"There was no intent..."

If the coaches don't have succeeded background then you are just SOL when it comes to dealing with them when they want to argue a rule they have no idea on.

 

Not surprising because it is a very poor idea to try and put a deterrence rule into the disciplinary code.

 

Just like pregnancy it doesn't matter whether you planned to or not. An action has a consequence coach.....


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Always a good one...."Nah, you're wrong!"

 

"(S)he didn't mean it, but it's still a foul."

 

Maybe a simple first reply, "Coach, intent is not a consideration for determining carelessness or recklessness <turns and jogs away>.

 

Coach, your opponent intended to score a goal, shall I award it?

 

Humor has its place, but I don't think this is a good place for it. Game critical events with the loss of a player is not when a coach's sense of humor is going to be at the top. IMHO, your best bet is to agree it wasn't intentional and explain that an ordinary foul is a send off it if denies an obvious goal scoring opportunity. (I would personally possibly add that I don't like the rule but I have to enforce it.) YMMV.

 

When I first saw the tag line on this topic, I thought it actually referred to Nigel DeJong's response after his latest assault on the pitch over the weekend. Excuse the intrusion, don't mean to hijack your thread.
By the way, I agree with SoCal, not the time or the place for a humorous quip. Likely to backfire on you. JMO

 

I assume we're already past the simple explanation of the law. At that point it's either a quip that might break through his misunderstanding or its just shutting him down.


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There's a whole lot of "it depends" to this question. A large part of what "it depends" on is who you are and who the coach is, and what sort of relationship, if any, you've developed with him/her up to this point. Is this an experienced soccer coach, or – like more than a few HS soccer coaches – a football or basketball coach who got dragooned into coaching the soccer team in the off season? Are you about the coach's age or older, or younger such that you might be seen as a smartass whippersnapper telling him/her their business?

Etc. It depends.

 

As a coach that knows the Laws, I wouldn't be complaining. If I were a coach that didn't know the Laws, the first sentence quoted above is what I'd want/need to hear. I'd leave the parenthetical part out - too many coaches whine too much as it is and this just leaves the door open for more pointless whining.

 

Unfortunately, there's a third category — coaches who think they know the Laws.

 

I always say.."Coach, how do you know that he/she didn't intend to commit the foul?"

I have never been given a good answer.

 

to my mind the problem with that comment is that it may reinforce the idea that intent is relevant. YMMV.

 

"You didn't see the look in his eye coach. I did."





JK, JK.

 

Okay - I think this needs to be said. I'm not judging anything. I have no idea how intense this HS soccer scene is. Could be anything from sly, sophisticated, and often out of control adolescents to the naive, clumsy, and clueless. Perhaps the coach understands the rule perfectly well and their "There was no intent..." is just a way of saying "My that was a harsh and injudicious call..." If it's coming up so often you are looking for a quip to settle a coach, maybe you need to recalibrate?

The DOGSO rules are problematic. Consider the backpass rule and why it works so well. You just don't see backpasses. Why? Because the deterrence works. The penalty, an IFK in the PA, outweighs any advantage in picking up the ball, while not being so decisive that a CR won't call it. Picking up the ball is a conscious decisions that can be avoided. And the whole thing is so rare that the CR can treat an occasional lapse as a mistake deserving a warning.

None of this is true for DOGSO. It is often best for a player to commit it - Suarez at the WC, or (in a non-DOGSO but similar situation) Ballack taking a cumulative YC to keep him out of the final by hacking down his loose Korean mark. It cannot always be avoided. A defender defending takes a chance, sticks his leg out at the wrong moment and commits a foul they never intended. And it's a devastating call, which we regularly see highest level CR's erring on the side to discretion. When called in the PA, it's nicknamed the "triple penalty" and there have been formal proposals to change it to a YC when it occurs there.

So I agree with some others. This probably isn't the place for a quip, but maybe sympathy. More like, "It's a harsh call that is my duty to make."

 

Coach, I have to make the call based on what happened - not what I think the player meant to do.

 

It would be hysterical if this intent business came up at a Catholic, no, Jesuit HS.

For wider use however:

Coach, I can't read his mind, I can only see what he does and take action accordingly

 

Funny...last night I had a coach run the "I don't think it was intentional" on me after the end of the first half. I pretty much said what I had said here, but there certainly have been other good solutions expressed.

 

I had a coach last night, in all seriousness, tell me that since the foul in the PA was not intentional we could (should) have given an IFK. I was unsuccessful in convincing him otherwise.

 

Girls V game last night. Throw in at the attacking 3rd I have the center. Positioned top of the arc between AR2 and where the throw is going. Throw goes to girl 2 yards in at the corner of the PA, her back is to the goal to receive throw. Defender comes charging up and literally flattens the girl from behind. I blow the whistle and point to the spot. The coach from the farthest bench from the play yells. "That wasn't in the box!!".