Don’t Retaliate

A funny incident happened to my daughter this year during her high school season that illustrates retaliation perfectly. My daughter entered a game early in the second half and before her teammate had a chance to restart the game with a throw-in, my daughter:

• Received a yellow card,
• Was almost shown a red card, and
• Found herself back on the bench.

The incident unfolded as follows:

1. As she entered the game and positioned herself for the throw-in, an opponent pinched her on her hip.
2. Not one to take kindly to this sort of action, my daughter reciprocated with an elbow to the pincher’s mid-section.
3. Seeing only the elbow, the referee showed my daughter a yellow card and pointed to the bench (in our high school league, all yellow card recipients require to be substituted).
4. As she neared the bench, her coach asked her why she did what she did. She answered by showing him the pinch mark and made sure that everyone in the stands knew that she had been pinched.
5. Upon seeing the mark, the coach had her return to the field to show the referee the evidence.
6. As she neared him, the referee asked, “If she would like a red card as well?”
7. Without responding, my daughter returned to the bench to accept her punishment. Fortunately, she went back in after the next dead ball. There were no further retributions or flare-ups.

I feel the referee was perfectly justified in giving my daughter the yellow card because a referee can only call and punish actions or infractions that he/she sees. Even though he probably guessed something had happened to my daughter to cause her to react like she did, he should not have shown the other girl a yellow card since he did not see the pinch occur. All he could do was keep a closer eye on the pincher and be quick to call a foul if he witnessed anything.

I gave my daughter the following advice should she be involved in another similar incident in the future:

• Raise your voice to get the referee’s attention. Something like, “Ouch! You can’t pinch me like that!” would have done the trick.
• Display the evidence to the player and make sure the referee sees it as well. If possible, go to the referee and show him/her the evidence up close.
• Be polite when showing the referee any evidence. If he/she does not want to see it, that’s fine. The purpose, which was to let the referee know that a particular player caused you pain, was achieved.
• Don’t retaliate. Opponents, especially older ones, play mind games. Their intention is to get the opponent off his/her game. This type of gamesmanship is part of soccer as well as most other sports. It is something that players need to understand and expect.

Retaliation is never the answer. While it is not fair, the referee will always see the retaliator’s reaction and not the perpetrator’s action. React and you will almost certainly be carded and possibly end up back on the bench without ever playing a minute of a game.

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Cheating Referees

I doubt the following dialogue has ever happened. But if you hear the comments of many young players at the end of games which they have lost, they would tell you that it was possible. After all, it was the cheating referees who contributed to or resulted in the loss.

The dialogue protagonists:

• Referee (Ref).
• Assistant Referee 1 (AR1).
• Assistant Referee 2 (AR2).

The referee meets the two ARs behind the goal.

Ref: Welcome gentlemen. I’m looking forward to refereeing with you guys again.

AR1: Same here. Which team is it going to be this time?

Ref: Well, see that player over there (referee points to #9 on the green team). He looked at me funny the last time I refereed his game.

AR2: I know his coach. I don’t like the coach’s daughter.

AR1: That’s Lisa’s Dad? Yeah, I don’t like her either. She won’t go out with me. She said I lacked character.

Ref: What does she know? Well then, it sounds like we have our team. You guys know the procedure.

AR2: Yes, I will ignore all offside calls for the other team. However, anything close to an offside against the green team, I will raise my flag.

AR1: Same here. I will also make favorable throw-in, corner, and goal kick calls every chance I get for the other team.

Ref: Perfect! Don’t worry about helping me with the fouls. As usual, I will make every possible call against the green that I can. Then if I hear one word from either a player or coach, you can bet I will pull out my yellow card. If I get a chance, I’ll see if I can pull out a few red cards as well.

AR1 and AR2 (in unison): Sounds like a plan.

Ref: Let’s go out and have a good game, fellows!

Sure referees make bad calls. And some referees make more bad calls than others. And as a player and coach, this can be really frustrating. When I was young, I was terrible to referees when a call did not go my way. I’m sure many of them wanted to pull a Homer Simpson and wring my neck. But mistakes are part of the game and part of being human.

Do referees cheat? This would imply that referees deliberately make bad calls. It would also imply that the above dialogue was indeed plausible. The answer is highly unlikely. As a coach, it is important to let your players know that their accusations and beliefs are incorrect, no matter how frustrated or upset you may be. After all, it is just a game.

2-3 Goal Difference Per Game: Neutralize the Best Player

One year when I was coaching a U10 Boys team, the team made it to a tournament’s consolation (3rd-place) game. We were facing the same team that had beaten us a day earlier by a score of 7-3 (and it was not that close). They had a super-fast, left-footed winger who must have scored 4 or 5 of their goals. What to do? Another lopsided lose would certainly be a downer. I did what any coach would do in this situation–I called on ‘The Glove’.

Strategically speaking, I did the following:

• This tournament was a 6-a-side tournament–5 field players and a goalie. Being more defensive-minded, my formation had been 2-2-1. For the 2nd game, I changed it to a 2-2 formation.
• Having freed up one position, I took my scrappiest player and told him never to leave the side of their best player. I told him to think of that player as a hand and for him to be ‘The Glove’. Wherever that player went, he had to follow. As soon as that player received the ball, he had to be right next to him making sure he had no room to move and no place to go. I also asked my player to lean on or touch the other player every now and then, engage in idle conversation with him, and occasionally nip at his feet just to remind him that he had company. But ‘The Glove’ was too shy so he never applied these additional suggestions.

The result was as follows:

• The other player was completely shut down. He got frustrated early on, lost his temper, and received a yellow card for foul language.
• The other players started engaging in some unnecessarily rough and unsportsmanlike behavior resulting in more yellow cards being shown.
• The other coach and I got into a heated exchange when I asked him to control his players’ tactics and he would not comply.
• The boys won 6-0! Talk about a simple tactical change making a huge difference.

Countering ‘The Glove’

There are a few things you can do to counter this strategy. The first time this happens to your better player, take him out of the game and explain to him what is happening. Tell him that it is the price for being good and for him to get used to it. Tell him not to get frustrated or lose his cool. Tell him that’s what the other team wants to happen. Then employ one or more of these tactics

• You could have him move around and try to lose ‘The Glove’. But in all likelihood once the first glove gets tired, another glove will be brought on. Instead, accept the tight marking and slow his game down. Then, when he wants the ball, have him quickly separate himself from ‘The Glove’ in the form of a quick burst.
• Have him go stand next to the center back and see how the other team reacts to two players covering the one player. If the center fullback moves, have your player follow him.
• Consider playing your player in the back or midfield. Since you player is considered less of a threat to score, the other coach will likely remove ‘The Glove’ after a while.
• Have your player play in an offside position–not just a few feet but more like 20-30 yards. See how the other team responds to this strategy.