My sucky soccer weekend (an essay)

Sharkbait

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So here's what happened over my weekend. :|

For those of you that don't know, one of my good friends is the head coach for our high school girls varsity soccer team. My wife is the assistant coach and I'm the goalkeeper coach. To put it mildly, our team sucks. We've scored one goal in two seasons. It's just that it's a new program--the high school has only had a girls soccer team for 2 years now.

We had our first away game of the season on Saturday. Great day for football--about 82* F and sunny. We get to the school and find out we're playing on their football field--lumpy and rough and huge chunks of grass torn out, etc. Terrible soccer pitch, in other words. Oh well, we can play through it, it's a lot like our practice field.

The refs come out to inspect players' equipment, and the ref is kind of a d!ck. He tells the girls in no uncertain terms that they will not tolerate any sort of physical play at all--no arms, no elbows, no shoulders, no leaning, just don't even really touch each other. Umm, okay, soccer's a contact sport, but we can play a light game if need be.

The game starts, and the other team just takes it to us--physically. No calls. Actually I take that back. No calls FOR us. There were two or three instances (at least) where our girl would get utterly flattened, and then the call would go against us. I'm a certified ref, and this was out and out some of the worst officiating I've EVER seen.

8:37 left in the match, score is 1-0 them (their goal was because of a non-call--their player ran over our keeper, who had possession of the ball, and knocked her and the ball into the net.). Anyway, 8:37 left and our star player (really the only player we have with a scoring touch) gets a breakaway. She's about 25 m from goal, just getting ready to strike the ball, and their player comes in from behind (about her 5 o'clock), and sweeps her legs. Our kid goes flying through the air and is screaming in pain before she hits the ground. I was about 75 ft away and heard her knee blow--it was like a slightly muffled clap. She's now on the ground with a torn ACL--she's out 6-10 months, minimum. Our head coach asks the ref if there's going to be a foul called, and the ref says, "Absolutely not." The head replies, "You are causing our players to get injured. We're not sending any more girls out on the field to get hurt. We forfeit the rest of this match. We're done here," and pulls our girls from the field.

As the coaches and paramedics are attending to our injured player, the other team is leaving the field and some of them are laughing and are heard to be saying stuff like "yeah they had to quit--they were afraid we'd hurt more of them!" and stuff like that. Some of their fans were laughing and pointing at our girl, still on the ground and crying in pain.

Come to find out last night that by forfeiting the game in-progress, our coach has violated some IHSAA rule and was immediately suspended for 2 matches by the athletic directors of the school. Our entire team may be put on probation because he was more concerned about the safety of his players than about a win or loss. :?

Is that not the most ridiculous story you've ever heard?? :| :? :irked:
 
Reading that story actually made me seriously PISSED OFF! What jerks! What idiots! PEOPLE THESE DAYS NEED TO FRIGGIN THINK!
 
Maybe I'm completely wrong here, but I'd almost think that's grounds for a lawsuit of some kind. Isn't that negligence or something? I mean, they are getting THAT rough after being told not to touch other players, and they practically laughed in your faces? How can they be allowed to let that go on???
 
I think we (the coaches) are going to file a grievance with the IHSAA regarding the officials, but since those officials didn't even sign up to ref sectionals, there's really nothing that the IHSAA can do to them.

I also drafted a letter that's being sent to the AD of the school we played at regarding the behavior of their fans and players after the injury.

I think several of the parents of our girls are going to write letters to the editor and stuff in support of our head and his decision to leave the match.
 
oohh that story pisses me off. :pissed: I sure hope everything works out and these girls dont have to pay for some ignorant coaches and a dirty team.
 
if it was me, i would have just thrown a chair into the crowd and see where that gets me.

but thats just me.

is the girl ok?


md
 
MDowdey said:
is the girl ok?


md

MRI to confirm things tonight, but my wife blew her ACL a couple years ago, so we know all the signs of a torn ACL. Just from the way her knee moved after the injury, she probably has a complete ACL tear. If it's just the ACL, it's minimum 4-6 months post-surgery. If she has more damage (my wife had a complete ACL tear, bone evulsion (some of the bone sheared away), and cartilidge damage, for example), then you're looking at closer to a year of recovery time and therapy. :|
 
EEeew..that sucks. I've never had the torn ACL, but I've had knee problems (both knees) since 8th grade. My problem was they would dislocate very easily. And it was a $500 trip to the emergency room every time. I went through 3 doctors, 3 surgeries (1 by the first doctor...didn't work...2nd doctor didn't want to operate since the first doc's op didn't work, 3rd doctor operated on both knees. I love that man) and months and months of intense physical therapy each time. So...when I read your story, and I got to the part where you talked about the injury..I thought about what I went through, and for a second I swear I could physically feel the pain again...that's the part where I got pissed off!
 
What's soccer? You mean football? :mrgreen:

The ref sounded crap, but there are no grounds for a court case. He didn't perform the tackle. His job is to send off that player. Obviously I'm speaking from the English law of the games which come from FIFA so yours may be slightly different. I'd assume they come from FIFA to. Most ground roots games have to be registered I think. Any tackle from behind is a straight red. No questions. Not many refs call players up on it though. Only when it suits them. Football isn't a contact sport either. You have to take the ball, not the player. The girl doing the tackling won't have anything done to her. The ref can send a player off for a long time after the game has ended believe it or not. But the incident had passed. I don't know if you have any form of panel which can look into the incident after the match. We do here, but then we have loads of cameras at each match giving us footage to replay. And this is a school girl’s game (right?) so I don't think they'd go to the expense of paying people to look into it. If you can prove that the tackle was made with intent to injure the player, then you're talking long suspensions. It'll be almost impossible to prove though.

There may be a way around the laws you have with regards to forfeiting a game. Players can leave the pitch at any time without asking. They can't come back on until the ref says they can. Once a team loses 5 players (so they have 6 on the pitch) the ref has to abandon the game. It may be worth thinking about. :)

I've thought about going over the America to coach football (soccer...). I wonder if that would be possible at some point.

And wish luck to the injured girl.


ferny
(Arsenal fan :mrgreen:)
 
ferny said:
What's soccer? You mean football? :mrgreen:

The ref sounded crap, but there are no grounds for a court case. He didn't perform the tackle. His job is to send off that player. Obviously I'm speaking from the English law of the games which come from FIFA so yours may be slightly different. I'd assume they come from FIFA to. Most ground roots games have to be registered I think. Any tackle from behind is a straight red. No questions. Not many refs call players up on it though. Only when it suits them. Football isn't a contact sport either. You have to take the ball, not the player. The girl doing the tackling won't have anything done to her. The ref can send a player off for a long time after the game has ended believe it or not. But the incident had passed. I don't know if you have any form of panel which can look into the incident after the match. We do here, but then we have loads of cameras at each match giving us footage to replay. And this is a school girl’s game (right?) so I don't think they'd go to the expense of paying people to look into it. If you can prove that the tackle was made with intent to injure the player, then you're talking long suspensions. It'll be almost impossible to prove though.

There may be a way around the laws you have with regards to forfeiting a game. Players can leave the pitch at any time without asking. They can't come back on until the ref says they can. Once a team loses 5 players (so they have 6 on the pitch) the ref has to abandon the game. It may be worth thinking about. :)

I've thought about going over the America to coach football (soccer...). I wonder if that would be possible at some point.

And wish luck to the injured girl.


ferny
(Arsenal fan :mrgreen:)

Hey, rock the hell on, another Gunners fan!!!! :mrgreen: I'm landlocked in America and never even been to England, but I'm a huge Arsenal fan. Wonder if they're going to make another perfect season this year... We don't get much news here though--is Lehman still with the club? I saw one match last weekend and they had some guy named Cech in net...


Anyway, here in the states it's kind of a weird situation. We have club soccer (I like to call it football, but so many people here get confused then with american football (yuck!)) and high school soccer. Club soccer is sanctioned by the USSF, which in turn is sanctioned by FIFA. High school soccer, though, is sanctioned at the state level by the state high school athletics associations. They follow most FIFA rules, but there are a bunch of goofy little bylaws and crap that are different from FIFA. Like this little sub-heading that does not allow a coach to pull his team and forfeit a match. It's stupid. I think the rule is really in place to keep a coach from forfeiting a game he's getting shelled in, but it doesn't state it as such--the rule reads that a coach my not forfeit a game as a response to the officiating.

In regards to the officals--the USSF licenced club referees (like what I am) have to go through a 3 day training course every year and score 90% or higher (or something like that) on a 200+ question exam. To get a high school license (the IHSAA), you have to take a mail-in 100 question test and get a 70 or higher. So in other words, high school referees are often MUCH worse than club sport refs.

It really is quite the crock of shyte. :irked:
 
Oh, and I forgot to mention--the tackle happened inside the penalty box! It should have been a red card for the tackling player for DGF and a penalty kick for our team. Instead, the center-ref was not even going to call a foul. Yeeeeeesh!
 
Shark said:
Oh, and I forgot to mention--the tackle happened inside the penalty box! It should have been a red card for the tackling player for DGF and a penalty kick for our team. Instead, the center-ref was not even going to call a foul. Yeeeeeesh!

Injustice, injustice... :x what an awful day you guys had. :hug: I think the best thing you can do is get that letter-writing campaign going, the sooner the better. Make your voices LOUDLY heard, and someone (your other letter, maybe?) should send it to the editorial section in the local paper. Name the refs. A description of the girl's injuries should be included. People will support your position. The suspension is BS and should be overturned.

Maybe your justice will come after the fact, but it's better than not getting any. No one should tolerate the beatings your team members took.
 

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