Misconduct away from the ball

You might have seen something similar on a WWC game recently. But in the video below, two players end up on the ground. One player first tries to stand up while the other player was still lying on the ground. As the first player stood up, she used her bent knee to make contact with the opponent's back/spine. 

The referee missed this incident but at the next stoppage, the trail AR called him over. The referee ended up giving a caution. Do you agree with the referee?

In this situation, althogh White #6 does not have any major reaction and spectators or benches do not appear to react, this is a red card offence (violent conduct). 

Who made the best call #6

Congratulations, Meghan, for winning Who Made the Best Call #5! She received over 80% of the votes! Now it is time for another one!

Clip 1 (USL-W, Meghan Brasseur, Teamwork)

In this video, the referee is delayed and missed a clear tripping offence by the GK. Although the incident happened on the other side of the field, 50 meters away from Meghan, she correctly provides the referee with the correct information. Based on her input, the referee correctly gives a PK. This is both a great involvement by Meghan but also great acknowledgement of information from AR1 by the part of the referee.

Clip 2 (USL-2, Justin Janulewicz, Wait-and-see)

When you hear the expression, "wait and see," you may think it is about ARs. But in reality, referees can also wait-and-see. They can give themselves an extra second or two before making a decision just to see what might happen. Justin delays his whistle to give himself a chance to see what might happen with the attack after an attacker seemingly breaks away from a foul.

Clip 3 (USL-W Playoff, Conference Semi-final, Audra Fullen, Attacking handball)

Have you heard of attacking handball? An attacker is not allowed to score a goal directly from their hand/arm or immediately after the ball makes contact with hand/arm, even if accidental. In this situation, Audra was quick to recognize that the ball hits the left arm of the attacker. The attacker has only a few yards to the goal line with a poorly positioned GK. Audra was smart to blow her whistle right away to give a FK to the defending team. 

Clip 4 (USL-W Playoff, Conference Final, Meghan Brasseur, SPA)

I know, I know.... Another Meghan clip. But she makes good decisions. In this clip, this is a textbook case for SPA. The control piece is lacking for this to be a DOGSO but this is an example of a correctly given SPA. 

Who should win this time?

Submit your vote here.

Who made the best call #5

Congratulations Marcus fro winning the last Who Made the Best Call with his PAI decision. But Jason was a very close second (he was only a vote behind).

This time, we have four more clips.

Clip 1 (USL-2, Kaltilin Girbach, Offside)

Kaitlin is a very frequent name on this Who Made the Best Call series. She has been doing great this season. We have another great call by her. Her offside deicion was tight by less than a foot. But in addition, after she flagged the play for offside, she recognized that players were still running and chasing the ball. So she kept her eyes on them just in case something bad happened.

Clip 2 (USL-2, Jeremy Valentine, SPA)

As a South Bend player loses the ball to a Lansing attacker, the SB player holds the shirt of the LAN attacker. The hold is relatively small. But it was enough to stop the attacker from moving forward with speed. The impeding of the movement was clear. This is a tactical foul. Jeremy correctly recognizes it and issues a caution. It is easy to miss something like this. 

Clip 3 (USL-W, Carlie Castiglione, Offside)

We have another great onside decision by our official. This time, Carlie has an attacker onside by a few inches at most. She correctly recognizes this very tight decision to keep her flag down. From her correct onside decision, a goal was scored.

Clip 4 (USL-W, Meghan Brasseur, Advantage)

Meghan is another frequent official who is doing really well this year. This time, she gave an advantage during the build up of play, which resulted in a goal. Look how calm she is. She does not rush to blow her whistle when she sees a foul. She gives herself time to process what she saw and allows the play to continue.

Who do you think should win this time??

Submit your vote here.

Who made the best call #4

Congratulations to Kaitlin Girbach for getting over 65% of the vote to become the winner of Who Made the Best Call #4!!! I also have to share that her consistently good performance was noted not just by those in the refereeing community but also by media!! Check out what Michigan Soccer Network annoucers had to say about Kaitlin (and Justin)!! Marcus and Walid, we know you are good! (We also know they spelled/pronounced some of your names wrong.)

This time, we have four clips again. Let us know who you think made the best call!

Clip 1 (NPSL, Jason Cross, Offside)

In this clip, we have an attacker who is clearly in an offside position. The ball is passed seeingly to him but Jason applies the wait-and-see principle and allows an onside attacker to chase the ball. The offside player never interferred with play or with an opponent. As a result, the attacking team was able to win a corner kick.

Clip 2 (Marcus Barnett, USL-2, Penalty Area Incident)

Many referees hesitate to give a PK early in a game. It is more so if the referee fears that players will complain that a PK is "soft." But as the saying goes, "a soft-boiled egg is still a boiled egg." Marcus was correct to give a PK for a pushing offence by a defender.

Clip 3 (USL-2, Aaron Scherer, Reckless challenge)

Just like in the last clip with Marcus, we have another early decision. At the 3rd minute of the game, a black player commits a reckless challenge against a white player. While many referees hesitate to give an early caution, Aaron correctly recognized that this was a reckless challenge. 

Clip 4 (MLS, Nick Balcer, Remembering the basics)

We have allowed two national / PRO ARs to get featured previoulsy so why not another one. Here, Nick is working on an MLS game. He correctly raises his flag for a foul and recognizes that it is a cautionable foul. To communicate this information to his referee, he pats on his badge. As an MLS AR, he has all the gadgets from the communication system to VAR to beeper flags. But he still followed the basics because technology can fail.

Submit your vote here.

Who made the best call #3

We have another set of four clips! Who made the best call this time??

Clip 1 (USL-W, Kerry Martenis, Injury Management)

In this clip, the ball hits the player in her head. The ball speed was high. Although the player reacts fine after the referee stops play, the replay shows that her head was snapped backwards because of the speed of the ball. When a high-speed ball hits a player in their head and the player falls, we must stop the game. Always err on the side of caution. This was a great decision by Kerry.

Clip 2 (NPSL, Aaron Scherer, Teamwork)

The white attacker in an offside position challenges the opponent for the ball and then commits a reckless challenge. But after that, expectedly, the white player quickly moves away and gets mixed in with his teammaters. In the meantime, an orange player talks to the referee, making it difficult for the referee to retain all the information. Aaron, however, was able to keep an eye on the player who had committed the foul. As a result, the referee was able to correctly issue a caution with the help of Aaron's input.

Clip 3 (USL-2, Meghan Brasseur, Advantage)

The attacker got fouled by the GK. The last touch by the attacker before the collision was not very convincing. But Meghan was patient. She knew that the ball was headed to the goal so gave herself a second or two to observe what was about to happen. She could have easily blown her whistle to give a PK. But her patience allowed this goal to happen.

Clip 4 (USL-W, Kaitiln Girbach, Offside)

This is an extremely tight offside decision. But Kaitlin was perfectly aligned to make this decision. The attacker was onside by a few inches, at most. A situaion like this would look like offside because of flash lag. But Kaitlin was correct to keep her flag down for the attacker being onside and allowed this goal to happen.

Submit your vote here.

Who Made the Best Call #2

I was not going to do the second entry until June but Michigan referees are doing so well on the field that I already have four candidates to release "Who Made the Best Call #2." Ryan Homik was the inaugural winner. So whoever wins this round can remind Ryan that he is no longer the most recent winner.

Clip 1 (USL-W, Audra Fullen, Injury Management)

In this clip, Audra recognized a possible head injury happend with the GK after she collided with an attacker. Her reaction to the incident (i.e. gesturing to the trainers to come on to the field) is best practice.

Clip 2 (USL-W, Kaitlin Keck, Penalty Area Decision)

There is a foul by the defender inside the penalty area as soon as the attacker successfully goes around her. Kailtin is positioned well to observe this challenge from the side, in other words without having her view shield by anyone's body. 

Clip 3 (MWPL, Jason Cross, Advantage)

With only a minute or two left in the game with the 1-0 score, Jason gives an advantage on a reckless challenge. The team proceeds to score a goal to make it 2-0, securing their win. Because the advantage was given on a reckless challenge, Jason correctly issues a caution after the goal, before the kick off.

Clip 4 (USL-C, Joe Suchoski, Teamwork)

Honestly I don't what it is about these national ARs who want to appear in our "Who Made the Best Call" but I guess they're like us. They want to brag their good calls. In this clip, violent conduct happens outside the referee's view. Joe sees it and communicates the information correctly to the referee. The referee takes Joe's advice and send the player off.

Submit your vote here.

AR responsibility

Assistant referees have a lot of roles to play. Especially when there is a counterattack and the referee is far from play, the AR plays a critical role. Sometimes there may be a SPA offence committed during the counterattack and the referee is not in a good position to see it. Maybe the AR can help. But it does not mean the AR needs to flag for the foul and a caution right away because there may be advantage.

In the clip below, we highlight how ARs need to recognize when they are closer to the play and/or have a better view of an incident than the referee, when to be ready to act like a referee by raising their flag, but also when to be patient in case there is advantage. Furtheremore, if we apply advantage, the AR needs to quickly shift their focus to the next phase of play.

Injury Mangement

When you suspect a head injury, what do you do? Ask the player if they need a trainer? The answer is "No." If you suspect a head injury, get a trainer onto the field right away. It is possible that the player does not actually need a trainer but err on the side of caution. You would rather make a mistake for beckoning a trainer onto the field prematurely than not.

Below, you see a best practice example of a suspected head injury management. The referee immediately recognized there was a suspected head injury and beckoned trainers on. She also pointed at her own head to indicate to everyone that there was a suspected head injury.

Who Made the Best Call? #1

Every 5 to 7 weeks, we will share sevral video clips to decide which Michigan referee made the best call. Below you will find the video of our referees in action and a link where you can vote. The winner of this inaugural "Who Made the Best Call" competition will win the bragging rights as the inaugural winner.

Clip 1 (NISA, Ryan Homik and Rob Ruta, Teamwork)

In this video, Ryan (referee) and Rob (AR1) both were patient enough to "wait and see" on a possible foul. Once they were certain that a FK would be more beneficial to the attacking team than an advantage or letting them play, they called a foul together. If one of them had called a foul prematurely, it could have easily denied a good advantage situation.

Clip 2 (NLC, Rob Ruta, Advantage)

Clip 3 (MLSN, Jeremy Shultz, Teamwork)

In this clip, the referee awards a PK but Jeremy is certain that there was no foul by the defender. Because he was very confident about his decision and he had a very good view of the challenge, he asks the referee to come over and shares his decision. This allowed the referee to cancel his PK decision and restart the game with a dropped ball. This is a great display of teamwork by Jeremy but also for the referee to listen to his AR and takes his advice.

Clip 4 (MLSNP, Jake Brochu, Offside)

Yes, it may be a bit unfair to have a national official here but look at how tight this offside decision was and Jake was able to correctly call offside, which denied a goal that was going to tie the game.

Submit your vote here.

Tempo Management

Sometimes we miss fouls or see some challenges but decide to "let them play." Parents and coaches often say, "Let them play," when they feel like we are calling too many fouls. But not taking care of small fouls can oftentimes lead to a bigger problem on the field. Sometimes, we even see cues that the game temperature is rising.

In the video below, you will see that a player challenges with his studs exposed. Fortunately, he makes no contact with the opponent who was also challenging for the ball. But soon after, there is a reckless challenge that the referee missed. Within a second, the player who committed the reckless challenge suffers from a retaliation from a teammate who had been hurt by the first reckless challenge. A mass confrontation ensues. 

Once the mass confrontation happens, there is little a referee can do. Stay away from it. You are not going to stop it. Watch and observe from some distance so you can get the big picture. Write down who is doing what. If you end up in the middle of a mass confrontation to stop it, you will usually not remember or not know at all who needs a card.

High/low press

Have you heard of high/low press? When a team has the ball around the half-way line or even in their own half, and the opposing team is pressuring them in an attempt to take the ball away from them, it is called "high press." In a similar situation, if no opposing players are chasing the ball and if they are just waiting for the other team to get closer to their own penalty area, it is called "low press."

Recognizing the level of press can help you with your positioning. If there is high press and the ball could be "stolen" by the other team, you can have a situation where within a few seconds, yoyu have a possible penalty area incident. In the mean time, if you have low press but if you (the referee) chase the ball, you will be far from the next phase of play following a long vertical ball. 

However, even where there is high press, a player or two may not have a defender marking them. In that case, it is easy to anticipate who will get the ball next. Check out the video below to identify who might get the ball next and how you might be able to adjust your positioning.

Delay Restart

There are times, as referees, we don't know if a player's action is delaying a restart (DR) or not. If it is, we have to issue a yellow card. But there are many instances where a player's action appears to fall short of a cautionable offence. What do you do when you are unsure?

The video below goes over six simple questions you can ask yourself. DR is not like DOGSO where you have to check all the boxes. For DR, you need to look at various considerations and decide if a player's action qualifies as DR.

Passback

We have had some confusion so let's make it clear. 

- A GK inside their own penalty area handles the ball that was deliberately kicked to them by their own teammate (so-called "passback") and denies an obvious goal scoring opportunity, denies an obvious goal, or stops a promising attack. In this case, a card is not issued.

- A GK inside their own penalty area plays the ball for the second time after a restart (so-called "double touch") and denies an obvious goal scoring opportunity, denies an obvious goal, or stops a promising attack. In this case, a card is issued.

The video below is slightly different. In this case, the GK handled the ball that was deliberately kicked to him outside his penalty area. Therefore, the referee's decision to issue a red card for DOGSO was correct.