For the Integrity of Soccer

THIERRY HENRY: The hand seen round the world

    The French striker was never this famous at any time in his distinguished career.  Near to the post, he flicks the ball from left to right with a killer pass across the face of the goal, and his teammate scores with his head from close in.  France advances to the World Cup finals in South Africa next year; Ireland is eliminated.  End of story.
    But no, it wasn’t.  Before the pass, Henry had deliberately brought the ball under control with his left forearm and hand.  The all-seeing eye of the camera captured and transmitted the illegal act for the entire football world to see, except for the referee and his assistant.  How could they miss such a blatant act of illegal play?  Let’s take a look, and more to the point, let’s see what we must learn from it.

About THAT game . . .

During the last week I have received request after request for some opinion about the college game that by now the whole soccer world knows about.  CNN went to the streets for comments from the public; it was all over the internet within hours of the final whistle; even the venerable Times in England featured a story and video.  “Viral” hardly seems like an adequate description of the explosion of interest in the game between BYU and New Mexico women.  Given the violence on display in the match, “nuclear chain-reaction” seems more appropriate.  The game saw elbows to the ribs, a punch to the kidney, late challenges, arms swung to the head, a ball kicked into the face of a player on the ground, over-the-top challenges, and worst of all, one player’s head snapped back by a pull to her ponytail as her opponent hurled her to the ground from behind.  But . . . no worries, the referee asserted his authority over this beautiful game by issuing one—that’s right, one—caution in the entire match . . .  What went wrong?

First, a couple of disclaimers.  I did not see the match.  All I saw was several minutes’ worth of the worst of the violence (for such it was!)  Nor have I ever assessed the referee.  What I am going to do is to try to show that there are techniques that referees can use to ensure that they will not miss or ignore the kind of thing you saw on the video.

Second, every one of the incidents on the video—the provocations, the retaliations, the punches and hair-pulling, the elbows to the face, tackling over-the-top—was worthy of disciplinary action.  Make no mistake about that.  But wiser refereeing would have prevented the violence from escalating after the first incident . . . if the referee had seen the first kick, punch or elbow.  So is that the fundamental question?  Did he not see what was happening?  Or did he simply ignore what was appearing in front of his eyes?

If he saw, but chose to ignore the incidents, he was guilty of serious lack of judgment.  Surely no national referee (for both the federation and NISOA) would consider the fouls and assaults “trifling”?  Would he permit mayhem for the sake of flow of the game?  I don’t think so.

In my reasoning, therefore, we are left with the possibility that the referee was too far away, was unsighted by congestion of players, or had the wrong “angle of view”.  In other words, he didn’t see the problems.  This we can fix, but non-existent judgment is a fatal condition for an official.  Soccer euthanasia would be kinder for the sport and the players.

So let me offer some suggestions for any referee who is not seeing what is going on.  Consider three elements:

        • Closeness to play

        • The angle to the incident

        • Number of players in view

The first is obvious and has been preached by referee-instructors and assessors since the extinction of Cro-Magnon humanity.  (Although some of the scenes from the BYU-New Mexico contest were savage enough for primitive battles past.)

The second is a complication on closeness, because we know that the angle from which you see infractions can tell you more than mere closeness about what they are.  In baseball they preach the mantra to potential umpires: “Angle before closeness”.  If you haven’t seen the DVD “Angle of View”, then make an effort to get it.  There’s no copyright problem, and copies can be freely made for Mac and even a PC.  Get it and play with it for a few hours; it may change your movement on the field.  It should!

The third is something I (and others) have been teaching for a few years, because when I was still refereeing, I had found it useful to remember to get as many players in view as I could, especially at set-pieces.  And with the speed of the modern game, a referee who is positioned behind play (not too far!) can see more players than if he or she were in the middle of the attack, or ahead of the ball.  I will venture to guess that this was the problem in the BYU-New Mexico game.

So there you have my two-cents’ worth.  One flaw is fatal; the other can be fixed.  But the disaster we saw will be repeated if the referee doesn’t work at it.  And that will not be good for the game.

Cheats and Conflicts

In recent weeks, fans of professional sports⎯and by fans I mean those who love the sport, not just one team or one character in it⎯have been hit by such a barrage of cheating and misconduct that they would be right to ponder the question: Is it worth my support?  For thousands of years, abused lovers have tolerated bad behavior and cruelty when good sense tells them they should walk away.  Should sports fans do the same?

Inertia . . . Some Thoughts Before Beginning Again

    Not a day goes by but that I sit here at my desk and computer, that wonderful instrument for writing, researching and remembering.  Its reach is planetary, its speed cosmic, but it is not infallible, for it grasps jewels and junk with equal ease.  [The current political farce acted out by the so-called "birthers" is testimony to the power of the internet to disseminate junk in which the careless and mindless can luxuriate.]  But not on my Mac!

"Empty Chairs at Empty Tables"

Oh my friends, my friends forgive me
That I live and you are gone.
There's a grief that can't be spoken;
There's a pain goes on and on.

Phantom faces at the window.
Phantom shadows on the floor.
Empty chairs at empty tables
Where my friends will meet no more.

Oh my friends, my friends, don't ask me
What your sacrifice was for.
Empty chairs at empty tables
Where my friends will sing no more...

                        From: Les Miserables

This was sent to me by Scarface 22 in honor of Chatterbox 16.  The helicopter call-signs from their service in Viet Nam were those of Herb Silva and Chuck Fleischer respectively.  Herb and Chuck last met two weeks ago at a regional clinic here in northern California.  Scarface 22 signed off with the Marine tattoo:

SAEPE EXPERTUS, SEMPER FIDELIS, FRATRES AETERNI
"Often Tested, Always Faithful, Brothers Forever"

Thanks, Herb!

The shadow on the grass . . .

Crow Bigfoot, warrior, statesman and leader of the Blackfoot people in 1890, lay dying of pneumonia.  "What is life?" he asked rhetorically.  ". . . It is as the little shadow that runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset."

Much Ado About Nothing . . . words about offside

In the twenty-first century, the football world has finally absorbed the intent of law 11, just as the United States did in the final decade of the twentieth.  But even after that blatantly chauvinistic lede (journalism's word for "opening"), I have to admit that we still do get small controversies, the latest of which concerns interfering with play when offside, and in fact the comments to this morning's post express one of them.

A little history about Offside

On March 25, Alfred Kleinaitis sent out a memo about the first goal scored in the MLS season on March 19 in the game between New York Red Bulls and Seattle Sounders in the northwest.  When I saw the clip of the goal, and read the explanation of why the offside player should not be penalized for infringing Law 11, I first smiled, then sighed in satisfaction as I knew that what I had been attempting since the mid-1970s had finally come to pass: calling offside as it should be called (for the good of the game).  First, a little history.

Clinic: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Over the weekend I went to a state-wide clinic for all ranks of referee (plus assessors and instructors), following the (good) idea of providing the same basic material throughout the program—youth, amateur and professional.  As is always the case with a big clinic, an observer will see the good, the bad and the ugly; this day-long effort was no different.  Let’s start with the good.

Si, se puede !

For some time now I have been hammering on about the referee's role and responsibility to eliminate tackles from behind, or tackles that are late, from the game.  Every instance MUST be punished appropriately in order to protect players and deter the criminals.  So today I am delighted to show an example of one of OUR referees doing what he is supposed to do in an MLS game.