I’ve been reducing the amount of refereeing that I’ve been doing for a variety of reasons so I have been negligent on these threads. Let’s look at a few scenarios.
a) IFAB changed the rules this year. Fouls in the box committed mainly by the feet that deny an obvious goal scoring opportunity which do not rise on their own to be a red card offense are now only a yellow card and penalty kick instead of a red card and a penalty kick. What do you expect to happen?
b) Blue #22 is a beast. She is an elite player with national team exposure. If her knees hold up and she continues to hit the weight room she will at some point start for the USWNT squad. She has a history of playing a very physical, very strong, very aggressive but legal style. How do you as a referee approach the following situations:
b1: Of the 22 starting players on the field, 19 of them have D-1 scholarship offers and the other three are being scouted for D-1 offers.
b2: Of the 22 starting players on the field, no one else will even be scouted for a D-1 offer.
C) Back to Blue #22. She receives a pass from midfield 35 yards out from goal on the wing and proceeds to rapidly close the distance to goal. She jukes a defender. The defender, Gold #2, jumps on her back and piggy back rides Blue #22 into the box. Blue #22 spins off the center back, slamming Gold #2 into her teammate, and then Blue #22 launches a shot into the top left hand corner of the goal. What do you do with Gold #2?
D) You’re refereeing a men’s Open match. Gray just committed a simple tripping foul. Gray has committed the last six fouls. What are you thinking about Gray and their opponent, Red?
A) I understand where IFAB/FIFA is coming from on this rule. I don’t like it for the non-professional games. Reducing the cost of a foul means we will see more fouls. Dropping the red card for a shitty but not excessively violent challenge in the box will lead to more shitty challenges in the box. I’m not too worried about the safety of field players but goal keepers will have a strong incentive to always go out too hard and wild. As long as they don’t junk punch the attacker and keep their shoelaces as the first point of contact against the attacker, they’re not going to get red carded.
At the professional level, I trust the keepers to safely challenge with too much aggression. I don’t trust U-15 boys to do that. I anticipate an increase in significant injuries because of more desperate last second challenges in the box. I hate this rule for the games that I referee.
B) Our job as referees is to protect players while ensuring a safe and fair game. That applies to every player of any skill levels. With that said, we have an added responsibility to protect unique players as they are doing things with the ball that places them in danger against low skill opponents. And that creates a challenge.
B1) This is easy. I’m assuming that everything that is done on the field is done with intent and with skill. If there is a foul, the fouling player meant to foul. I don’t have to do much to protect Blue #22 from herself or from other players. If Blue #22 is going in hard for a challenge, I can assume that she is going in with full awareness of what her opponent is most likely going to do. If an opponent goes in hard against her, I’m not worried about injuries. I’m just calling the game with a fairly narrow definition of what a foul looks like.
B2) This is the referee’s headache. Any challenge in this game is going to be of varied skill, intent and body awareness. Blue #22 can play through a lot of skilled contact but the sloppy challenge will get her knees at some point. The question is how to call the game consistently? Blue #22 can commit to challenges that in B1 were assumed to be the normal course of player where the referee does nothing more than note whose banging on whom and side steps to a better angle. In this game, that challenge is outside the expected realm of contact. Is it a foul? Is it endangering the safety of players because they don’t have the skill to get out of their own way? Is it endangering the safety of Blue #22 because other players will try to do what she is doing? Why is that challenge a foul today and nothing in B-1? Dealing with a massive skill imbalance is a challenge.
C) One way of dealing with a massive skill imbalance is to let the elite player tell you when they want the foul. They will let the referee know when a foul is worth calling. In this case, Blue #22 was giving a piggy back ride to a 105 pound defender and she kept on moving with eyes on goal and the ball under control. She had enough body control and strength to use the defender on her back as a pick to create space against another defender. And then she scored. I don’t see her losing her attacking advantage in that sequence as it ended with a goal.
Now what to do with Gold #2? She tried to recklessly foul the attacker. She really did. She failed miserably at it, but the intent and attempt was there. A piggy back ride has no place in the game. There is an argument that this action was done with complete disregard for the safety of the opposing player. If she sank her feet into the thighs of the attacker, it would be a foul of excessive force.
This is, in my mind, an easy yellow card. The action has no place in the game and it is an attempt at a cynical tactical foul. Now I don’t have a DOGSO for denying an obvious goal scoring opportunity for a variety of reasons including the fact that a goal was not denied. And at that time, I did not have Violent Conduct nor Serious Foul Play as she did not bring the attacker to the ground but that starts getting really close. So Gold #2 gets a caution for trying to cynically foul Blue #22 and she got physically mauled when she got slammed into her teammate on the spin move. I see the justice in that.
D) I’m thinking that if I can find a foul to call against Red in the mid-field in the next couple of minutes, I’m calling a soft foul against Red and for Gray.
Just one more canuck
Thank you for these threads, David/Richard -my daughter is U12 competitive and wants to take the refereeing course so can can do house league games. I know these kind of situations won’t come up for years but it’s good to know how to look at games from different perspectives
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Easy – for games under the FIFA hood, have a bribe schedule prearranged…
wasdeaconblues
Also enjoy these threads David. By the way, welcome to the Triangle of North Carolina!
From a referee further down the chain than you (15 years experience, started with open adult and Latino leagues, now mainly U11/U12 classic, occasional U13-U15 classic, occasional challenge babysitting), I’d say that the card relaxation on foot challenges in the box will reinforce the reluctance of new referees to issue red cards at all. Challenges usually aren’t as severe at my levels as yours, and the referee pool is much newer/younger. Also, many of our refs simply aren’t up to date on the current changes (and I think more are coming in June).
Never faced your second scenario. Regarding #22, I strongly believe in protecting attacking players in the service of the developmental needs of the game, particularly at the lower levels that I work. Reading your scenarios over again, I see you are emphasizing the kinds of challenges that #22 would make against her opponents of varying skill.
If she’s as elite and well-regarded as you say, she won’t be playing with the non D-I skill players too much longer. She’s still responsible for the results of her challenges even if unintended. However, I would say that a well-executed challenge would be a “learning experience” for the other, lesser players. If they return the favor, they’re similarly responsible for the results of their challenges.
One would hope that #22’s coaches and parents make her aware of the relative unimportance of the lesser skilled game versus her national team future. That’s certainly a tough question, but it seems to me that if the player decides to unleash her beast challenges in the lesser skilled game, she’s practically choosing to open herself up to the lesser skilled, possibly clumsy challenges of a similar nature.
Legal beast challenges are a part of the game but don’t deserve the same amount of preemptive protection as “unique players doing things with the ball that places them in danger versus low skilled opponents.” IMHO, of course.
The scenario with the piggyback is hilarious and correctly called, in my judgment.
Making a marginal call for Grey is good game management. I once had a game in which the one team just kept fouling and I had to keep calling those fouls. It becomes easy to look for a way to even things up, if only to reduce the grousing. The difference in skill levels usually means a blow-out is already underway….
—wasdeaconblues
Elmo
Why shouldn’t the piggybacker be ejected?
David Anderson
@Elmo: I’m having a hard time seeing excessive force being used for the piggy-backer. Is there force illegally applied? Yes. Is it excessive? The attacker scored after making a 15 yard run with two significant changes of direction with the defender on her back. You could argue it is a red. If I was the AR, I would not try to talk the center out of a red. But the center in this case was thinking failed tactical foul that did not endanger the safety of the fouled player.
As a side note, this scenario was under high school rules.
Currants
Wow. I did not read that scenario as Gold #2 LITERALLY piggybacking.
Me too, David, love your ref threads as much as your health care threads, even though it’s been a decade or more since I coached (local girls u13, and Girls ODP u19).
ThresherK
I played (undistinguishedly) for one year in HS on a team that allowed everybody. The small number of students meant no cuts.
We had a female on the team. She was a forward. I largely platooned at left fullback where I could
do the least damage to my teamwork on my skills.We didn’t have names on back, but I’d’ve been tempted to have put Referee’s Headache on mine.
David Anderson
@ThresherK: I was a multi-threat in high school. I could start on either the bench or on water. I was skilled at both.
Elmo
@David Anderson: Understand that I know nothing about soccer except what a reasonably intelligent person can discern from the teevee. My viewing of the game tells me that leaping on someone’s back and hanging on is about as far outside the structure of the game as an intentional punch to the face would be.
I can understand not whistling the play dead, because the ball handler was about to score and didn’t seem to mind the extra weight. Totally with you on that. But just because the cheating player is ineffectual, that doesn’t (to me) reduce the culpability for blatant cheating and introducing an attempted football-style tackle into the game.
If a safety were to leap onto Terrell Owens’ back while the pass was in flight, and Owens just let him ride and caught the ball for a TD anyway, that’s still pass interference – even though tackling is part of the game of football. Tackling isn’t even PART of soccer – is it??
ThresherK
@David Anderson: When the coach saw his backup center practicing three-pointers, he yelled “Don’t waste your time on those. Work on your shooting from where you’re going to be during the game!”
The player rolled a rack of balls to the end of the bench, sat down, and resumed shooting.
NobodySpecial
A) More bad challenges, I agree. Just a bad ruling. Lower levels should absolutely be about making sure that kids who move up the ladder understand that certain things are not justified, EVER.
B) I approach them both the same way, with the understanding that in B), the opponents are less skilled and therefore less likely to play cleanly.
However, I immediately launch Gold #2 from the game if at all possible. Running while carrying a dead weight is different from running while carrying a live person – if they shift the wrong way, you get a ringside view of the Franco Columbu refrigerator race injury. Don’t care how unsuccessful it was, it was pretty clearly dangerous play.
C) Call a soft foul on Red and hope Gray understands that this is the only thing keeping someone on Red from losing their composure and committing a bad foul.
Eric U.
I am not sure what the psychological benefit of calling a foul on Red is if Gray is doing all the fouling. Of course, I was always the youth soccer parent that tried to get my son to kick back when someone stole the ball from him by repeatedly kicking him in the shins. He’s a loser at soccer, but a lot better person than I am.
MobiusKlein
@NobodySpecial: I have been watching my daughters youth soccer for years, and still have no idea the difference between soft fouls for parity and bad reffing.
On the sidelines, it is all mystery.
philpm
I agree with the Yellow on Gold #2, especially since she got her comeuppance by being slammed in to her own teammate while a goal was being scored. She won’t forget that anytime soon.
low-tech cyclist
Jeez, David, it’s not like anything’s been going on with health care these days. You should have had plenty of time for more of these threads. ;^)
Shygetz
I agree with every one but D. For D, if the uneven balance of fouls against Gray reflect the flow of the game, rather than looking for a nothing foul to call against Red to prevent retaliation, I would look for an opportunity to issue a yellow card to a Gray player for Persistent Infringement. Ticking Red for a foul inconsistent with how you have been calling the game might keep Red from escalating, but will also encourage Gray in their style of play.
If, on the other hand, Red and Gray are playing similar physical styles and Gray is just getting caught more, then I agree with you.
Just One More Canuck
@MobiusKlein: In many cases it seems to be whatever the referee can see without having to move more than 30 feet from the centre line, and whoever protests the most. My daughter’s team had one play where our player was trying to get the ball from her opponent who was defending with her back to our girl. The opponent came off the ball, took a step and then pushed our girl to the ground. Guess who got the foul?
cmorenc
Your new HS assignor Mark Kadlecik would say, “call the fouls!…I’ve never had a complaint from a coach or AD that we called the game too tight”. And one of his clinic examples this past Sunday was precisely the one above where a girls’s HS team has one star D-1 prospect and the rest not so much…and the problem might just be that the prospective D1 star will tend to be more physical than the tolerance of the most of the players on her or the opposing teams (also comprised of lower-level players).
MobiusKlein
My recent WTF call we saw was during a loose ball near the goal, with the ball being kicked at by both teams about 2 feet from the goal.
It was kicked by the defending team last prior to the goalie picking it up. The goalie was on the ground, and grabbed the ball in this case. The ref called it as an intentional pass to the goalie, and set up an indirect free kick pretty much on the goal line. Is that a sensible or correct call?
(my daughter was the goalie in this case, so I may not be impartial. But everybody was very confused.)
Amir Khalid
@Elmo:
I would call it a red card to the defender for violent conduct. I think jumping onto a forward’s back definitely qualifies as as a physical attack i.e. violence. Non-maximal violence is still violence, and gets a straight red. Even verbal provocation gets you a red card.
Jim (f/dba Senator Ted)
David – I’ve never ref’d soccer, but I thoroughly enjoy these posts. It’s a chance to learn more about a sport I know little about, thanks for taking the time.
David Anderson
@MobiusKlein: Not having been there, if there was a mad cluster of chaos in the goal mouth, I doubt that I would have made that same decision.
David Anderson
@cmorenc: What’s a foul? Is it trifling? Is is a foul that the players expected to have called or is it surprising to them?
I agree, you have to call the fouls as you see them, but the fundamental question is what is a foul. There are the easy ones, the straight trips and shirt pulls and run throughs where the shoulders are not within the same zip code of each other…. but what about those marginal calls and where is a marginal call on any given game and any given field. Take a look at an international match’s expected level of contact versus the expected level of contact in a boy’s high school game that won’t start a brawl. Two very different foul thresholds driven by skill and expectations of the players.
And I’ve been bitched at for calling competitive games too tightly. That was a common assessment point for me to let things flow more in 2007-2010.
burnspbesq
On D, I would have a word with the captain of Gray, or get his/her eye and deliver the universal, non-verbal signal for “keep it down.” The next Gray foul, no matter how innocuous, gets a booking.
David Anderson
@low-tech cyclist: Mostly it is the structural organization and economics of refereeing in North Carolina compared to PA West. If I’m going to get any decent games, it is a 30 mile drive for less pay and fewer games instead of a 10 minute walk for a better pay and more available games. Assignment and payment is centralized and powerful down in NC compared to a fractured payer market in PA West.
David Anderson
@burnspbesq: 6 fouls in 10 minutes — completely agree, 6 fouls in 41 minutes totally different story.
Assume no malice, assume no intent.
Victor Matheson
A. I will take a contrary opinion here and say that it will have almost no effect. Referees in anything outside of the highest level of play already almost never gave a foul and red card for DOGSO unless it was an obvious fast break where the player was taken down outside the area, or a handball to deny a goal, or an obvious shirt grab in the penalty area that basically undresses the player. All of those are still red cards, so no change. The nasty goalkeeper challenges or bad fouls from behind are still a red card for serious foul play. I don’t think the red card deterred very many players for fouls that penalty kicks were being given anyways. Of course, I do realize that the fact that I can’t recall any PK/red card situations from any of my recent games may be a result of old rules making the players having the incentive not to commit these type of fouls, so I could easily be wrong.
B1: Shouldn’t be an issue. Ref the way you ref a D1 women’s college game (as long as that means being fair and protect the players).
B2: Often not an issue as the better player simply dominates in a way that actually reduces the amount of physical play. If the player is getting fouled a lot, give a yellow for persistent infringement even if the fouls are committed by different players. If the eventual yellow card goes to a player on their first foul, well, wrong player but right time. If the good player is committing too many fouls, a quiet word should work. They know they are better than everyone and they should be able to dial it down a notch.
C: Goal and yellow card. If the game is already out of hand, say 4 or 5 to zero, whistle right away as soon as the player gets jumped on and give the yellow. Even though advantage is the right call technically, these type of “jump on top of players” fouls have a tendency to result in the dreaded mass confrontation. Taking away a goal scoring chance in a 4-0 game is better than the huge risk of the brawl.
D. If the last 6 fouls are just simple 50-50 fouls that have just happened to go against red, then look for a cheap foul to give the other way. If the last 6 fouls range from simple to kind of dirty or cynical, then look for the next chance to give gray a yellow for USB or persistent.
quakerinabasement
How is the motivation behind David’s answer on D any different from the motivation behind “both sides do it” news reporting?
lurker
@quakerinabasement
News reporters are the fans in the stands shouting about whether a call was correct and whether a foul was committed. They have no real power to make a decision in the game, although they have influence. The referee has the whistle and control of the game by the laws of soccer. There is no analog to a referee in our political system, although a federal judge sometimes has the ability to impose penalties for bad political actors in some litigation (e.g. review of administrative action or constitutionality of a law).
The motivation for David’s answer on D is player safety and game management. If Gray is convinced the referee is against them, Gray will take matters into their own hands sooner or later. Gray may legitimately have received all six fouls and Red may have been a bunch of boy scouts, but human nature will not lead to a rational result here. More likely, Red has a better sense of what the bar for fouls is, or has gotten lucky in terms of referee attention. Either way, getting too obviously unbalanced when one team is not way out of hand will lead to a bad situation.
That does not mean that Gray will not get a yellow card for persistent infringement if they keep stringing fouls together like that. There are a lot of ways this might play out, but calling a (potentially soft) foul on Red will likely limit your headaches in the game.