What a terrific weekend for the soccer fan. The EPL scheduling computer produced two games involving teams from the top six finishers in the league last season, and the other two top-six teams were also in action. These four matches promised a feast of top class soccer for the TV viewer on Saturday and Sunday, and did they deliver on that promise? Yes, and how! And for us referees, there were plenty of interesting decisions for discussion.
I've always liked the use of "Position Papers" (PP) as one means of instruction of officials. Such a paper puts the official word out in the hope of eliminating arguments about matters of law, and now with the power of the internet, puts that official word out on the screen of every referee in the federation. Way back in time, shortly after the last retreat of the ice in the northern hemisphere, I wrote a few myself as Director of Instruction, and I learned that above all, the papers had to be short, accurate and complete. Only when I was satisfied, could I lick all the stamps needed to get them out to the referees around the country.
Short (basic information, and only a few minutes needed to read it), accurate (for obvious reasons) and complete (doesn't omit some essential stuff). Let's take a look at "I got the ball!", the latest PP (August 5th, 2011) and see how it stands up to scrutiny. Get the pdf. from the USSoccer site.
Regular readers of these pages will recall that I wrote an article in October of last year about the concept and use of the Additional Assistant Referees in the UEFA Champions and the Europa Leagues. At the time I pointed out several problems with using these officials who were stationed on the goal line to the left side of the goal from the attackers’ viewpoint. Has UEFA now solved those problems?
For two hours of footballing entertainment, you couldn't want for anything better than two of the best clubs in England opening the new season with a match at Wembley stadium in London. And then if those two clubs are long-standing and bitter rivals from a single city, so much the better as a basis for a contest of football skill. Manchester United versus Manchester City, the Premiership champions and the FA Cup winners in a match to raise hundreds of thousands of pounds from tickets and match-programs for charities chosen by every individual club, amateur or professional, that entered the FA cup in 2010-11.
So at seven a.m. yesterday out here on the left-hand coast, I was ready in front of the TV with my cups of tea and light breakfast, my mind already cast back to that first experience of televised football: the FA Cup final between Bolton Wanderers and Blackpool (the "Matthews match") at this same Wembley Stadium, a match that appeared as a small, grainy black-and-white image on May 2nd, 1953. That image was nothing like the full-color, high-definition 54-inch picture I stared at on Sunday, and just as the technology has improved in the last fifty-eight years, so too has the game. And what a game it was!
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