long coaching career. I totally agree there should be something after year one to go over with referees and that's a failure for all of the youth programs here in the states.

As mentioned by others here, you cannot possibly cover every scenario in an entry level class that is already very long as folks will forget more if you make it longer.

 

Team that lost appealed the decision claiming incorrect ruling. The appeals committee said the decision was incorrect, but denied the appeal. The team is now taking the appeal to CAS.

 

Anyone have a link to the cut al ruling? I’m trying to understand how an appeal committee concludes that an error of Law took away a goal but that doesn’t warrant a replay. (Or continuation from that point if allowed by ROC.)

 

Some in the Mexican sports press made a big deal of the fact that AR1 and the center from this game did not get assignments for the mid-week match day 16 of the Liga MX Clausura, with more attention given to the former than the latter. They both got assignments for match day 17 this weekend, the final one of the Clausura.

 

From the VAR Protocol in the LOTG:

 

and I am not really saying that either one did anything seriously wrong, but physically engaging a player is dangerous business and I really would not recommend it as a general rule of thumb.

 

I don’t see anything in there that would take away a protest for a mistake of Law. I agree that it means there can’t be a protest if VAR was used when it shouldn’t have been, or if the VAR/ref makes an incorrect decision on review. But I don’t think it means that once VAR is involved, a mistake in Law is not subject to protest. That’s why I’d like to know what they said was wrong, or if they just waved their hands around instead of sorting out the details. (I think the exact ruling by the ref matters here, too.)

 

https://www.thenationalnews.com/spo...firmed-as-afc-dismiss-protest-over-var-farce/

 

“However, it subsequently upheld the match result, with no official comment other than the statement that “the protest lodged by Shabab Al Ahli is dismissed””

well, that sure clears things up.

 

I miss Mateu Lahoz.