Undercut

Sometimes it can be difficult to know the difference between a player jumping at an opponent and a player being undercut. 

One of the ways to tell the difference includes observing who initiates contact. If it is a jumping-at offence, the player in the air is moving toward the opponent. If it is an undercut, you will notice that the player who is on the bottom moving their body to the opponent.

In this video below, you will see a defender slighly moves his body to the lower half of the attacker's body. The force is relatively small. But when a body is in the air, it does not take much force for it to lose balance. This is an example of an undercut offence.

Don't let your guard down

Sometimes we are so focused while the ball is in play. As soon as the ball is out of play, we let our guard down. But bad things can happen even when the ball is out of play.

Watch the clip below. The game is 0-2 with about 20 minutes left. The white team that is down by 2 goals will score. Now they are only a goal behind. What do you think will happen? An eager attacker will try to put the ball back in play quickly. He would go grab the ball out of the goal. We have all seen it. The eager attacker and a frustrated GK isn't a good combination. Keep your eyes on this priority area.

To be fair, on this game, there was an injured player who was ready to come back to the game waiting by the AR2 touchline. But what do you think is the priority? The game was already stopped. 

Alignment

Some offside decision are tight. Some are not. Regardless, if you are not properly aligned with the offside line, you may incorrectly give or not give offside.

In the video below, the attacker was onside by 1.2 meters (about 4 feet). The AR was misaligned by 1.0 meter (about 3 feet). But because the AR was ahead of the offside line, it looks like the attacker was offside. Consequently, the AR raised his flag and the referee called offside. Had the flag stayed down, the attacker would have had a 1v1 situation against the GK.

Remain focused. Use your agility, speed, and anticipation to remain in line with the offside line.

Who initiated contact?

When we talk about considerations, we often do so to discuss if an offence deserved a red card or a yellow card. We seldom talk about considerations to determine if a foul has occured? We sometimes take it for granted that we know what a foul is. But do we really?

Also, when a player is hurt after they fouled an opponent, we are sometimes misled to believe that the player who is hurt received a foul. We cannot use "who is more hurt?" as a consideration to determine who fouled.

In the video below, a player who is hurt more actually initiated contact. The black team defender fairly plays the ball and receives contact from the white attacker. The referee, unfortunately, gave a free kick for the white attacking team. 

"Who initiated contact?" is an important consideration for us to use to determine who fouled.

 

Teamwork

We have written a few enrtries on teamwork and offside. Here is another example.

The video is unclear if the attacker was in an offside position at the moment of the last touch on the ball by his teammate. So the video does not have evidence to say that the goal was legal or not. However, for instructional purposes, pretend he was in an offside position when the ball was last touched by his teammate.

A good AR should be able to recognize that the ball, the attacker, and the GK were so close together that an offside offence (i.e. interfere with an opponent, or IWO) has happened. The referee in the middle is also expected to recognize that an offence has happened. If you are the referee, you would not know if the attacker was onside or offside. So you would just have the information that there was a possible IWO. Once your AR tells you the attacker was in an offside position, you would put two pieces of the puzzle together and disallow the goal. If the AR says the attacker was onside, you give the goal.

This is a great example of how important teamwork might be on a critical decision like this. Remember, we are only assuming the attacker was offside. We have no evidence from this video alone if the attacker was truly onside or offside. Therefore, this is not any commentary whatsoever on this referee crew.

Advantage on DOGSO

It is rare to give an advanatge on a DOGSO or even on any red-card sitution. But it happens. Below is a clip of a DOGSO situation where the referee gives an advantage and a goal is scored soon after. This was a great decision by the referee.

Just remember that because an advantage was given, the referee needs to give a caution before the kickoff.

Injury Management

If you suspect a serious injury, just stop the game. You may also consider the location of the injury. If you have an injured player lying motionless on the ground in front of the goal, you have even more reasons to stop the game right away.

In the video below, you will see two players from the same team ending up on the ground for suspected head injuries. They are in front of the goal inside the penalty area. If the attack continues, it will be very dangerous. These injured players are on the ground and they could easily be stepped on, etc. causing additional injuries. If the ball possession changes and the defending team becomes the attacking team, you are allowing them to take advantage of suspected serious injuries in order to create a numerical advantage. 

This means beyond the fact that we need to attend to serious injuries, there is nothing to be gained by the referee crew by allowing the play to continue. 

Offside and teamwork

Who makes an offside decision? Is it the AR? Or is it the Referee? Or is it both?

The AR is the one that raises their flag so you may think offside is on ARs. You may have also heard a pre-game discussion in which the referee says, "Leave PK decisions to me and I will leave offside decisions to you."

But in order to get any decision correctly, we need good teamwork. Below, you will see a video in which a defender clearly kicks the ball to an attacker who is in an offside position. It is not impossible for the AR to see it but it is still quite difficult because the AR is paying attention to the offside line and the last play is far from him. Furthermore, there was also an attacking teammate near the ball. But the referee had a good view of the entire sequence. Therefore, the referee is expected to know who played the ball last.

If the crew have comms, the referee needs to annouce to their AR that the ball was last played by the defender so that the AR would not raise their flag. If they don't have comms, it is completely understandable that the AR raises their flag but the referee is expected to wave them down.

Injury and misconduct

When you have both an injury and misconduct happen at the same time, which do you take care of first? If you take care of the injury first, you may allow mass confrontation to happen. But if you take care of the midconduct happen, you are leaving the injured player unattended.

What is the best course of action? Watch the video below to review some of the considerations to decide your priority.

High Pressure Tactics

When a team has low pressure tactics, they allow the opposing team defenders and midfielders to possess the ball and pass it around. When a team has high pressure tactics, they try to retrieve the ball even near the attacking third. Depending on these tactics, referees need to adjust their positioning.

With low pressure tactics, referees can observe the ball being passed around from a distance. The likelihood of the ball possession being turned over is low. But if a team has high pressure tactics, there is always a chance that the possession changes, and there will be an immediate goal opportunity.

Watch the video clip below. This is an example of a high pressure tactic team that successfully retrieved the ball inside the opponent's penalty area. Unfortunately, the referee did not adjust their positioning. So you will see the referee over 33 meters away when a challenge happened, leading them to give an incorrect free kick and cancel a good goal.

Injury

Just like the last time, this is about injury. 

We will repeat. If you suspect a serious injury, just stop the game. Even if a team is about to score, a suspected serious injury is of higher importance and priority. Err on the side of caution. If the player turns out to be not seriously injured, it is good news. We would rather you stop a game for being careful than the other way round.

Injury

When a player is injured, quickly check on them to see if they are seriously injured. Law 5 states that if a player is seriously injured, the referee will stop the game. How do you know when a player is seriously injured?

Usually head and abdominal injuries can be serious. You may not see any blood but if a player is not moving at all on the ground, you should suspect a serious injury. A player who rolls on the ground 6 times while looking at you and asking you to blow your whistle may make the scene look dramatic but does not mean they are seriously injured. 

Take a look at the video below. A blue attacker falls onto the ground after colliding with two opponents. The referee continued the game for 12 seconds, until the ball went out of touch. The referee MUST stop the game in this situation. Even if a team was about to score, just stop the game. Err on the side of caution.

Wall Management

A soccer game is 90 minutes in length. But so-called effective playing time (how many minutes the ball was actually in play) may be as low as 60 minutes or even far less. This is why as referees, we must prevent time wasting by players. But sometimes we contribute to time wasting.

Look at the video below. The referee correctly calls a foul (although he misses the tactical nature of the offence and fails to issue a card) and brings the ball back to where the restart should be. Even though the wall is clearly too close, he moves away. A few second later, he comes back to move the wall back. This resulted in about 30 seconds of time lost. 

In this situation, there was no quick free kick to be taken. It was going to be a ceremonial restart. The referee should have moved the wall back once the ball was set.