AR1 today for men's O-30 1st division. Just before kickoff, a late arriving player gives his card to his team manager, who gives it to me. I turn it over and the card expired three months ago. "Ah, it's expired." "I have two cards and I must have grabbed the wrong one. Can you just look it up on line?" "Sorry. Card must be physically present to win." As the game begins, I hear him telling his manager that he'll have to go home to get the card. Moments later, the manager says to me, "Flakiest guy I've ever known." The game was 0-0 at half, 3-0 ten minutes later and it ended 3-4.
It was a different sport, but today I finally got a coach to admit to my face what we all always suspect. His knowledge of a rule was completely incorrect and we got into an argument/debate about it, and he said that he would rather a referee get a rule incorrect as long as it benefitted what he thins the rule is and would favor his team, rather than have a referee who gets a call correct but it goes against his team It was a pretty pathetic display and admission
I thought you were going to say that he went to his bag and got a different card which happened to have a different name on it. That's always fun.
I have a digital one on my phone. Can you just check that? So this is non-negotiable? These request-inquiries were repeated twice by same player during team check-in prior to a mens amateur match on Saturday afternoon. His manager-captain tells the referee, they will not accept it, we have tried each trick in the book. My antennae pings. Player replied this league is so strict as if we are playing pros. The manager-captain tells referee to call the offside early, so we dont have to run. The digital/negotiation then follows the referee when we are checking the other team and asks again - so this is non-negotiable, right? Right, replies the referee, without showing any annoyance. The manager-captain of the other team, after checking in, provides unsolicited guidance on their opponents - dont listen to them ref, they will tell you what to do ... they have 26 cards so far ... If the referee hadnt checked the league table prior to arriving to the field, now he does. We start the match at scheduled kick-off time. There were a total of 21 fouls whistled and 2 yellow cards sanctions issued, in the first half; 10 fouls by the negotiator team and 11 by the will tell you team. I have flag duty 1 and with 1 sub (sitting in stand in the shade), I keep focus by counting fouls. Oh yes, one goal was scored. A total of 22 fouls whistled in second half, the digital/negotiator arrives 7 minutes before end of regulation, 5 more yellows issued until the 88th minute. Player recklessly challenges and both go down, the victim gets up and rugby tackles the perp while perp is clutching his ankle. Melee and lots of shouting, FUs mainly. Referee sanctions the two main combatants with red. Time expires and referee decides not to book the TMIs (third men in). The challenger is hurt so is being escorted by his teammates off the field to the stand, right across the halfway line. The victim has the record stuck on FU to the perp. I was told by the FU's teammate, the digital negotiator, you lost control of the match. His captain-manager tells me "You must retire" I respond, look closely at my badge - it reads emeritus!
I was refereeing all day Saturday and the two others guys I was with all day, we didn’t even hear about the potential biggest (political) news in recent history until the evening. Didn’t even hear anything from people all day at the games we were at. I’m sure the world stood still for a few hours there with every news station talking about it, but refereeing insulated us from all of it. Probably some of the few people in the country who hadn’t heard of it happening
As opposed to me who heard about it in the locker room 90 minutes before San Antonio FC vs Deportivo Saprissa and had to try to control the political junkie in me because I needed to focus and not go down a rabbit hole with no real new information.
Nice, in todays age being completely ignorant of major news is a strange feeling. Same thing happened when Kobe Bryant died. Still remember was doing games all day and didn’t hear about it until getting home that night even though it was probably the biggest news in the world at that time