Seeing Yellow

This weekend we had typical early April weather along the Colorado Front Range.  Namely, a record setting high temperature day (Saturday) followed by snow the next day (Sunday).  Welcome back Spring, we missed you.

This being a soccer blog and not a weather blog, let me summarize this weekend's trials and tribulations:

1. Worked a U-17 Div 2 Boys game on a turf field on Saturday as AR2.  Late in the first half, Team A's player has the ball near the penalty area, I look away to reset my offside, and out of my peripheral vision I see Team B (defender) take a good fall.  No call from me, no call from the CR, and lo and behold, GOAL.  Uh oh.  Parents are not pleased.  Literally 2 min later it is halftime.  So obviously we talk about the 'foul.'  I glanced away, so I saw the effect but not the cause.  CR was in a trailing behind position, so he didn't see an obvious push.  Trail AR said there 'could' be a foul.  Offside is my primary responsibility, but my lesson at the higher levels is to take a better angle or learn to count 'one' then reset.  This is so I can give better information to the CR.
   
2. President's Cup Game 1.  U-14 Boys as AR1.  Same damn thing happened.  Ball is in my end, I glance away to reset offside, and...maybe there was a handling, maybe not.  CR doesn't call anything.  No goal this time.  The CR is a real good ref and gave me a lot of good advice when I ran center (see next game), but I never had a chance to review this non-call with her.  Otherwise, I had an exemplary coach on the sideline.  Turns out he is a Grade 5 ref, probably too old to go national.  He was exemplary in how he coached the team.  Very positive.  No screaming.  Yes, he would let them know in no uncertain terms when they made a mistake, but I felt the players wanted to play for this coach.  I caught up with him after my 2nd game (see below) and we had a great discussion.  Encouraged me to take on some games that are played with primarily Spanish speaking players, as they are more intense and I would learn some valuable lessons to keep them in control.  Really told his team to "knock it off" when they were questioning the CR.  Knew his soccer too.
3. President's Cup Game 2.  U-15 Boys as CR.  In the rain, sleet, and snow.  Well I got to give out my first yellow card.  And second.  And third.  The first and third yellow cards were easy - just blatant reckless challenges.  The player who got the first card also came thisclose to being my first red card too.  He committed another dumb reckless foul, and I really got into his face and let him know next one he will be done.  His coach asked to pull him out.  I'm not sure if it is legal to do so, so I applied common sense (Law 18), and said go ahead.  He came back on a few minutes later and actually played quality soccer for the rest of the game.  Third yellow card the player slid in from, oh, Wyoming on a back tackle, and didn't come close to the ball.  I debated giving a direct red, but gave him a yellow and said in no uncertain terms his next foul he's gone.  I will admit he knew he was in the wrong and thanked me for correcting him.  So my 2nd yellow card.  This dude has great footwork and was driving the defense nuts all day long.  He also was doing a great job trying out for Broadway.  I will have to check on how to handle "dives" at this level, but this dude was a master.  Finally, he slid in recklessly on a tackle, did get the ball but also had his cleats way too high.  So he got a card and we had a talk about how the pitch is not the place to audition for Broadway.  He didn't get the message until he went down, twice in the penalty area, and I said "GET UP!"

I know with experience I will use better verbal communication to keep the game temperature down.  It just seemed that I really had no choice on two of the cards, and I'll have to learn how to handle Mr. Diver better. (advice from USSF is to issue a caution after a verbal warning).