Parade All-American

So it turns out that one of the players the Ref yellow-carded in a recent game is a Parade Magazine All-American for soccer. This same fellow, Eber Martinez, also was named to the Washington Post's first team in soccer for the Spring 2007 season. His selection to both honors is well-deserved. We saw Martinez play twice. He scored in both games, and had at least one goal called back on an offside call. He has a good touch on the ball and can play with speed. At times, however, he tries to do too much and takes on multiple defenders instead of passing the ball to teammates. But this is a quibble. He's a talented player and I wouldn't be surprised to see him playing at higher levels in the not-to-distant future.

Things Seem to Be GOOD

So this is the first post in a while. So I have a lot to cover.

First - And its good that this is first since I was first. Yes I won our fantasy league with a hell of a final week. I went all out for that final week, being down at least 10 and then making three transfers, thus starting the week down 18 at least. So HA, my intellect in this sport is mathematically correct. I would also like to say that it should not have even gotten that close but I will say that I was focusing on my academics.. something I shall never do again in order to maintain my crown. Of the 3 years we have been doing this, I have won it twice and I believe Ill be putting a star on my shirt.

2nd - Good commentary on the FA Cup final from The AR. It wasnt that great of a match but the end result was exactly as planned. Now the only question is: when are Trudo's and The AR's teams going to win anything?

3rd - Champions League final - to be honest I just wasnt feeling it. Rafa has lost me as a coach, not because of my love for the special one but because its annoying to hear him talk. I know Jose has his own problems but at least he is entertaining. Plus Gattuso is a pain to just look at. He looks like he beats women. I know this is harsh, especially seeing him kiss his wife after they won, but he just is not a nice person. Plus in the end should have Milan even been there? A team caught up in a match fixing scandal should be sent down, no questions asked.

4th - and most important (HA!) my life - I was assigned two boys play off games this past week. Tuesday night it was Jefferson HS v Loudoun Valley. It went to 4 overtimes. HS rules is 40 minute halves and then two 5 minute overtime periods. Followed by two 5 minute sudden victory overtime periods, then Penalty Kicks. This game went into the 4th OT and a goal was scored about 2 minutes from time. The game was very competitive. The half time score was 1 - 1. Then LV scored under a minute into the second half only from Jefferson to score with about 2 minutes left in regulation. Jefferson did score a little earlier but I called it back since the ball went straight into the goal from a throw in. Jefferson ended up winning 3-2. They were dangerous the whole game with long throws deep in the attack and on corners, and thats how they won it. So I ended up running about 98 minutes and showed 5 yellow cards. The two for Jefferson were for dissent and the three for LV were for Unsporting Behavior (bad tackles).
The 2nd game was last night (Thursday, a day off in between games). It was the district tournament final. It went scoreless until the 100th minute, about 30 seconds from time when the player hit the ball and it took a deflection off a defender and beat the keeper. The George Mason HS coach did something clever. He put his defender up top for the overtimes. This defender hadn't done much running but had been a threat up top on corners due to his height. The visiting team Rappahannock HS was good and had a very organized defense even with the speed they faced. The AR was actually my 4th official so I am sure he can add some input into how the game went. I showed 3 yellows - One USB for each team, a reckless tackle by the Rap GK (foot came up) and a tactical foul by GM in the 3rd overtime. The other card was against Rap for having too many men on the field.

So I am now spent - two games with about 200 minutes of running, a total of 8 yellow cards, 6 goals, 8 overtime periods, and an estimate of 16 to 20 miles ran. feel free to tear me a new one

Sweet Touch

OK. So not the most riveting game ever played at the new Wembley. Or maybe it was because it was one of the first games ever played there. Whatever.

But after 116 minutes of sometimes intense and challenging play and a lot of meaningless midfield shuffling, Didier Drogba and Frank Lampard exchanged a series of one-touch, pinpoint passes that led to the only goal as Chelsea defeated ManU 1-0 in the FA Cup final. So perhaps the Ref and Meanbaldguy can each take pleasure in successful domestic campaigns this season -- Chelsea winning the domestic double and ManU the Premiership title -- and rest until the battle renews in the fall.

Meanwhile, I have to say that Sir Alex's post game comments -- the routine bashing of the ref -- are a bit disappointing. I thought Steve Bennett did a fine job. I don't think the was the most difficult game to call and, aside from getting into passing lanes a couple of times, Bennett seemed to be in the right place and he kept the match under control throughout. On one handling call he blew the whistle too fast -- a ball hit one Chelsea player's arm from a kick that began about a foot away.

Ferguson's complaint focuses on the play when Giggs* slid into Cech, pushing the keeper and the ball apparently over the line. Bennett allowed play to continue, awarding neither goal nor foul. Sir Alex contends that Essien pushed Giggs and ManU should have won a penalty, but a look at the replay doesn't support this contention. (If the link works, the Giggs play is at 2:30 and the goal at 2:47.) As for Bennett's noncall, either he didn't see the ball go over the line, as Giggs was in front of the ball and Cech was cradling it, or if he did, he decided to allow play to continue. Technically, he should have called the foul -- no way it could have been a goal as Cech stopped the ball before it crossed the line and only Giggs momentum crashing into the keeper pushed the ball over -- because once a ball crosses a boundary line the Laws require a restart. So my guess is that neither he nor the assistant ref saw the ball over the line, and play continued.

(To be fair, had Manu won the game, we'd probably have seen similar comments from Mourinho. Teams never win or lose; it's always the officials' fault.)

(*Typo corrected per Ref's comment.)

ALL HAIL THE REF

Congratulations to the Ref for pulling out the Fantasy League championship- a sweet 2 point victory over the AR as a result of a tremendous final week performance. You would not expect such good work for a Chelsea man. Also kudos to the Trudo for bringing up the rear. Having school work does not excuse this stunning collapse, although my last week pickup of Berbatov (and making him captain) was inspired and was the difference. To be sure, next year's results will be different and look for the Ref to be dethroned just as the Blues were this year.

EVIL HAS BEEN DETHRONED

Who wants to bet that Mourinho is out?

Double OT

So as I mentioned in my post before, I was assigned the center to a Boys Varsity game that included the 7th ranked team vs the 10th ranked team in the area. The home team #7 Forest Park(white) was hosting #10 Gar-Field SHS(red) in their second match up of the season. The previous game saw Forest Park take the win away from home and from my understanding about that game there had been a few cards along with a penalty kick. Going into this game I knew it was going to be the highest level of intensity that I had seen yet but I also felt calm and prepared. I had confedence in myself and in my crew.

Now the game:
The first half saw a lot of action mainly with Forest Park scoring the first goal. I showed two cautions, the first being for a delay of restart when a Forest Park player kicked the ball off the pitch when a foul was called against him. This caution kind of set the tone that I was not going to put up with any of the silly stuff. However the FP coach was upset at half time because I had allowed Gar-field to delay a restart, I did not caution Gar-field because as my other assistant put it, it was a matter of 3 seconds vs 30 seconds. The 2nd caution went to Gar-field. The player as you can see below in the photo is about 4 inches taller than me and just a slight bit bigger. The roster says he is a senior, and lets just say if it had said he is a junior that might be a little weird. He was called 3 times for pushing in the back on high balls especially and on a few I had let slide because they were 50-50 and he was just in a better position and the other player fell down at a light touch. I showed him a caution for persistent infringement. It calmed him down a little bit and he was on the verge later for another caution but I had a word with him once or twice down the field about being careful and I believe it stuck.

At halftime both of my assistants (The AR is one of them) told me that I needed to tighten it up in the second half. Now I am not sure if I had did that or not but I did focus on being in the right position and on top of play. Red was down a goal and was fighting back really well. Although their problem was that they did a lot of individual play and were at each other's throats over every little mistake. Red #10, one of the best players in the region and also a captain, was constantly trying to play make and did a good job but he also talked back a lot. I have not seen another team that complained so much and asked me if I "seen that" so many times. Red tied the game up about 15 minutes into the second half on some nice one-two passing and then a slotted finish. This sparked two more goals within the next 10 minutes. White came back and did another nice back pass from the goal line that found a wide open man on the far post, the red defense was caught lapsing. About 6 minutes later #10 red found his way around a few players to put one in the back of the net. This set up a frantic final 15 minutes. There were two more cards in the 2nd half both for Unsporting behavior. The first given to white for a tactical foul by taking someone down on a semi breakaway towards the corner. There was no way that this would be a yellow card, and no way that it could be red because there were other defenders back and red was going towards the corner. The other caution was issued to #10 red for a reckless tackle. This is where I realized that these players knew what they were doing. #10 went into the tackle hard and knew once I blew my whistle he was going to get a card. The other player went down hurt and once he saw that and heard my whistle he acted hurt as well. I stopped the clock and called on the trainer for white. #10 was on the ground trying to reason with me but as I told him, he was working on a second card for dissent. Once he stood up I showed him the card and he walked off. When he came back on he was more focused on the game than me. The 2nd half ended with a brilliant save by the white keep that went off the post.

Right at the end of regulation I called the captains together and tossed the coin. White won and chose to kickoff and red decided to go in the same direction as they ended the game. There was a 5 minute halftime before the two five minute overtime periods started. If I can say something about HS rules this is the one thing I do not like. It should either be a full 10 minutes or two 10s because 5 minutes is not long enough. The overtimes had their chances but nothing major and there was only one caution, also for a tactical foul and the player even said to me "I know that was an asshole thing to do" which made me laugh and he accepted the yellow with out any trouble. The game ended in the 2-2 tie after both overtimes. The AR came running up to me at the end with a big smile and said I had done an excellent job, I believe both as a referee and as my dad.

At the end of the game red team fans had to walk around the stadium and some of them by the place we, the refs, had put down our stuff. The red fans had largely been more vocal than the white fans and mainly because I did call more fouls against red. They were by far a more physical team and also had a greater lack of discipline. A few of the fans said I sucked among other things and were only a few feet from me. The AR and my other assistant called for the AD to come over. The fans walked away but we still waited for an escort out of the stadium and to the car. We ended up being escorted by the visiting teams head coach and the home teams AD.

My overall impression of the game and my performance was a good one. I know I still need to improve on my positioning and not being in the passing lanes. I get caught too many time thinking about where I should be if I wanted to receive the ball when it should be where I think I can see the ball and where I expect it to go. Ah the player in me. I think I did a really good job vocalizing to the players, especially when going up for headers and telling them to go straight up. I also was sound on verbalizing that I was going to make them play through stuff and that not every touch is a foul. In the end I think communication is my strongest trait. I talk to the players a lot and I reason with them, but when I need to be I set the tone and don't let the tone be dictated by the players. Could have I called it tighter? sure, but the more you call the more people start realizing you are there, the less you call the more they police themselves. I am also proud of my fitness, there was a point in the 2nd half when I realized I needed to focus on keeping up with play and I think I was able to do that. It was a fun game to referee and the teams were really good. I look forward to having those high intensity games more regularly...

right on top of play eh?
all the photos came from www.gar-fieldsports.com
if you want, check out their blurb about the game "and all the calls going against them"

Any questions or thoughts feel free and I hope that The AR will post some comments as well

oh welll

hmm so its been a while, but its not like anyone reads this other than the people i talk to every day anyways...
aight so before i talk about the blues... figurative and literal... i will discuss some refereeing things that have happened over the past weeks

1st off - in more ways than one - my only red card of the season so far
Violent conduct, the girl elbowed another girl in the stomach away from play while the ball was dead. It was a stupid thing to do i was only about 10 feet away. She went off with no objections. What makes that game more memorable is that the parents were far worse than the players or coaches. It seems like the further away from the field the better angle of viewing the parents have, this field being very far away from the stands - which were built up and into a hill.
2nd off - coaches have been far better this season although there are still some of them that think coaching means talking more to or about the referee than the game. oh well, some things never change. Although in my last game the coach was upset about this girl getting tripped after the final whistle. you know how there are 3 tweets for the final whistle and the girl was getting clipped on the first. nothing bad and she was fine. coach wanted me to card the offending girl and all i probably would have given was a direct free kick, it wasnt a harsh tackle at all.
3rd off - tomorrow is a big day.. I am refereeing Boys Varsity, Forest Park HS vs Gar-Field HS... which the washington post has them ranked 7th and 10th respectively in the area. their first meeting ended up 2 to 1 in favor of Forest Park. From what I can tell about their previous game was that more than one card was handed out along with a penalty kick. This will probably be the highest level game I have centered yet. ill be giving a detailed report I am sure

Now to the professionals
Its Liverpool v AC Milan in a showdown once again. Of course for the next 23 days all we will hear about is Istanbul and the comeback. so be it.. I just hope the red haired kid remembers that he was too chicken to watch the whole game and is able to watch this one (he couldnt reason with his teacher about all school cleanup, even after i had settled it for him that he could watch, he was afraid of someones wrath)... haha, i am just messin with you man, although your beloved Arse doesnt have any silverware this season and could be american by this time next year.

Man U and Chelsea - now 5 points up in the prem with 3 games to go, one against Chelsea. It should be interesting after this weekend. The Man. Derby and Chelsea at Arse. A great weekend for football now that I think about it, hmmm. There are too many outcomes to think about but if it ends up being 5 points with two games left it would be interesting if Chelsea rest their players against Man U to focus on just the Cup. Yet if things change this weekend ( a win for the blues a loss for the devils) it could become very interesting what the special one decides. I have come to this conclusion that no matter what no one is winning the double, its going to be one or the other. Especially after the poor performance by ManU in the game today it should be interesting with all the injuries...

so many different possibilites