President's Trap

We are on our way to having the driest March in Denver "history."  That means two things.  One:  No problems with games being cancelled due to weather.  Two:  Mother Nature will get us in April or May. :)

Our President's Cup (Boys U14+) kicked off this past weekend.  After many changes from our Assignor, I ended up with one U17 CR and one U17 A/R.

Start with the A/R game (my 2nd).  One coach came up to us and told us "we are running an offside trap.  I support the referees, but yesterday they blew 2 calls which lead to 2 goals...please watch for it."  OK coach.  So in the 1st half I was on their defense side which meant I got to watch for the trap.  I'm not a coach, but I have now concluded that the Offside Trap is a bad idea when it is the foundation of your defensive strategy.  You are now making me, the A/R, part of your defense, as opposed to my true role which is to provide information to my CR, first and foremost monitoring for an offside violation.  The opposing team took 10 minutes to unlock the defense.  First they discovered the defense was struggling with diagonal runs.  Then they discovered the defense didn't have the speed to recover.  Third they discovered that the A/R sometimes misses a call - I think I missed one offside call that lead to a goal, but my other calls were spot on.  Finally, they discovered they could just beat the defense dribbling.  An offside trap when run on occasion can be an effective strategy.  What I've seen in sub-elite youth levels is that the defense is trying so hard to execute the trap that when they fail they rarely get back in defensive shape.  So even if the attack slows, their shape is terrible, and a good possession team will score over and over again.  Which happened as the final was 9-1 in favor of the non-trapping team.

All about the Angles

Had just one CR assignment this weekend for a U-13 F Premier-1 (i.e. best of the U13 girls in CO) game.  It was a decent morning (finally was comfortable enough to wear ref shorts!) but the wind was blowing.  Which of course means positioning on GKs and keeper 'punts' is challenging.  I had two notable non-calls in the 1st half of said game related to my positioning and angle to the play:

1. I was in perfect position to watch a 2 handed push during a header challenge on a punt.  I was only 4 yards away!  And...and...and...my whistle never met my mouth.  My Senior AR asked me at half about that saying "well did you see..." and I finished "oh the 2 handed push that for some reason I didn't call?"  He laughed and said "well, at least you saw it, and yes, that's happened to me too."
I hate when that happens. :(


2. The 2nd non-call.  Normally when there's a GK or 'punt' I take position based on USSF guidelines adjusting for actual physical ability and tendencies.  I try to catch the initial kick contact out of the corner of my eye to make sure there's not a short kick or something crazy and then of course I focus on the field since the player movement will bring me to the ball.  Well this kick the wind caught the ball and was bringing it right at me.  So I got out of the way as quickly as possible but that left me parallel to the play.  So I saw a challenge that to me appeared OK.  Well...if I was where I *should* have been and had a more perpendicular angle, I would've seen one girl more or less climb over the other girl which would've been an easy charging foul call.  Bad angle!

Fortunately, I was much better in the 2nd half.  My SAR even said "you got all the calls right."  Well at least according to him. :)

In other news...

Mother Nature - undefeated and untied

Well a bummer for me this past weekend.  What should have been eight games (3 on turf, 5 on grass) ended up being ONE (on turf).  Mother Nature (or is it Old Man Winter?) didn't give us the needed warm temperatures (and winds) to dry out the rest of the Denver Metro grass fields, especially on the south side of town.

An Oasis in the Snow

For those of you who read my last post, you'll know the immediate Denver Metro Area received 12-24" of snow earlier this month depending on location.  You'll also know that it hasn't been warm here since, so a lot of that snow is still around.

Which brings me to this past weekend's tournament.  I figured there was trouble when the tweets started going out on Friday morning that the schedule was "in flux."  Uh oh.  But why?  The forecast was fine, and all the fields we were scheduled are turf - surely they are plowed and ready to go?

NOPE.

So what was supposed to be 3 games on Saturday for me (2 AR, 1 CR) became 3 'short' (2x30 min) AR games for me on Sunday (my original CR game was moved to when I was not available).  Sigh.

So here's our oasis in the snow:

Oasis in the Snow - Feb 19

The good news as a result of my changes is I worked with one of our area's mentors (Grade 6 verge of Grade 5 I think).  The games ranged from U14 to U18 boys.  He has a higher 'bar' so to speak when calling fouls.  He had one non-call in his first game that generated some good discussion as I (trailing AR), he, the "lead" AR, and the 4th all had different perspectives on what happened and what we would've called!  The 'call' was on a corner kick header by the attacking team.  I saw a kid run from 10 yards and have his elbows flying when he contacted the defender (and kind of the ball).  So there was too much "in" and not enough "up" for me - i.e. I would've called a foul against the attacker.  The lesson learned, as always, is a) be in the correct position, b) wait a second or two (unless it is really obvious) to see if there's an aftermath so to speak and c) call your game.

Otherwise, my foot and knee appear sufficiently healed to work the season.  We have two weeks until the next tournament (that is if we can ever get any warm weather in here to get the snow melted!).  So I can focus on my fitness and be ready to get back into the Center.

Guess we can't follow the Euro league schedule after all

One point of discussion regarding the MLS is, should the MLS season follow the Euro league schedules?  That is, start play in August and end in May.  For the Northeastern and Eastern Canada teams, that would mean the potential for some brutally cold games in Dec/Jan.

Well, to an extent our season in Colorado is active year round except for December.  That's correct, we do have outdoor tournaments in January (albeit friendlies), then small tournaments in February, then our season kicks off in March.  We have post season tournaments in May and June, some summer friendlies in July, then preseason in August, and then the Fall regular season that lasts until November since inevitably there's going to be snow outs in October.

Our January friendlies went well.  Indeed, the weather was nice (but not atypical for the Front Range).  Then old man winter struck.

Snow in inches in Denver Metro area Feb 2 - Feb 4 storm

We don't receive warm rains in February like the east coast, and chinook winds are generally a January phenomenon.  So when that much snow falls this time of the year, it's going to stick around.  Stick around it has.  For the foreseeable future, the games are limited to turf fields.  Some foothill/mountain communities of course need the turf fields; otherwise, they wouldn't play until May.

Last weekend a girls U-14 tournament was played.  The kickoff temperature on Saturday morning was +9F.  You read that right.  9 degrees above zero Fahrenheit.  I was not involved in that tournament.

So I get started this weekend with 3 games at a preseason tournament - turf fields of course.  I've spent most of my off-season healing my left foot and knee.  I stayed in shape the best I can (even skied), but I'd prefer to be in better running shape.  I'm ready and excited to get going!