Open Age Advantage and goal - advice needed

[SamSkywalker]

I'll begin by saying that I know we got it right, but things could have gone quite wrong. That's why I seek a bit of advice.

Adults game, good regional division. The ARs are good friends and very good referees I can rely on, and we use communicators. It's 0-0 and just 7 minutes left on the clock. White side counter-attack and play the ball near the corner of the box next to the AR, and I'm close. A red defender tackles the white player recklessly; it's gonna be a caution all day. All of a sudden, a white player manages to play the ball straight to a teammate with a great chance to score a goal. Advantage, it is. Neither the leading AR nor have I managed to see the number of the offender, and both of us (and the trailing AR, by the way) are positive that the tackle deserves a caution. So I waited some two seconds -they felt like an eternity- for the offender to stand up so that I could see his number. No sooner had this happened than I find that there is a white player in control of the ball just 7-8 yd away from the goal surrounded by two red defenders and the goalkeeper -we know that things CAN happen in this situation. And I'm not even in the box, he's at the far post from my position, so he's some 20 yd away from me. Had he been fouled, or had a red defender handled the ball, none of us would have been in a position to make a credible decision. This was overseen with the help of the trailing AR, who covered me from his position. Still, being at the halfway line isn't quite good if you have to make a game-changing decision.

Summing up, my dilemma was either focusing on offender identification or the follow-up. I chose the former, and involuntarily relinquished my chances of being ready to judge a possible penalty or a dive -the fact that neither of them happened doesn't change the fact that it was a great opportunity for them to happen. The leading AR had to focus on offside, so he couldn't identify the offender. Two seconds later, when it dawned on me that I was in a bad position, I asked the trailing AR for help.

Happily, he scored with no apparent offence, the AR could get the number of the guy who scored, and I could caution the offender to the surprise of nobody. But this is a great opportunity for surprises to occur. So... how would wou handle this situation?

 

[Ryan4]

From Experience I've found that following the play is usually a safer bet than looking for a players number, especially when you have Neutral AR's. I feel that the potential Penalty call is more important to the game than the caution for the Red player. With the Leading AR being so close to the foul, it's unlikely that he won't eventually see the players number when he gets up, if he doesn't the players will complain about him not receiving a caution (if your honest and say you missed the players number they can't expect you to guess, these things happen). However if an incorrect call is made on a penalty then there will be more complaints and you will potentially be causing either team to loose the game based on an incorrect call.

 

[one]

This is a situation needing quick thinking and good judgement and the ideal handling is much easier with the benefit of hindsight. It could have been even more complicated if there were a number of cautions in the game and the offender's caution would have had a bigger impact of a second caution send off.

For me, referee must fucus on the event with the biggest impact. You need to think about it in terms of worst case scenario, would it be worse to miss a penalty/an offence by the attacker before a goal, or miss a caution. In your scenario, even though you have a trailing AR to keep an eye on play given his distance and angle the chances of him missing things are reasonably high.

So my suggestion is a quick glance to get the offender's number but follow the ball immediately and ask trailing AR to either get the number of the offender or keep an eye on him for ID if you have comms. If you don't have comms just point to the offender before you take off and hope one of your ARs will get the number or you will get a chance to get it in your peripheral vision at a later time..

 

[RobOda]

Tough dilemma.

I've missed a lot of cautions because I play advantage and can't keep my eye on the previous offence to register the number. Most of the time, I get away with it because the attacking team are usually more than happy to have the goal-scoring opportunity, and the defending team get away with a cautionable offence I guess(!)

That's partially why I don't play advantage unless it's going to be a very good one though. As with the others, for me I'd favour keeping up with play over staying to get the number.

 

[lincs22]

@SamSkywalker - where is the KMI (Key Match Incident) more likely to occur? That is were your emphasis should. is it missing a caution on a reckless challenge or missing penalty decision? The former you can argue was done to follow the advantage.

If your AR was good, he would pick up the offender later and tell you after the advantage had finished - On comms, he could just say the number without having to bring you over.

 

[SamSkywalker]

Thank you all for your input. I wish I had seen things the same way when the action happened. To be honest, I have never had such a situation before -lots of advantage goals, but never with such a dilemma.

To be fair, the trailing AR was superb, as he not only did warn me that an advantage could happen (he told me to hold the whistle via the comms, as he could see quite clearly what I could not), but also covered me when I was focusing on identifying rather than on the probable penalty.

Next time I’m quite sure I’ll have an immediate throwback, waste no time trying to spot the offender’s number (I’ll ask the trailing AR to do that), and use those two seconds running to get the probable penalty right. Tbh, I’m quite happy to be having this reflection now, being positive that we got it right, than after a probable penalty. So I know I’ll get it right the time it happens,

 

[santa sangria]

... To borrow from another thread: why number, could you have looked for hair, boots, other distinguishing characteristic?

 

[Sheffields Finest]

Most teams come around and you ref them 1-2 times per season, most have serial offenders... some you can write in your book before the game!! LOL. watch out for them, LOL

 

[Mintyref]

Follow the play, but tell the offender you're coming back to him, so when you do he'll probably come forward..........

 

[alexgr]

Follow the play, but tell the offender you're coming back to him, so when you do he'll probably come forward..........

I tried this before and it worked. Said something along the lines of "Come to me at the next out of play please" (deliberately left it vague, could have thought it would just be a quick word). Lo and behold, players comes right up to me

 

[SamSkywalker]

Follow the play, but tell the offender you're coming back to him, so when you do he'll probably come forward..........

My personal experience at the leagues I officiate is quite different. He knows it's going to be no good for him, so he's likely to hide in the masses. Besides, what was making me bang my head against the wall wasn't the fact that I had a hard time getting his ID, but rather that getting his ID diverted my attention from the place I should being focused on, the goal area and its surroundings.

What would you do in case the offender doesn't come forward and you don't actually know who he is?

 

[Mintyref]

You have two choices, drop it or pick a likely number and call them out.....they either take one for the team or the real culprit will be identified......I've done both!

 

[RobOda]

they either take one for the team or the real culprit will be identified

If they appeal it, on mistaken identity grounds, I assume they still lose out in the end?

Also, did that this season, flashed the red card to the wrong player, and he very quickly pointed out who the actual offender was - though this wasn't an advantage situation, I lost him because he broke the lad's leg and in dealing with that he wandered off and I lost track of him. @_@

 

[Mintyref]

No appeal for a yellow RobOda

 

[RobOda]

Cheers.

 

[SamSkywalker]

If they appeal it, on mistaken identity grounds, I assume they still lose out in the end?

Also, did that this season, flashed the red card to the wrong player, and he very quickly pointed out who the actual offender was - though this wasn't an advantage situation, I lost him because he broke the lad's leg and in dealing with that he wandered off and I lost track of him. @_@

Maybe this is one of the moments where extra attention is needed. I mean, emotions are running high, we're genuinely concerned about player's safety... I have the gut feeling that, where I in this situation, I'd have a hard time keeping myself calm and in control. How did you live it?

 

[RobOda]

How did you live it?

Well, it was the first ever serious injury I've ever had to deal with. Basically the star player, a Messi at this level, skinned two of them (they were 3+ to the lead) and got in the box. The defender just went studs up into the back of his foot, absolutely no intent to play the ball whatsoever.

I was in the perfect position to see it, blew the whistle, gave the penalty, went wide around to call him over and to anticipate any potential melee. Lad was on the ground screaming, looking at me and pointing at his leg. It took far too long for me to even realise, but the bone was basically out and his foot was hanging off, and basically any rage from incoming players dissipated quite quickly. The initial lads came round and almost spewed, the stronger lads immediately set to to work on holding him down and preventing any movement.

I was liaising with the physio and manager, caught wind of a few strong words and a few pushes and shoves elsewhere, but to be fair, nearly everyone kept their tempers under control. I was then talking with the people who were making the 999 call for the ambulance, and suddenly time had moved on and the Away team had suited up and were warming up on the far side of the pitch while the home team was dealing with the injury and I lost track of who it was.

Called up one of the lads, showed him the red, he was mortified, pointed out who did it and triple-checked I was rescinding his own red card, which was fair enough! Then the game was abandoned, as apparently as a sporting injury there wasn't a priority for an ambulance to arrive. =/ We were going round getting blankets for the poor lad, and by then family and stuff had been informed and it was getting quite busy on the field.

Looking back, I think it was just the shock of having such a serious injury in front of me that made me blank out from dealing with the red card promptly, and because I was focusing so much on that I just lost the memory of the finer details. Took me a few days to get back to sleeping normally after that, just replaying the incident in my head all the time, even though I knew there was absolutely nothing for me to do in the build up, wasn't my fault, just one of those things, but it was just stuck there on a loop for a while.

I mean, there's injuries... And then there's that. Yeah I don't know if I'd deal it with it any better in the future to be honest!

 

[SamSkywalker]

Well, it was the first ever serious injury I've ever had to deal with. Basically the star player, a Messi at this level, skinned two of them (they were 3+ to the lead) and got in the box. The defender just went studs up into the back of his foot, absolutely no intent to play the ball whatsoever.
[...]

Quite an horrific scene. It deserves a post for itself, honestly. I bet some lads around here have already dealt with situations of this kind...

I'm yet to live such a thing. And I honestly don't want to. I've had a couple of serious foul play challenges in adult games in my career, and none of them was even close to that. Got my ARs involved to make sure they got the guy, pulled the red card off my pocket for everyone to know I'm going to eject a player, called the physio in asap, and then displayed the card (comms and competent ARs made it easy to keep track of the offender). After a couple of minutes, the offended player came back or was substituted with minor injuries, and that was all. I bet you've had a handful of them, as I bet everyone has.

Analysing (maybe a bit too much) your situation, the good thing is that we don't have to care for advantage, and the restart is a piece of cake. The decision is also easy and all we have to do is to focus on the offender, and not to lose his track. If I see something like this in the future (I hope I don't, for god's sake!), I think I'd immediately call the physio in, and I'd show the red card as soon as possible. But you know, this is what I say from my couch, who knows how I'll keep my wits about me the day this happens.

I'd try to get my ARs involved, especially with comms. They can always help us kepp an eye on the offender, just in case we don't immediately show the red card. How did your team help you that day? As you see, I really like discussing match incidents from the teamwork point of view!

Tbh, I have already lost sleep when I've lived major injuries. Good thing (thinking egotistically, not having anyone to punish is a good thing) is that all of them have come as a result of an accident. A boy hitting the post with his head, a lad who all of a sudden can't feel his legs... that kind of things. Fortunately, I was told within hours that all of them left a&e with no sequels. All I could do then was stopping play immediately, calling in the staff, etc.