The never ending game

One of the many reasons I enjoy being a soccer ref is you generally know how long your game is going to last.  Youth games last 60 to 90 min + 5 min half, HS is 80 min + 10 min half, except we have 2 5 min extra time "golden goal" periods in Varsity regular season.  Simple, right?



Well this past Friday night I was a Side Ref for a HS 'invitational tournament' varsity semifinals game.  In other words, we needed a winner.  Game was tied after the 80 min regulation game.  This tournament featured 'post-season' tie breaker rules - in other words, two 15 min "golden goal" extra time periods.  Oh they added 5 min in between the end of the regulation game and in between the 2 extra time periods.  Of course there was not a golden goal!  Start doing the math - 80 + 10 + 5 + 15 + 5 + 15 - yeah we're at 130 minutes.  OK well at least "kicks from the mark" can't take that long.  We don't time it - but I bet it takes at least a minute per kick - if not 2 minutes.  Per kick.  So kicks were "home" 4 "visitor" 2 going into the visitor's 4th kick.  So we have 3 chances to end the game!  Visitor of course scores, Home of course misses, and then...well I'm the side ref on the 6 and goal line.  Visitor takes the 5th kick, Keeper gets a hand on the ball, ball keeps rolling onto the goal line, keeper seemingly stops the kick.  She starts celebrating, her team starts celebrating,  but I'm right there - and signal a goal.  She asks "doesn't the whole ball have to cross the line?"  Yep!  And it did!  So now we're tied 4-4 and go into the 'sudden death' mode.  For what it is worth, the ref in the center circle thought it went in.  The CR couldn't tell, but of course fully supported me.

It took 12 kicks by each team until we finally had a winner.  So kicks from the mark took well over 30 min.  Yep.  Nearly a 3 hour soccer match.  With a 7:30pm start!

Had some uneventful U13 girls games this weekend, and picked up a "Super League" U13 boys game which at least got me running.  That's good as our State Cup kicks off this weekend and I run center on a U18 boys game which may double as an assessment game.  Snow permitting as that is in our forecast.  We shall see.

I will be at the USMNT game vs Costa Rica.  Go USA!