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.