| | Frequently Asked Questions
(A work in progress)What is a "free kick"?
Any one of a number of situations in which a team is awarded an opportunity to put the ball back into play with no opponents within 10 yards of the ball. Examples include, kick-offs, corner kicks, goal kicks, and direct & indirect free kicks awarded after a foul. Why does the referee not call a foul for something he just called a foul for earlier in the game?
It may be a case of the referee applying "advantage". This is a situation, where if, in the opinion of the referee, it would be to the advantage of the team that was fouled to allow play to continue than to stop play to award a foul. An example would be a player getting tripped as they are attacking the goal, but recovers from the trip and continues his attack. It would take away a clear goal scoring opportunity if the referee were to stop the game at that point to award the foul. If, within a few seconds, the advantage does not materialize; the player appears to stumble, recover, than fall before taking the shot, the referee can then still call the foul. Why doesn't the referee call any "handballs"?
The foul is actually "handling the ball", which implies that it is not only contact with the hand, but contact with any part of the hand or arm that is deliberately used to control the ball. Who decides if it was deliberate? If, in the opinion of the referee, the contact was deliberate and not incidental, it materially affected the game, then a foul was committed. Many so-called "handballs" called for by sidelines are just incidental contact between the ball and a players hand or arm that, in the opinion of the referee, has no consequential effect on the game. Why doesn't the referee call more fouls?
Soccer referees are actually instructed to avoid calling fouls as much as possible in order to avoid disrupting the flow of the game. If a referee feels he can control the match using tools other than signaling fouls, they are encouraged to do so. You might see evidence of this when a player comes in a bit hard on a challenge, and the referee may speak to the player briefly in passing rather than stopping the game to award a foul on a questionable offense. Many successful referees can get by with communicating with players during the match and preventing problems before they arise. If you walk away from a game and can't recall that the referee had much involvement, then you just witnessed a very well officiated match. Why does the schedule seem to come out so late every season?
It's not because the scheduler is busy counting his fees before producing the schedule! The scheduler is one of many volunteers that are involved in orchestrating the start of every new season and is responsible for scheduling well over a thousand games in a typical fall season. He is very much a victim to the information flow that is provided to him by each region for which he is scheduling teams. In an effort to include as many kids playing as possible, sometimes teams are added to the schedule at very late dates, which, of course, disrupts much of the schedule as the changes will reverberate through the schedule in the form of field and time changes to accommodate the extra games. Other disruptions include late or missing field information; sometimes school districts or cities are not very prompt at issuing permits or will even revoke or change permits at the last minute, and sometimes during the season! New teams form at the last minute, teams fold at the last minute. Every one of those changes has a big impact on producing a timely schedule. Every effort is made to produce a quality schedule that takes into account field availability, local field restrictions, SAT testing, even distribution of games from region to region, and of course, maximizing the number of kids playing. |
