Star of the Show

Props to Paul. He got to the answer quite quickly for yesterday's riddle. Well played. Today's is called "It Helps to Know You're Sport". Here it is.

90 M + I T and E T = G T in a S M

So we opened up our middle school soccer season today. I have to say that I'm quite proud of our team. They stepped up to play with more heart and hustle today than I think I've seen from them in the past 3 scrimmage games combined. They were winning balls in the air, they were going in hard in the challenge, they were hustling hard all over the field, and they gave their all for their teammates. It was really exciting watching them play that way when it's been so hard to get them to that point. I don't know what clicked today to turn the tide that way. Maybe it was that it was a 'real' game. Maybe it was the fact that they got their new jerseys today and were able to wear them. Maybe they've just not been playing as hard all along. I don't really know. I have to give them credit for today though.

The sad thing is, however, that the star of the show wasn't a player for our team that scored 2 goals, it wasn't a team that played their heart out, it wasn't even the other team which ended up winning the game on a well-taken free kick. It was, in fact, the referee (who had a daughter who was a friend of probably half the team that we played). So, as you can well imagine, all the calls went for the other team, our player got a yellow card when the other team player pushed him to the ground, and they scored the game winning goal on a foul called for grabbing when their team had been doing nothing but pushing, grabbing, and holding everyone all over the field. Myself and the other coach both got warned by the referee for our yelling, but when you're trying to defend your players from getting man-handled, I think that it's worth it. It's a good thing the game was almost over when he warned us, cause otherwise I think we'd both have been told to leave.

If there's one thing in the sport of soccer that I cannot stand more than anything else it's when there is a referee who feels like the game is for him. He's out there to do what he wants, and to make the decisions that he wants made so that he can be the focus of attention. He's not out there to let the kids play the game and to let them decide the outcome. What got us both the most was that he was clearly a friend of their whole team. How do you get a ref who is a part of the school that he's refereeing to be the decider in a game? There's a reason that in international tournaments they don't let any referee from a region where the teams are playing from be a ref in any form during that particular game. It would inevitably bring up the question of integrity for the refs should anything be construed to go in favor of the team that he hails from. It's no different here. I hope that ref never does another game for us. But if he ends up doing one for us, he'll not ever hear the end of our yelling to defend our players, and he can tell me to leave the field before I'll let my kids get run over and mauled by a team that he supports while I'm there.