Sometimes its the little things...

There are a lot of special names applied to concepts that we've probably all heard once or twice. If you aren't familiar with these acronyms or terms they can be confusing. I can remember when I was younger and traveling to regional and national tournaments there were a few times when someone would throw a term out that I had never heard of. It was embarrassing but a great learning opportunity.

I started to learn that I wasn't so much learning new concepts as I was applying terms to concepts I had already learned. Being able to recognize those terms quickly and understanding what they mean will help you hold your own during training and assessments be it a Far West Regional game or a Sunday afternoon match. That way you don't have to learn the hard way like I did.

So starting today we're going to try and go over one term a week. Have you come across one of these terms and want to know what they mean? Shoot me an email and I'll feature it next week.

Denying Obvious Goal Scoring Opportunities - DOGSO

The Four D's of DOGSO

A foul is a foul regardless of who commits it. Soccer is a fast-paced game with lots of counter attacks. Consequently, referees and ARs can anticipate many chances to make decisions relating to DOGSO. Positioning and fitness levels must be commensurate with this style of play, and referees must be reading to evaluate the 4 conditions of DOGSO:

• Defenders - Are there any defenders between the attacker and the goal that could dispossess the attacker of the ball and prevent a scoring opportunity?
• Direction - Is the attacker’s position on the field such that he is headed/moving directly to goal? Consider the attacker’s touch on the ball, is it headed toward the goal area or at an angle away from the goal?
• Distance to Goal - As the attacker plays the ball, is his proximity to goal such that he is close enough that he would have a reasonable opportunity to advance the ball without opponents tracking him down. The further the distance to goal, the less opportunity for a scoring chance.
• Distance to Ball - Is the attacker close enough to the ball to be considered to have “possession” or a clear chance to play the ball or will the goalkeeper or another player get to the ball before the attacker?

Training & Development 2009

Training & Development Session 2009
Classic FC Cup


The second T&D Session went very well thanks to the participation from referees, assessors and administrators. We had two referees travel from Las Cruces and Taos to participate in the training and games.

The weekend started with a meeting Friday night (combined with the Upgrade Orientation). Jeremy Vehar gave a great presentation on information that was given to him at National Camp. There is something exciting about seeing the same presentations that were given to National Referees from across the country. Thanks for the info, Jeremy!

Games started early on Saturday and continued on throughout the day. Orion Stradford was kind enough to allow us to videotape his match from start to finish. He did a great job but didn't give us too much information to go over since the game went very smoothly. There were a few items that we talked about during the late afternoon debrief session. All referees were welcome to attend as we gathered around our makeshift projector screen and watched clips from the game. Orion gave his insight on what happened and what was going through his mind. There were some lessons learned about AR mechanics on a goal decision that we'll make sure to discuss in more detail later.
















All in all it was a good improvement on the first session. We're going to keep working on getting this right; stay tuned for another session sometime in the near future. Hopefully those who attended got something out of it.

Note: I'll have a slideshow of all the pictures taken up in the next week or so.

Futsal Weekend

Doug Cotter, our State Referee Administrator, reports on the state of Futsal.

Over President's Day weekend, while many NM referees headed to sunny, warm Phoenix for PDT, a Doug Cotter and Jeff Eschenberg headed to Kansas City for some Futsal training and received assignments at the Futsal Champion's Cup Super F league National Championships. It was terribly warm. In fact it was snowing when our flight landed, but by Sunday it was pretty nice. The other referees credited the weather to us coming and bringing it with us.

The principal reason for us going was to gauge where our referee program was and how the skill level of the players compared to the national scene. I'm happy to report that we're not doing too badly. There is not complete agreement throughout the referee community on many aspects of the Futsal laws. We were able to weigh in and discuss our situation and provide our opinions. It was never clear to me how many teams actually came to Nationals but it was played at four different venues about 10 to 15 miles apart. We saw three of the four venues. We should have seen all four but due to Doug's inability to read a schedule properly, we each missed an assignment. Fortunately we were with the assignor watching some men's open matches when he got a text indicating we were no shows! It worked out OK as they had some standbys. One venue was a gym on a community college campus and the other two were inflatable bubbles. It looked to us like the ages ranged from U9 through Men's Open. They had HSG and HSB (High School) divisions as well as U17 and U18. Not sure what the difference was.

On Friday night we attended a tournament rukes clinic and there was a special presentation given by Jason Karnac and Shane Butler. They are both FIFA Futsal referees from the US. The session opened with video from Jason's assignment as Referee 1 on the Soloman Islands versus Brazil match. Brazil won the match easily at 17-0 and ultimately went on to win the Futsal World Cup. Jason received 4 assignments at the World Cup (First, second, third referee and timer each once) and shared a story about a foul he missed due to positioning that broke a tie match and sent one team on to the next round. I find comfort in that situation. Whatever call I miss or make incorrectly, I don't feel good about it, but at least it's not in the world cup!

Jeff and I sat with Jason during a hotly contested Men's Open match between two hispanic teams. There were plenty of areas to exercise game management. It was very interesting listening to Jason's analysis and talked through the different foul selections the crew made. Later that night we watched a team from Toronto (Nationals???) play a local team. The team from Toronto was truly amazing and it was obvious the work they put into their game. Extremely disciplined and well coached.

We talked to the founders of the Super F league as they are local to the KC area. The have between 250 and 275 teams in their local league and it sounded as if they have seasons year around. The fee is $625 per team for an 8 game season. We have a way to go obviously.

All in all it was a pretty good experience to figure where we were and get some good ideas about training. It seemed to us that there were at least two teams in our local league that could have competed fairly well at Nationals. When our assignments came out we were not surprised at getting some all lower levels figuring it was Nationals and we didn't want to mess up too badly. But after seeing the play, it's obvious that Futsal is in its infancy in many areas. Many of the coaches still don't understand the rules, while many others are trying to make a living in this sport and have a very good understanding. There is clearly the same mentality from many coaches as in the outdoor game so it has progressed at least that far. One coach threatened to head butt a referee if he didn't start making better calls. He didn't see the rest of the game. In case you were wondering Jeff and never worked a match together and we did manage to each eject a coach cementing NM's future at the tournament. Mine was in a U12 boys semi final in which the winner was obviously going on to the CONCACAF finals. Turns out I was "a clown". He didn't see the end of the match either. Jeff wins the award for best of the two. His partner was never going to contain the coaches behavior so Jeff stepped in to help as first referee and told the coach to refrain from further comments. The coaches reply? "Ooooh, what are you going to do about it?" He didn't see the end of the match either. The division? U9G.

And so it goes.

Doug

ODP Training

One of the great things about attending the ODP Championships was all the training we received. This video is about positioning and was presented by Kevin Yant who is a National Instructor.

Look for field sessions in the future where we will practice this training in a group setting.

Kris's Update on ODP

Thank you to Orion for giving a great review of the ODP Championships held this past weekend. It was indeed a great showing for NM Referees and I look forward to us making more progress at FWR 2009. All referees who participated did a great job; if you see them around ask about the experience!

Orion Stradford
Marc Laws
Ryan Ehgartner
Amanda Forletta
Oscar Toquinto
JP Afonso
David Bernard
Kris Grano

Keeping up with tradition I've loaded some pictures and, for the first time, a brief video. Unfortunately Blogger will only let me upload 100mb or less of video, so the quality of this one is kinda poor. The slideshow is better quality but lacks the fun transitions between pictures and music, so take your pick or watch both.


If you see any pictures that you'd like to have in "uber-high quality" please email me and I'll send them your way.


Movie

Slideshow

Orion Reports On ODP Championships

The New Mexico Delegation of referees had a good showing at the ODP Regional Championships held in Phoenix, AZ over the MLK holiday weekend. Of the eight referees from NM, seven worked in the Finals!
For me, a good learning experience at the tournament was the topic of how to handle inappropriate behavior in the technical area. It was a point of emphasis at the tournament especially with the use of a 4th official on almost every match. We all know however, that most of the regular season matches we do don't have fourth officials on them. I feel that we should still strive to meet the criteria set out in the Laws of the Game and Position Papers from US Soccer in regards to the technical area to the best of our abilities even without 4th officials.
Take a look at this link to the Position Paper released on March 22, 2006. The Memorandum is very helpful in describing what to do in situations when the field doesn't have clearly marked technical areas (sounds familiar, right), and what constitutes "inappropriate behavior."
US Soccer has also released in their Week In Review documents a three step process for managing personnel (i.e. coaches) in the technical area:
ASK: If a situation arises where there is irresponsible behavior, you are to ASK the person to stop.
TELL: If there is another occurrence of irresponsible behavior you are to inform that person that the behavior is not permissible and TELL them to stop.
REMOVE: If the non-accepted actions continue you must REMOVE that person immediately.
Following these guidelines will definitely help all of our games go much smoother, and create a better environment for the players.

Last chance!

Well... maybe.

If you have not re-certified and live in the Albuquerque area you need to attend the ASRA meeting Tuesday, 01/13/08 at 7:00pm. This will be one of your last opportunities to take your test and get your 2009 badge. Keep in mind that you must have the required number of training hours to be eligible to take the test and re-certify. Attending the monthly meetings, the annual clinic, "other" clinics and Game of the Week training sessions all count towards the required yearly training hours.

If you do not have a 2009 badge this is a good sign that you are not yet re-certified. Remember: you must certify every year to be able to do games. The assignors will not be able to give you assignments if you are not registered.

Contact your DRA if you have any questions!