Assistant referee , importance

[Big Cat]

Hmm… the right pre match can have a massive effect with ARs with limited experience, ability or self-control.

Yeh, it's different when the Assistants are inexperienced (I did infer that). Also, there'll be different things to discuss as the 'event' needs managing at higher levels. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the pre-match isn't important. I think of it as akin to going on the driving range before a round of golf. It gets our heads in the right space for the game ahead. It's just that it may as well be standardised, because 80 or 90% of it is just repetition week on week. As a competency, it pales into insignificance when compared with the importance of other observation points we gain or lose (as far as everyone else is concerned)

 

[Anubis]

with experienced Ars its really a pre match chat as much as it is instructions

with lesser Ars, your fear is overload, so as much as you might wish to run thro as much as you think you (they) need, give them too much and you have lost then even before they take to the pitch. So simplicity might be key

we act on impluse, if we see something, the priority is to correctly process what we have seen and what is to be done about it. This far overides spending 30 secs trying to recall what dance the referee requested should said incident occur.

as ever esch to own but if my ars picked up the off the ball kmi, as far as am concerned he can do the Timewarp, as long as he gets the call right, The window dressing would be a bonus

 

[socal lurker]

For me the key to prematch instructions is paying attention to what will help the team in this game. IMO too many refs have a holy recital that they give each game with no difference in their audience. When an R tells me to stay with the second to last defender, I know the whole pregame is a waste of time (But that isn’t a terrible reminder to the newbie).

 

[ChasObserverRefDeveloper]

For me the key to prematch instructions is paying attention to what will help the team in this game. IMO too many refs have a holy recital that they give each game with no difference in their audience. When an R tells me to stay with the second to last defender, I know the whole pregame is a waste of time (But that isn’t a terrible reminder to the newbie).

. . . and "level with the second to last" may be incorrect guidance, depending where the ball is . . .

 

[RustyRef]

Fail to prepare, prepare to fail. If you don't cover important things in a pre-match briefing you can't then complain if an AR gets involved when you don't want them to. For example, if you don't cover penalty decisions you don't really have any grounds for complaint if they flag for a penalty in an area you don't think is credible. Or you don't cover penalty taking and find yourself surprised that an AR has flagged for a retake, and so on.

Equally though if you over do it people will switch off. I know of one L4 that uses, or at least used to, an iPad to show specific examples of offsides to his ARs so they know when to flag and when not to. That is overkill, and you have to assume that any appointed NAR has a good understanding of the offside law. Now I of course know that there are some that don't keep up with law changes, especially below L3 when you could be getting ARs of variable quality, but if they misinterpret law you need to be ready to overrule if necessary.

And sometimes you need to be prepared to speak to and educate ARs during the game. I appointed ARs to a cup final years ago, always tricky as I don't have any marks for that so have no idea if they are experienced on the line, and one of them clearly wasn't. The referee had to stop the game and go and educate the AR on offside as he was putting the flag up whenever the ball was played forward, without any kind of waiting to see who it was going to. Likewise I had to leave my obsever's seat in the stand last season to go and tell AR2 that he is only responsible for his own half, and not the entire touchline that he was gamely trying to run up and down, and after the game I gave closed book advice to the referee that he really should have intervened rather than me having to go and do it ..

 

[RefIADad]

Fail to prepare, prepare to fail. If you don't cover important things in a pre-match briefing you can't then complain if an AR gets involved when you don't want them to. For example, if you don't cover penalty decisions you don't really have any grounds for complaint if they flag for a penalty in an area you don't think is credible. Or you don't cover penalty taking and find yourself surprised that an AR has flagged for a retake, and so on.

Equally though if you over do it people will switch off. I know of one L4 that uses, or at least used to, an iPad to show specific examples of offsides to his ARs so they know when to flag and when not to. That is overkill, and you have to assume that any appointed NAR has a good understanding of the offside law. Now I of course know that there are some that don't keep up with law changes, especially below L3 when you could be getting ARs of variable quality, but if they misinterpret law you need to be ready to overrule if necessary.

And sometimes you need to be prepared to speak to and educate ARs during the game. I appointed ARs to a cup final years ago, always tricky as I don't have any marks for that so have no idea if they are experienced on the line, and one of them clearly wasn't. The referee had to stop the game and go and educate the AR on offside as he was putting the flag up whenever the ball was played forward, without any kind of waiting to see who it was going to. Likewise I had to leave my obsever's seat in the stand last season to go and tell AR2 that he is only responsible for his own half, and not the entire touchline that he was gamely trying to run up and down, and after the game I gave closed book advice to the referee that he really should have intervened rather than me having to go and do it ..

I try to give the "best of both worlds". I have a stock pregame that I email to my crews a few days before a game. This pretty much covers all of the basics. Admittedly, it's "one size fits all". But obviously, those working with me will cover what they want to cover. For example, I do have the standard "level with the 2nd to last defender or the ball", but I know those who work a lot with me won't read that. Since we do use comms a fair amount in the US for high school and college, I color code the comms instructions. That way, my ARs can either ignore the instructions (if we aren't using comms) or can focus on that if they aren't familiar.

When we get to the field, I can then just cover some of the high points and/or specific points for this game.

Another thing I would recommend is to have three versions of your pregame.

1. The "long form" pregame that you'll use for cup finals, big matches, or other times when you have a significant amount of time before the match. This one would be 10-12 minutes.
2. The "3-5 minute" pregame where we are all coming from other fields but still have more than a minute or two.
3. The "60 second" pregame where you're trying to start the next game ASAP. For this pregame, I hit the following four points. 1) If the ball is on the goal line, I need you there. 2) Be patient with your flag unless there's a potential attacker-keeper collision 3) Trail AR watches behind my back unless the ball is on your touchline 4) How to subtly signal that the keeper has come off the line for a penalty kick.

 

[socal lurker]

4) How to subtly signal that the keeper has come off the line for a penalty kick.

This is one I have mixed feelings about. The LOTG now say the AR is to raise the flag. I’ll only tell my ARs to do something different with inexperienced ARs that I’d don’t trust or feel I need to protect.

 

[RefIADad]

This is one I have mixed feelings about. The LOTG now say the AR is to raise the flag. I’ll only tell my ARs to do something different with inexperienced ARs that I’d don’t trust or feel I need to protect.

This is what I found in the assistant referee guidelines:

If the goalkeeper blatantly moves off the goal line before the ball is kicked and prevents a goal from being scored, the AR should indicate the encroachment according to the pre-match instructions from the referee.

So at least according to the guidelines supplementing the LOTG, a flag is not mandatory.

The reason I want a subtle signal to a because I want the final call to be mine. If the AR raises a flag but I don’t think the keeper moved improperly, the cries of “your AR called it!” will be long and loud. If I don’t trust the ARs to properly call the keeper off the line, I’ll just tell them to judge ball over the line and I’ll take all keeper movement.

 

[RustyRef]

This is what I found in the assistant referee guidelines:

If the goalkeeper blatantly moves off the goal line before the ball is kicked and prevents a goal from being scored, the AR should indicate the encroachment according to the pre-match instructions from the referee.

So at least according to the guidelines supplementing the LOTG, a flag is not mandatory.

The reason I want a subtle signal to a because I want the final call to be mine. If the AR raises a flag but I don’t think the keeper moved improperly, the cries of “your AR called it!” will be long and loud. If I don’t trust the ARs to properly call the keeper off the line, I’ll just tell them to judge ball over the line and I’ll take all keeper movement.

How can you possibly see keeper movement though when your priority is watching the kicker and the edge of the area? Answer is, quite simply, you can't.

 

[Anubis]

How can you possibly see keeper movement though when your priority is watching the kicker and the edge of the area? Answer is, quite simply, you can't.

the concept of not trusting the Ar to give keeper movement, from a set piece, from 18 yards away, but happy to trust them to give an offside in open play from 50 yards away with limited visibility on the proximity of the players to each other does seem strange.

to simply trust them with the biggest call ' ball over line" is backwards, if you have no faith im your ars then entrusting them with the biggest call is complete contradiction. The biggest call you can make during the game is ball over line!

 

[RefIADad]

How can you possibly see keeper movement though when your priority is watching the kicker and the edge of the area? Answer is, quite simply, you can't.

As with everything else related to football refereeing, it's a matter of priorities. For me, the priority order for violations are 1) Kicker violations, 2) Keeper violations, and 3) Encroachment violations. The more I can trust my AR to handle 2), I'll deal more with 3) since 2) is more important to get right than 3). Keeping with the "trifling" aspect, I'm not going to call a very borderline keeper violation. If the keeper comes forward to where I'll call it, it's going to be rather obvious to me and to most watching. Example - if I can't tell whether the keeper's foot is completely in front of the line while it's up in the air, I'm not going to call that. I instruct my AR to do the same - if you are confident the keeper encroached, give me that information. Same with encroachment. If I'm certain that there's encroachment, I'm calling it. If I'm not sure, I'm not going to call it.

With a NAR, I position myself not parallel with the penalty spot, but about halfway between the penalty spot and the penalty area line. This allows me to look through the kicker to the keeper while keeping everyone else in sight out of the corner of my eye. So yes, I am able to see things to the point where I'll be able to catch anything more than a trifling violation.

Let me ask this - in the matches many of you work as solo referees, are you able to clearly see everything? If not, what are you prioritizing?

 

[RustyRef]

As with everything else related to football refereeing, it's a matter of priorities. For me, the priority order for violations are 1) Kicker violations, 2) Keeper violations, and 3) Encroachment violations. The more I can trust my AR to handle 2), I'll deal more with 3) since 2) is more important to get right than 3). Keeping with the "trifling" aspect, I'm not going to call a very borderline keeper violation. If the keeper comes forward to where I'll call it, it's going to be rather obvious to me and to most watching. Example - if I can't tell whether the keeper's foot is completely in front of the line while it's up in the air, I'm not going to call that. I instruct my AR to do the same - if you are confident the keeper encroached, give me that information. Same with encroachment. If I'm certain that there's encroachment, I'm calling it. If I'm not sure, I'm not going to call it.

With a NAR, I position myself not parallel with the penalty spot, but about halfway between the penalty spot and the penalty area line. This allows me to look through the kicker to the keeper while keeping everyone else in sight out of the corner of my eye. So yes, I am able to see things to the point where I'll be able to catch anything more than a trifling violation.

Let me ask this - in the matches many of you work as solo referees, are you able to clearly see everything? If not, what are you prioritizing?

It is completely different when you are on your own, and then of course your priority has to be the kicker and the goal line. But in a team of three you aren't on your own, you have an extra set of eyes. If you don't trust your ARs with keeper encorachment do you also not trust them to help with ball over the line, offsides, penalties, etc? They are all big, potentially game changing decisions, so why trust them on those but not on keeper encroachment?

On the rare occasions a referee has given me an instruction that he will deal with keeper encroachment my trust in that referee has gone before the game even starts, as what he is saying is that he doesn't trust my judgement.

 

[RefIADad]

It is completely different when you are on your own, and then of course your priority has to be the kicker and the goal line. But in a team of three you aren't on your own, you have an extra set of eyes. If you don't trust your ARs with keeper encorachment do you also not trust them to help with ball over the line, offsides, penalties, etc? They are all big, potentially game changing decisions, so why trust them on those but not on keeper encroachment?

On the rare occasions a referee has given me an instruction that he will deal with keeper encroachment my trust in that referee has gone before the game even starts, as what he is saying is that he doesn't trust my judgement.

All of this depends on the experience level of my AR. If I'm working with an experienced AR who I know will get the job done, it's not an issue. I referee a lot of matches around my son's matches on the weekends. I work with many brand-new ARs in some of these matches. I'm not going to automatically assume that those ARs who may be in their first year are going to listen to my pre-match instructions, let alone remember all of the rules.

If you talk to those who referee with me, I'm generally considered as a referee who is very trusting of his assistants. If I have an AR who I trust a great deal, I'm perfectly fine with him/her calling me over to ask me to completely overrule a call (and I've done it in a regional final before). But I also will take experience into account.

 

[socal lurker]

This is what I found in the assistant referee guidelines:

If the goalkeeper blatantly moves off the goal line before the ball is kicked and prevents a goal from being scored, the AR should indicate the encroachment according to the pre-match instructions from the referee.

So at least according to the guidelines supplementing the LOTG, a flag is not mandatory.

The reason I want a subtle signal to a because I want the final call to be mine. If the AR raises a flag but I don’t think the keeper moved improperly, the cries of “your AR called it!” will be long and loud. If I don’t trust the ARs to properly call the keeper off the line, I’ll just tell them to judge ball over the line and I’ll take all keeper movement.

Huh. I’m positive that a recent iteration said raise the flag as I was surprised by it, but that is clearly no longer current and I think it’s good to be the referee discretion.

Won‘t really change what I do. With refs I consider peers, I’m still telling them to raise the flag, as they are in the position to make the call and focus on it. For the ARs I don’t have that trust in, I ignored the “raise the flag” even when it was the instruction and use a More subtle signal. I would never tell an AR not to watch encroachment. (And I don’t think a concern that they won’t follow the instruction to not raise the flag makes sense either-CIF they are going to ignore that instruction, they are going to ignore the instruction not to signal, so why assume the lowest common denominator? Why not empower them with what their job is with a subtle signal you can overrule? I think you’re really missing the boat on this one when it comes to referee development.)

 

[Anubis]

This is what I found in the assistant referee guidelines:

If the goalkeeper blatantly moves off the goal line before the ball is kicked and prevents a goal from being scored, the AR should indicate the encroachment according to the pre-match instructions from the referee.

So at least according to the guidelines supplementing the LOTG, a flag is not mandatory.

The reason I want a subtle signal to a because I want the final call to be mine. If the AR raises a flag but I don’t think the keeper moved improperly, the cries of “your AR called it!” will be long and loud. If I don’t trust the ARs to properly call the keeper off the line, I’ll just tell them to judge ball over the line and I’ll take all keeper movement.

What is the desired subtle signal?

 

[ChasObserverRefDeveloper]

What is the desired subtle signal?

Versions I have heard include:
(With buzzer flags) Buzz me, but don't flag.
(Without buzzer flags) Stand still and look at me.
(Without buzzer flags) Take a step towards the goal then stand still.

 

[socal lurker]

For the subtle signal, I have generally used the flag across the waist, as that was the official recommended signal in the US back when USSF published such things. Moving the flag, still pointing down, between the legs, was used before that. I work with some refs who ask the AR to step onto the field as a signal.

 

[Anubis]

For the subtle signal, I have generally used the flag across the waist, as that was the official recommended signal in the US back when USSF published such things. Moving the flag, still pointing down, between the legs, was used before that. I work with some refs who ask the AR to step onto the field as a signal.

As with anything each to own, but, flag across the waist cannot be described as subtle!

it simply means 75% of the crowd, along with all the players who look, will see it, as opposed to 100%.

if you are going to move or use the flag here and put it across waist, its not really any diff to raising it fully.

 

[Anubis]

Versions I have heard include:
(With buzzer flags) Buzz me, but don't flag.
(Without buzzer flags) Stand still and look at me.
(Without buzzer flags) Take a step towards the goal then stand still.

So at what could be the key moment in the match, if the AR wants a retake, they are to, stand still and look at the ref? With the game now in progress?
How long do they stand there? Whats the signal from ref to AR that they are not taking the advice?
Does the referee, who has taken offsides, ball over line, etc, from the ar, suddenly find themselves the only one who can make a call when it comes to taking of a pk?

Buzz me but dont flag is common if thats the moment the buzzers pack in, you are leaving the call to technology, when, the buzzers should be used as an extra aid to your established principles, not as replacement for them.
The use of buzzers is to enhance communication, not replace it

i can say hand on heart I have never heard of stand still and look at me, not take a step towards the goal and stand still.

As Ar, if am wanting the retake, the flag will be getting raised.
As referee, if my Ar raises the flag here, am 99% going with a retake.

" ref your lino gave you that?"..... is exact same to when lino gives me a throw, offside, corner, off the ball incident, etc,and, is the epitome of teamwork.

" ref yoir lno gave you that?

" yes, thats exactly why he is there" should kill any shame

 

[Will_A]

So at what could be the key moment in the match, if the AR wants a retake, they are to, stand still and look at the ref? With the game now in progress?
How long do they stand there? Whats the signal from ref to AR that they are not taking the advice?
Does the referee, who has taken offsides, ball over line, etc, from the ar, suddenly find themselves the only one who can make a call when it comes to taking of a pk?

Buzz me but dont flag is common if thats the moment the buzzers pack in, you are leaving the call to technology, when, the buzzers should be used as an extra aid to your established principles, not as replacement for them.
The use of buzzers is to enhance communication, not replace it

i can say hand on heart I have never heard of stand still and look at me, not take a step towards the goal and stand still.

As Ar, if am wanting the retake, the flag will be getting raised.
As referee, if my Ar raises the flag here, am 99% going with a retake.

" ref your lino gave you that?"..... is exact same to when lino gives me a throw, offside, corner, off the ball incident, etc,and, is the epitome of teamwork.

" ref yoir lno gave you that?

" yes, thats exactly why he is there" should kill any shame

I’ve not been on this forum for long so apologies if I’m wrong, but…

Do you ever post anything that is positive and not derisory/condescending?
You come across as very ‘high & mighty’.

Whilst there’s clearly a difference between the way officials work across the globe, is there any need to be so firm and dismissive of other methods of working?

I’m a fairly confident chap with faith in my own and those I respect’s methods but I’d imagine the way you shoot people down as though you’re Pierluigi himself might put a few younger/less confident referees off of using this great space.