True to form, things heat up after three
After two weeks of not handing out cards at the unaffiliated league, I was pretty sure that the streak wouldn't hold. And while the games itself were pretty tame, I still wasn't disappointed and the yellow card came out of my front pocket twice last night.The first one was pretty interesting, because it brings up something I was told by an instructor with regards to challenges from behind. As you know, FIFA and the USSF have been wanting to clean up challenges from behind quite a bit, and it just hasn't worked out the way they want, and I rather like their solution; the Law itself hasn't changed, it's still possible to tackle from behind and be perfectly legal (it just has to be perfect), reckless it still a yellow card, and endangering the safety of an opponent is still a red card - what is different is how they're teaching it.
Any contact on a challenge from behind is a foul - it is up to the referee to decide if it is trifiling or not, and if it deserves a card.
You see, no change in the laws, but that one little explanation makes things much clearer. Which means when, like last night, that the person says he got the ball first so there shouldn't be a whistle or card (which he recieved), he's full a bunk. Actually, he's full of bunk anyway, because getting the ball first on any challenge does not mean you automatically did not foul (if it was from anywhere other than behind, his challenge would have been just peachy), but it lowers the bar clearly and effecitvely to protect players from behind-the-back challenges. I like it.
The other yellow card I handed out was strange. Many referees say that adult co-ed games are much harder to officiate than games of one gender - mostly because men get that little extra bit of testosterone in their systems when women are that much closer - and you're more likely to have the men stop playing soccer, and start doing impressions of male mountain goats butting heads. That's what happened, in the last game of the night - good, relatively clean, scoreless, but hard-played game, two of the largest guys working on each other, and the striker just lets out a tirade of profanity at the other. No idea what the defender did, but nobody can miss what the other is doing. Was the striker reacting to something? What he trying to bait the defender? No idea. Was there any context I picked up before this happened? If there was, I totally missed it. I booked the striker, and his own players worked on calming him down. Just strange.