As referees, we strive to be consistent in our calls throughout a game. I prefer to let the game flow until the players start telling me, in their own way, I need to call more fouls. Of course if I detect the temperature rising on my own my whistle becomes very active, or if in the first few minutes of the game I see a lot of physical contact then I know I need to call a bunch of fouls.
Which leads me to my experience with a U-16 D-2 Boys game. The first half ended 1-0 with two fouls on each team. One player asked me to watch the pushing, but otherwise no complaints at all. In other words, the players knew what I was calling and were fine with it. So 5 minutes goes by in the 2nd half and there's a challenge inside the penalty area. The way I saw the attacker react seemed strange. I didn't have a great angle, but I decided there was a substantial push from behind, so I gave the penalty. After the usual complaints, the keeper (who decided to use his Captain status even though the Laws give him no such privilege) more or less said "you didn't call that in the 1st half, why are you calling it now?" Although I said "both my AR and I saw it (which turned out to be true, but the AR did NOT signal for a foul)", I thought - you know he's correct. Now I had to make a lot more calls since the players didn't know what I was going to call. It took me about 20 min to get the game back to where I (and the players) wanted it to be.
During my game debrief my AR said there was indeed a push, and the push affected the attacker, but was surprised I gave the penalty. So indirectly he thought the same thing as the player. For what it is worth, the winning coach thought the call could've gone either way, but otherwise really liked how I called the game.
Lesson learned. Be consistent, but manage the temperature if it needs to be managed. With one close call, I changed the mood of the game when it didn't need to be changed.
