By Randy Vogt
I have seen many soccer games when the referee made an important call — sometimes correctly, sometimes incorrectly — and loud dissent followed sincethe ref was 40 yards away from the play. Just as with phones, long-distance calling can be very expensive. The preventive officiating technique is to be fit enough and to hustle each game so that youare close to the play. Should the ref blow the whistle far from the foul, the ref needs to continue running toward the foul so it could look like he or she is closer to the foul than when the whistlewas blown.
Teams are much more likely to dissent from referee decisions when the ref is far away than with the same decision when the ref is 5-10 yards from the ball. After all, presencelends conviction.
Take a recent older girls youth soccer game that I was refereeing. Blue dominated play for most of the game but yellow scored two goals late in the second half to lead2-1. A blue attacker, the left forward and the team’s best player that day, then dribbled up the touchline and when she was five yards inside the penalty area, there was some contact between herand the defender. But I was just five yards away and determined that a trip had not occurred. It would have been denying an obvious goal scoring opportunity if a foul had been whistled as well as apenalty kick for the penal foul. But because I was five yards away and the team was sporting, nobody argued the non-call and a player and the coach remarked after the game, a 2-1 loss, that theythought the game had been officiated very well.
The referee’s diagonal that he or she runs goes from corner flag to corner flag. In nearly every game played in the United States,the diagonal is from the left forward’s position on one team to the left forward’s position on the opposing team. But I like to think that the referee’s positioning isn’t adiagonal as much as it is a modified version of a half-open scissor — corner flag to corner flag and penalty arc to penalty arc. The referee is not a slave to this positioning, but it is a roughguide to follow, especially for the newer referee.
A rigid and inexperienced ref could run from corner flag to corner flag and miss a number of fouls by adhering exactly to thispositioning. Worse, a lazy, unfit or fatigued referee will run from penalty arc to penalty arc and miss even more fouls as well as some of the assistant referee’s signals.
In thegames I have officiated plus observed recently at all levels, I’ve noticed that the referee has done a good or at least an adequate job when he or she can get to the left of the left forwardon occasion and the ref did not officiate the game well when he or she was always to the right of the left forward. How interesting that a little extra amount of running can make thedifference whether the game was refereed well or not.
Getting to the left is important as fouls by the left touchline (near the corner flag and penalty area) should not be missed plusexperienced players will know that the ref is there and watching them. Also, the ref will be facing toward the assistant referee and could see the AR’s signals clearly. Many of the AR’ssignals for offside are missed when the ref is standing in the middle of the field, the ball is played to the left forward and the ref does not turn to look at the AR. When the ref is to the left ofor even behind the left forward, this is not a problem. Plus I also believe that teams dissent less when they see that the ref is hustling.
(RandyVogt has officiated over 8,000 games during the past three decades, from professional matches in front of thousands to 6-year-olds being cheered on by very enthusiastic parents. In
like Wynalda said, there are bad refs and worse refs……also said good players win games, bad managers lose them, & bad refs ruin them…..
I agree with Wynalda–mostly. Years ago I watched an EPL game between two middle-tier teams. It started out rough and ugly–typical stuff: nasty “challenges”, chippiness, etc. Finally the ref had had enough, called both captains over after a particular bit of viciousness, and had a word. Thereafter he called Every. Little. Thing. Zero tolerance. This went on for 10-15 minutes. Players were confused at first, but got the idea. He then started relaxing a bit and the game morphed into something watchable, if not beautiful. In this instance, a good ref rescued a game from being the pits to being entertaining. I wish I could remember the name of the ref; I think it was the same fellow (Graham Poll) who unfortunately later went on to show an Australian players 3 yellow cards at the 2006 WC.
Good advice, as always. If the CR positions himself to keep most of the action between him and one of the ARs, that allows two set of eyes seeing from two different directions (assuming the referee has sufficient confidence in his ARs to let them truly assist in foul calling). Varying positioning a bit throughout the game makes it harder for players to game the ref because they’re not always sure what he can see. The one position I’ve seen some high level referees take that I’ve never understood is outside the play on the same side and one of the ARs, essentially duplicating the positioning of the AR. Then it almost seems like a case of “look how fit I am, I can run to where I’m not even needed, just for the heck of it.” Of course, the other thing a ref has to consider while remaining close to play is staying out of the way…
Well said Randy! You right Kent, about being careful of not getting in the way of players or plays when very close to the play; experience in reading the game (what happens next) helps here. Mr Bond, is there anything said about unprepared TV commentators?So what does (Ramon’s) example, about Mr Poll, or any other person tells us, that he or she is not perfect? Just imagine how many excellent officiated matches must he have done to get to that level (W.C.)