The Referee Chronicle: It's in the Bag

The referee bag is the most crucial piece of equipment in the referee’s arsenal. It literally is the toolbox that the referee’s tools are kept safe. There are many types of bags available to the referee. It is up to each individual referee to evaluate and purchase the best bag and supplies for his or her needs.

My old bag was a simple, standard type gym bag emblazoned with the United States Soccer Referee Program logo. It served me for a season and half before it needed to be retired. I was straining it beyond its capacity, and I’m honestly surprised it lasted as long as it did. Like all things, you get what you pay for, and it was fairly cheap. This Christmas, Santa Claus brought a new bag to replace the old one. Actually, Santa brought me three bags. I chose the new compartmentalized bag from Official Sports. This bag is proudly displays the USSF Soccer Referee logo as well. 

 I have lived most of my adult life by the US Coast Guard motto: Semper Paratus. That’s Latin for, “Always Prepared.” The referee needs to always be prepared. The soccer pitch is not a place to be caught short of any of the necessities. Looking at the front of the bag, I’ll go compartment to compartment and list the equipment I carry to each field.

The small, outside left pocket contains: two watches, a hand pump, Laws of the Game booklet, and two black trash bags. I always wear two watches for the games I referee. The one worn on the left wrist is the primary timekeeper; the watch on the right wrist is the backup. Both watches keep the running game time just in case one of the watches fails. During one game, the battery on my backup watch died. The field marshal laughed when I mentioned it to him and asked why I wore a backup. I honestly thought the situation answered his question, but I simply replied, “Because it’s better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.” Every referee must carry a copy of the laws of the game. Failing to do so is, in my opinion, unbelievably irresponsible. The black trash bags are used to protect the bag and its contents from the elements. In Miami, the summer sun shower can pop anytime. It’s good practice to always wrap the bag in plastic. 

The larger left sided pocket contains a pair of cleats and a first aid bag. I don’t wear cleats as my primary referee shoe; however, in the rain, the quick stops and starts needed for running a line can be treacherous. They also serve as back up shoes should the primary shoes suffer catastrophic failure, Semper Paratus. The first aid bag has athletic tape, ibuprofen, Icy-Hot ointment/spray, and an Epi-Pen. 

The two small front pockets contain two small plastic bags. The first contains several different types and styles of whistles. I primarily use a Fox40 Sharx whistle. It’s probably overkill on the smaller fields, but it is a distinct and very loud whistle. It is a black whistle with a pink lanyard. The pink lanyard makes it easy to spot on the pitch if I happen to drop it. I carry a regular Fox40 whistle in my pocket just in case I drop the primary whistle. I do carry two “old school” whistles with the cork pea. Sometimes, referees need to change whistles because a neighboring field’s referee has the same whistle.  The second small bag contains referee patches, two sets of yellow and red cards, pencils, scorecards, and a coin. 

The large right side pocket contains a pair of turf shoes. These are my primary refereeing shoes. Whether on grass or artificial turf, these shoes provide the right amount of grip for running a line or centering a soccer game in dry conditions. [Insert pic] The small, outer right pocket contains two pairs of referee socks. Wearing wet socks is one of the most awful feelings on the planet. Sometimes, you just have to change socks between games or halves.

This brings me to the main, large pocket; inside are all of the uniforms needed to officiate the game. All the colors of the rainbow are represented: two red, two black, two yellow, two blue, one green USSF Referee program shirts. With the exception of the green shirt, I have a long sleeve and short sleeve of each of them. Also inside the main pocket, there are league specific shirts: Club Sport Official shirt, Regla XVIII purple shirt, and a yellow Adidas shirt. There’s a USSF hat, an extra pair of referee shorts, and regular t-shirt for after the game.

Too large to fit into the bag are two sets of assistant referee flags. They rest inside the handles of the bag near the top pocket. A small cell phone holder is clipped to the shoulder strap. The little pocket inside the cell phone holder is my USSF Referee identification and my Florida Youth Soccer background clearance.

In total, the bag and its contents are around $1,000.00. The bag is more than just a carrying tool for all the equipment the referees need; it’s a bank vault that carries a large investment for each referee.

The Referee Chronicles: Week Four

Well, if you’ve been keeping a close eye on the week numbers, you’ll notice I skipped week three. That is by design. Week three was really uneventful. It was the championship game for the league, and I was an assistant referee for the match. What I recall of the match is that one team won and one team lost. So onto week four we go.

Week four had a two game Saturday night event. I am going to focus on the first match: the match I centered. Let’s take a stroll back to week two really fast: “I didn’t control the game as well as I should’ve or could’ve.” Remember that? Yeah, I did, too. So I did what any good referee should do with a game that was really bad: I reviewed my mistakes, developed a strategy on how to fix the problem, and then I let that game roll of my back. After a bad game, players need a short memory, so do referees.

My team and I met on the side of the pitch to discuss our plan for the game. This is something I didn’t do in the previous game I centered. A lot of that has to do with the league; some of it has to do with the referees. First mistake from week two fixed. I explained to my assistants what I expected from them and what they will get from me in return. I expected hustle. I expected them to be in position to make the calls they made. That really is one of the best defenses to any criticism: be where you’re supposed to be. What they got in return was 100% hustle from me, and me being in position for the calls I made. When the center referee is in position to make the correct calls, the linesman on the team sideline hear a lot less crap from the players.

We approached the center spot as a team. The captains were called. The captains’ meeting was brief, but I felt more confident in my discussions with them than the previous match. I explained what I expected from the teams and the captains. The coin was flipped, and we took our positions.

I blew the whistle to start the game. Team A kicked off and moved well with and without the ball. Team B was just as fluid. The communication between teammates was excellent on both sides of the pitch. Their communication reminded me of something: I could communicate with the players, too. And I didn’t need a whistle to do it.

For some reason, the teams in this league like to say, “good shit” when their players do something well. I’m not a fan of the phrase, but if it’s the status quo, who am I to inflict my personal dislike for the phrase on them? I did take their praise of one another into consideration. What was stopping me from saying something positive to the players? The answer was simple: nothing. I noticed two players making a textbook play on the ball, great shoulder to shoulder challenges as the play moved down the left wing. It was great play by both teams, so I told them it was, “good challenge! Clean contact, guys, keep that up.” I saw no harm in this; I was not cheering a particular player or team. I merely stating that as the referee, I saw good, clean contact, and that’s the kind of play I like to see. It was my equivalent of  “good shit.”

There were times when talking helped diffuse a situation before it happened. For example, I found that saying; “good jumps” before a 50/50 ball in the air reduced the amount of pushing from behind as the two players jumped for the ball. I also found that saying, “watch the hands, let go, or no holds” when someone tugged on a jersey was usually sufficient to stop the foul from occurring. Of course, this tactic was only used if mutual combatants did the tugging or if no real advantage was gained by the foul. Stopping the game for these types of fouls truly interrupts the flow and is generally frowned upon, even by USSF and FIFA. These would be the ‘trifling’ fouls that referees that want to advance through the ranks need to recognize and eliminate from the ‘whistle vocabulary.’

By doing this very simple thing, I had taken control of the game and urged the players to play the soccer game I wanted. I controlled the game, and I didn’t do it with a warehouse worth of whistles or cornucopia of cards; I did by simply talking to the players throughout the game. Mistake number two from week two had been corrected.

I am yet still far from perfect, so mistakes were still made throughout the game; however, my mistakes were met with less screaming and yelling than the previous week. For example, a missed handball: the play was in the middle of the field and I was perfectly parallel to the play. This actually put me out of position to see what happened. Here’s what everyone else on the pitch saw: Team A handled the ball and the ball dropped to his feet. What I saw:  the player from Team A standing and the ball fall to his feet. I could not see the player’s arm stretched out from my angle. Everyone else could. Including the player from Team B who failed to play to whistle. The player from Team B put his hand on the ball to stop it from moving and then kicked it into play. That’s when I blew the whistle for the hand-ball awarding Team A the kick.

I explained to the B Team player that while I could probably assume what happened, I didn’t see it happen; therefore, I couldn’t call the foul. He immediately replied, “Yeah, I know. I didn’t play to the whistle; it’s my fault.” Holy crap on a cracker, right? A player just admitted a blown call by the referee was his fault! I really need to record these conversations.

I learned a lot from my mistakes in the previous game I had centered. I learned I needed to communicate more without my whistle. I learned that saying something as simple as, “that was a great run off the ball; you really opened up some space” shows to the players that you really understand the game and you’re watching every aspect of it. I learned you could stop fouls before they start by letting the players know you’re watching them closely. I learned this because after this game, probably the best game of my refereeing career, players from both teams asked if I wanted to come out for drinks with them. Unfortunately, I still had one more game to officiate. That beer would’ve tasted sweet.

The Referee Chronicles: Week Two

Week two was rough from the beginning. I was still quite sore and stiff from the previous week’s games. I had three games to officiate: two lines, one center. I’m going to focus on the center game.

            It was the first center referee gig I had done since roughly 1999. I thought I had a good game, despite what both teams thought. Well, let me rephrase: I had a good game given the fact it was my first in forever. This was not my best game, and I’m not afraid to admit it. I didn’t control the game as well as I should’ve or could’ve. Let’s delve in:

            It started well, although a bit chippy. It was the quarterfinals for their league, and both teams were looking to advance by playing hard. There were a few fouls; some were niggling and not really worthy of calling. Looking back, not calling those trifling fouls may have lead to the rough play throughout the game. About midway through the first half is where it all started to go downhill for me.

            After a beautiful feed from the midfield, Team A had a clear breakaway. The goalkeeper from Team B came out to challenge. The keeper missed the ball completely and recklessly, and dangerously, took out the attacker. I waited to call the foul to see if the ball would cross the goal line, but it just trickled wide. I blew the whistle and immediately pointed to the spot. Now came the hard decision: which color card. I went with the straight red. Here, I made two mistakes.

            My first mistake: I did not confer with my assistant referee. I definitely should’ve done this. I talked about it at halftime; the nearside assistant had a great look. He agreed it was a penalty, but felt it was more a clumsy challenge than a reckless and dangerous one. This information would’ve changed the color of the card. I wish he would’ve called me over to discuss it, but the onus is on me to confer.

            My second mistake: the position on the field where I displayed the red card. When displaying a straight red, the official should pull the player away from the pack of other players that feel they can both officiate and play the game at the same time. The team that’s about to get the card thinks you’re wrong, and the team benefitting from the card has your back. Often, the team that “has your back,” has it in a way that is too confrontational for your own good. Surrounded by attackers and defenders, I displayed the red card to the keeper. This was a horrible decision. Horrible. The defenders were less than happy. There was a lot screaming, yelling, and it’s probably a good thing I don’t speak Spanish.

            The goalkeeper was angry. He was yelling, and he was extremely demonstrative while speaking. For a moment, I seriously thought he was going to punch me in the face. Removing the goalkeeper from the fray and then issuing the red card could’ve diffused a lot of this. It made for a difficult rest of the game. It was the first of two red cards issued that game.

            The game continued to be extremely physical. Good shoulder-to-shoulder challenges were pretty much non-existent; they were full body checks that would make NHL players jealous. Slide tackling is prohibited in this league; thank the gods. Several cautions were issued during the first half.

            I completely failed to manage the first half game to the best of my abilities. I blame two things: fitness and the amount of time that had passed since officiating as a center. Unfortunately, the second half didn’t get much better.

            If you recall, I was still quite sore from the previous week’s games. I was doing my best to stay in good position to see the play. Because my fitness wasn’t where it should be, I kept an extremely tight diagonal. I rarely ventured off of my line to change views. I’m not going to lie: I was too sore and too out of shape to venture. It definitely affected my ability to referee well. It also made me miserable on the pitch. I was cranky because I was crampy.

            I guess I should clarify another league rule: unlimited substitutions at any stoppage of play. That being said; a substitution must be acknowledged and allowed by the referee before it can happen. This is an important law to keep in mind because it led to the second red card of the match.

            Despite this being a recreational men’s league, the professional time wasting tactics of the big leagues are not missed on the beer league ballers. A ball was played out of bounds, and it took some time for a player to snag it to put it back into play. A considerable amount of time had started to tick off the clock. As soon as the player A approached the touchline to throw it in, the captain of team A yelled for a substitution. I denied this request. I felt it was a time wasting effort, and the captain had plenty of time during the ball recovery to make this sub. I yelled, “No sub! Next stoppage! No sub!” I ordered play to continue. Shortly after yelling this, a new player from team A came on to replace a player. I was kind of fed up at this point. It actually took more time to enforce this infraction. I’m not sure I handled it correctly, but at the time, I think it was the right thing to do. I’m the hardest Monday morning referee on myself than anyone else.

            I blew the whistle because the ball had been thrown in. I approached the player who came on illegally. I told him that it was an illegal substitution, and as the law requires, I had to show him a yellow card. This was his second yellow card. He received one in the first half for time wasting or possibly for failure to respect the distance. I explained to him that his substitution was not allowed. I showed him his second yellow and then displayed the red. He was respectful and tad confused. I tried to explain it to him, but again, time was wasting away. Team B’s time was running out. Oh, I should mention another league rule: there’s no added time. Because the player that came on illegally wasn’t a recognized player on the pitch, Team A was able to keep 11 men on the field. This was both a point of contention and confusion (and something I’m not 100% I got correct). I again had to explain the rulings and such, which took even more time off the clock. I didn’t want to allow a substitution because it was time wasting. Now, looking back, I ate more time off the clock than the team would have if I had just allowed the substitution.

            Two red cards, a goalie tossed out, almost got punched in the face (and maybe should’ve), poor communication between myself and the assistant refs, a tremendous amount of muscle cramps, and what I believe to have been a death threat in Spanish, this was by far one of the worst games of my officiating career. I lost control of the game before it started. I was out of shape, out of position, and out of patience. It’s a dangerous mix when it comes to officiating. And the really sad thing is: it was just game one of three that night.

            The Referee Chronicles are a diary of my adventures as a United States Soccer Referee. Check back in with Following Futbol to see where the flags and whistles take me.

            

The Referee Chronicles: The Introduction

On November 16^th, 2013, I stepped on the pitch as a United States Soccer Federation Referee for the first time in over a decade. The rules of soccer haven’t changed much in the past ten-plus years. Well, there are a few changes since I last pulled on the referee uniform: goalies could only take four steps to get rid of the ball, in-line with the second to last defender was offside, and the three referee system was in its infancy in the United States. I packed up my old referee bag for my first game. I found the following items in the bag: a 2000 National High School Rules book, a 1999 United States Soccer Federation Law Book, a pair of 13 year old Nike 90 soccer cleats, a single yellow card, and two whistles. I took out the old books and whistles, put in the new books and whistles, and headed out of the house to the field. I was ready to hit the pitch for the first time in apparently 14 years.

It was the first time I had ever seen artificial turf up close and personal. Growing up, I always played and refereed on natural grass. I remember the smell of freshly cut grass and the squishiness of the lime/chalk used to mark the fields in my younger days. The turf had an interesting feel beneath my feet. The little beads that help separate the “blades” of turf kind of feel like large grains of sand under my cleats. They look an awful lot like mouse droppings, and after I fell to the turf mid-game, they tasted a lot like how I imagine mouse droppings would taste. Each step on the turf was like walking and running on a wrestling mat with those beads of chewed up rubber and recycled Easter basket grass glued to it. The smell of the artificial pitch was, for lack of a better term, absent, and there was no majesty to the field I stepped onto, no connection of earth and man, sport and beauty. Artificial turf eats up skin and legs, and it kind of eats up some of the beauty of the beautiful game.

I began to stretch out my muscles. I don’t know if you are fans of the TV show The Big Bang Theory, but I kind of felt like Dr. Sheldon Cooper. In one episode, he and his neighbor Penny are headed out for a run. Penny directs the stretching exercises and bends over to put on her hands on the floor. Sheldon remains standing erect with his arms sort of dangling in front of him. Penny tells him to reach down as far as he can; Sheldon said that he was. I guess you have to picture Sheldon as a tall, lanky nerd. But then again, if you haven’t seen the show, you’ve been living under a rock and probably don’t have a computer or the interwebs so you’re not reading this anyway. I managed to stretch my hamstrings, amazingly, without ripping a hole in my shorts.

I started to stretch out groin muscles by putting the soles of my feet together and drawing them into towards my hips. I then tried to push my knees down to actually stretch the muscles, but I looked more like someone who was just dumped by their first “true” love and was weeping and hugging their knees. I got a little help by gravity and finally got some give in the groin. I think my hips started creaking like an old rusty door in bad horror movie.

Once the groin muscles were done groaning, I started to work on my calves. They were so tight that when I pulled on my foot, I started to moan like two baby cows pining for their mama’s attention. I stretch my lower legs on a fairly regular basis; so it actually wasn’t too bad, but it wasn’t exactly easy either. Friends never let friends forget leg day at the gym, but fellow referees don’t remind each other to stretch out their arms. My biceps were less than pleased with my lack of attention to them pre-game come the next day. So pro-tip referees: stretch your arms, chest, back, and legs before and after every game.

After the stretching is done, I like to do a couple of what I call 6, 18, and 60 sprint and runs. I start at the half line and jog to the goal line. I then turn and sprint to the 6, turn around and sprint back to the goal line, sprint to the 18, sprint back to the goal line, then jog back to the 60. I do this just to tell my legs to get ready fellas; this is what you’re going to be doing for the next few hours.

As a team of referees in neon yellow shirts, we took to the center of the pitch. The captains were called, the coin was flipped, the decision was made, the hands were shaken, and it was time to start the game. Once the midfield meeting is over with the referees, I jog to the 10 yard arc then sprint to the 22-yard arc of the penalty area. It’s the final warm up before I take my position on the line. That run also serves the purpose of my final inspection of the net on my side. I inspect the goal every half using the same run up process. I walked over to the corner flag, looked back across the goal line, and took up my position on the field. I did a real quick head count of players on my half of the pitch: yep, 11 players. I unfurled my flag to indicate I was ready. The center referee blew the whistle, and I was finally officiating another soccer game.

The Referee Chronicles is a series following my adventures on the pitch as a United States Soccer Federation Referee in South Florida. Blogs will be posted every Monday (if real life lets me).