Wall management

When you manage the wall upon a free kick, which side of the wall do you go to? Have you ever made a conscious decision about it? 

Usually, it is better go outside (closer to the touchline) than inside (closer to the middle of the field). This is because if you manage a wall from inside, your back is turned to the rest of the field. What are you missing when you have your back turned to the rest of the field? Especially when a free kick is taken near a penalty area, you would have your back turned to the penalty area and a number of players congregating near or inside the penalty area.

If you manage the wall from outside, you can keep the penalty area and the players in your eye sight while moving the wall backwards or walking to the players in the wall.

Here is a video example of a referee having his back turned to the rest of the field. Nothing happened here. But if something had happened, he would have had to rely on his ARs and fourth official for information.

Wide Diagonal

In your introductory referee class, you learned that the referee would run on a diagonal line so they can keep the play between themselves and an assistant referee. While this statement is true, the referee should not run on a diagonal "line." Their diagonal must be much wider than a line.

When a play goes to a referee quadrant, no assistant referee is close. Therefore, the referee needs to get closer to the play by going wider to their left on their diagonal line. When a play goes closer to the assistant referee, the referee still needs to increase their presence because the assistant referee frequently has to worry about offside or the ball in-and-out. This means that the referee must go wider to their right on their diagonal.

Furthermore, by having a wider diagonal, the referee is able to have a better view of an incident that could happen on the field. In the video below, the referee remains central on the field without width. As a result, when an offense occurs, he does not have good proximity. A few players are between the referee and the challenge. In addition, he is not in the best position to judge the direction of play, which is one of the criterial to decide if an offense is a denial of an obvious goal scoring opportunity.

Sprinting after a foul

What do you do after you call a foul? Sometimes you want to move closer to the foul location slowly and let the players calm down themselves. If the foul is a minor one, all you have to do may be just blowing your whistle. Some other times, however, you want to sprint to the spot of the foul to show your presence and manage the players. Especially when there is a foul near a penalty area or a misconduct, you want to increase your presence.

In the video below, you will see a referee calling a foul about 12 yards away from the location. This is already good proximity. But he chooses to sprint even closer. The game was already heated. Even though the referee was making right decisions, players had complained. Therefore, his decision to move closer to the foul location was important for management. In addition, the challenge was reckless. For an important decision like this, you want to show to players that you were right there. You were so close that you missed nothing.

Watching between players

When two players challenge for the ball, as a referee, we must be able to observe the space between the players. This allows us to see if the challenge is fair. If one player pushes, trips, undercuts, or holds their opponent, we can observe it well. But if the space is blocked by one of the players, we are not able to properly observe the challenge.

In order to watch the space between two players, we must use not only our agility and stamina to keep moving but also anticipation and focus. Here is a good example of a well-focused referee anticipating the next play while using his agility and stamina.

Control of the ball

One of the four criteria for DOGSO is "likelihood of keeping or gaining control of the ball." While there is some subjectivity in determining if the attacker who is fouled is likely to keep or gain control of the ball, sometimes the attacker's last touch on the ball before the ball is too "heavy." Because the first O of DOGSO stands for "obvious," when there is a question about the likelihood of keeping or gaining control of the ball," then the red card for a DOGSO cannot be given.

Below is a video of the referee correctly judging that the last touch on the ball by the attacker was too heavy, negating the "obvious" goal scoring opportunity. Therefore, a yellow card for SPA, as the referee in this video gave, was the correct decision.

 

Gaining advantage

"Gaining advantage" is one of three ways in which a player can be penalized for being in an offside position. This happens, for example, when a player who was in an offside position plays the ball after the ball had deflected off from the goal post. Or the goal keeper may save the ball and the ball travels to the attacking player who was originally in an offside position.

Sometimes, the attacking player was not in an offside position when the ball was last touched by their teammate. But they may be in an offside position when the deflection or the save happened. This can lead to an error if the assistant referee forgets or does not recognize that the player was originally onside.

Both good focus and proper positioning are important to avoid such a mistake. In the video below, an attacking player who was clearly onside was penalized for offside. The assistant referee was not properly positioned. When the goal keeper saved the ball, the attacker is in an offside position. However, she was originally onside. 

Attempt to play

Being able to recognize a DOGSO situation is one thing. It requires the referees to correctly identify that all four criteria for DOGSO are met. But the referee must also identify if an offense was as a result of an attempt to play the ball. This is a critical decision because it can determine the color of the card. When a DOGSO offense happens because of an attempt to play the ball, then the referee issues a yellow card. If a DOGSO offense happens not because of an attempt to play the ball (e.g. pushing, pulling, holding, and handball), then a red card must be given. 

What could be a little more difficult is when an offense like tripping happens, the referee must decide if there was an attempt to play the ball. One of the cues is how the ball, the attacker, and the defender are positioned.

Check out the video below as an example.

Urgency

When players from one team feel that they should have gotten a free kick but they did not, only to give away a free kick to their opponent a few seconds after, referees must recognize that there may be some emotional outburst or frustration expressed by some players. Simply calling fouls would not be enough to manage these players. Be proactive and preventative. Increase your presence around the foul spot. Show to the players that you are in charge.

In the video below, the referee's decisions (no foul and then a foul) appear correct. But he did not recognize the level of frustration among the players in white.

Shifting focus

As an assistant referee, your positioning is prescribed. In other words, unlike the referee, you cannot choose you stand. You must position yourself in line with the second-last defender or the ball, whichever is closer to the goal line. This sometimes puts you in an awkward situation in which you are not best positioned to observe everything you must observe.

If you have a play approaching your touchline but with a possible offside situation, you must observe the play (potential foul), the touchline (potential throw-in), and the offside line (potential offside). In addition, you must watch the referee to understand what help they need and what they can and cannot see. Consequently, one of the fundamental skills of a good assistant referees is to shift focus from one area of the field to another very quickly but at the right moment. This takes practice. Even experienced referees may struggle or miss something because they were watching something else.

Below, you will find a video of an assistant referee on a youth game demonstrating a great skill of constantly shifting focus. When you are on the line next time, ask yourself if you are as attentive as this assistant referee is.

Flash lag effect

There are many reasons why we, as assistant referees, get an offside decision wrong. Sometimes, it is because of we are not focused. Some other times, we are not properly aligned with the offside line. But there are times when we get our call wrong even when we are properly aligned and remain focused. One of the reasons for this is the flash lag effect.

Your eyes trick your brain. Sometimes when two objects are not moving in the same direction, there is a delay between what our eyes see and what our brain registers. It causes a certain object to appear in our brain that it is in a different spot than it actually is. There are numerous websites that explain this effect so if you are unfamiliar with it, we recommend you take a look.

Here is an example of an assistant referee incorrectly calling an onside player as offside, even though he was properly aligned with the second-last defender.

Wait and See

Why is the wait-and-see approach so important for an assistant referee? Especially when you have two attackers with one being in an offside position and the other in an onside position, you want to give yourself extra seconds to raise your flag to make sure that it is indeed the offside player who plays the ball, interferes with an opponent, or gain advantage. If you raise your flag and an onside player plays the ball, your flag was premature. A premature flag could easily take away a goal.

The video below shows how important it is for an assistant referee to wait and see. If the AR had raised his flag prematurely, this goal would not have happened.

Delay Restart

Have you given a yellow card for DR (delaying the restart of play)? If you see a possible DR, how do you know if the incident deserves a yellow card?

There are numerous considerations that a referee must take into account. Here, we will just focus on three considerations (there are other considerations but they can be covered in a different post). Today, we think of an instance where a player kicks the ball away after the referee's whistle.

- How much time does the player have to think?

Did the player kick the ball immediately after the referee blew their whistle? In other words, did the player have the time to think of what they were to do? It does not take more than a second for a player to realize that the referee has blown their whistle. So if you, as the referee, say that the player kicked the ball away after they had some time for them to think, you may consider issuing a caution. On the other hand, if the player was already in the process of kicking the ball and the whistle blew, then you may not want to blame the player.

- Does the opposing team try to restart the game?

If the team that will take the free kick does not act to resume play (e.g. moving toward the ball to retrieve the ball), then the restart was not delayed by the player who kicked the ball. If the team that will take the kick tries to retrieve the ball and the ball is kicked away (notice a small nuance difference between "kicking the ball" and "kicking the ball away"), then the restart is delayed. Of course, this is not to say that the team that will take the kick must act to retrieve the ball for a card to be issued. It is merely one of many considerations.

- How far is the ball kicked?

Similar to the point above, if the ball was kicked away by a yard, was the restart truly delayed? It may deserve a yellow card for a different reason, but maybe not for DR. But if the ball was kicked 10 yards away, it is likely that the restart was delayed.

Below, you will have a video that describes these three considerations from a match in Michigan. 

Anticipate

Have you caught yourself struggling to keep up with an attack? Have you had to sprint as fast as you could to stay close to an attack? Players are fast and the ball moves even faster. In addition to running faster, what can we do to keep up with the play?

Because soccer officiating is not a 100-meter dash race, we can have a head start. In other words, if we can recognize that a long forward pass is about to be made, we can start moving. Below, you will see a video of a referee who started moving after the ball was kicked forward. As a result, he had to sprint hard. What if he had moved a second or two earlier, by anticipating the upcoming forward pass? He would still have had to run, but probably not as fast. Or if he had sprinted as fast, he would have been even closer to the play.

Now, how do you know when a forward pass is about to be made? When a player looks up and identifies an attacker with some space in front of them and/or without a defender, it might be a good sign that you should start moving. Or just by looking at the player, you may notice that they bring their kicking leg back to prepare for a long pass.