I promise not to sell you a bill of goods on this one. I'm only going to talk about the stuff I found useful. As you progress in your career, there may be other accessories you want to add, but the basics are:
Uniform:
Jersey: Gold should be the first color you buy. Whether your first jersey is short or long sleeve is dependent on your climate. I referee in California, so I opted for short sleeve.
Black shorts: They should have pockets in front and back, to store your coin and cards.
Socks: Depending on where you referee, either the three-stripe or the USSF logo socks will be acceptable; some leagues care more than others.
Shoes: I would consider two things when it comes to shoes:
Cleats will work on some surfaces, but not all. If you own soccer cleats and are comfortable with them, that's fine, but, as with other clothing items, the predominant color should be black.
Turf shoes are a good bet for short to medium grass, and are ideal for indoor.
On December 2, 2012, Richard Nieuwenhuizen, Dutch soccer referee, has died after a group of youth players from SV Nieuw Sloten, whose ages ranged from 15 to 16, allegedly attacked and beaten him to death. The Associated Press reported that Mr. Nieuwenhuizen was “working as a linesman during his son's youth soccer match.” While the precise cause of Richard’s death was not yet officially disclosed, it was reported on Dutch television that his death had been caused by brain damage sustained during the attack. The AP also reported that the “the players were still in custody and investigations were ongoing” and that the “police would not rule out arresting more suspects. The USA Today later reported that “prosecutors [were] charging three players, two 15-year-olds and a 16-year-old, with manslaughter, assault and public violence for alleged involvement in a vicious attack on Nieuwenhuizen.” The AP reported that the club, Nieuw Sloten, said in a statement on its website that “it has banned the players involved and pulled their team out of the league” and further stated that such “incidents ‘do not belong on a football field.’" We immediately wrote on our Facebook page that we and the entire soccer community were mourning and called on FIFA and all its Member Associations to condemn this senseless act of violence.
In front of a record setting sell-out crowd at the Home Depot Center, LA Galaxy came back from a 0:1 deficit to beat Houston Dynamo 3:1 and claim MLS Cup 2012. While the game was sloppy at times, it was also hugely entertaining and not entirely free from controversial refereeing decisions. The game was refereed by Silviu Petrescu, who also was voted the MLS Referee of the Year, and the assisstant referees were Daniel Belleau and Darren Clark. For the first time in MLS league history, the MLS Cup final was refereed entirely by a Canadian crew of referees. Mr. Petrescu, as expected, had his work cut out for him and, for the most part, we believe that he managed and refereed the game well. For example, Mr. Petrescu’s two penalty calls were spot-on. There is no doubt in our minds that the handball (first penalty kick) and foul on Robbie Keane (second penalty kick) were correctly called. However, a couple of his decisions – one involving the second penalty -- merit additional scrutiny.
The New York Red Bulls clinched their playoff spot after tying Sporting Kansas City 0:0. The Red Bulls came out energetic and eager to avenge their loss to Kansas City from a couple of weeks before the encounter. The 0:2 loss to Kansas City was also the Red Bulls’ first season loss at home so perhaps, with their high energy and enthusiasm, the Red Bulls wanted to send a message to their potential play-off rivals that “you don’t tread on us at home.” Indeed, the Red Bulls were a better team in just about every category that matters: they outshot their opponents 10:6, their possession was 63.7% to Kansas City’s 36.3% and they had 9 corner kicks to their opponents only 3. Thus, being clearly a much better team in this game, the 0:0 draw had to feel disappointing to the Red Bulls.
Even though this was only his sixth game in the Major League Soccer, Referee Ismail Elfath has already handed out four red cards and pointed to the spot on three separate occasions. It seems that Mr. Elfath is not afraid to call a foul when he sees it or dish out severe punishment when he thinks it is merited. It was no different in this game as Mr. Elfath pointed to the spot two more times. That is five penalties in only six games! The first penalty call came in the 75th minute of the game after Houston’s Macoumba Kandji’s low cross into the five yard box was pounced on by his teammate Will Bruin. Even though it looked like Bruin would never get to Kandji’s low-cross in time, RSL’s defender Chris Schuler wanted to make sure that he didn’t and pushed him in the back (see video below). Without any hesitation, Mr. Elfath correctly pointed to the spot. Houston’s Brad Davis, however, was not able to convert the penalty as Nick Rimando made a great diving save.
In the 42nd minute of the Community Shield match between Chelsea and Manchester City, Referee Kevin Friend showed Chelsea defender Branislav Ivanovic a red card for a tackle on Manchester City’s Aleksandar Kolarov. As the footage below shows, Ivanovic attempted to dispossess Kolarov by a sliding tackle. While sliding toward Kolarov and the ball, Ivanovic raised his leading leg off the ground, exposed his studs and -- with speed and fully outstretched leg -- barreled his way into Kolarov’s shin, taking him down in the process. Mr. Friend did not hesitate and immediately showed Ivanovic a red card. Despite Chelsea’s protests at the severity of the punishment, Mr. Friend was absolutely right in dismissing Ivanovic from the game because his tackle was not merely “reckless.” Rather, it was "serious foul play."
For the reasons explained below, Ivanovic was guilty of “serious foul play” when he tackled Kolarov and therefore deserved the most severe form of punishment.
The U.S. Women Soccer Team defeated Canada 4:3 to reach the final at the London’s Olympic Games. The game was fast-paced, hard-fought and highly entertaining. Indeed, Canada led the U.S. Women on three separate occasions and the U.S. team came back to tie the game each time. The U.S. Women’s final game winning goal also came in a dramatic fashion. It was scored in the 123rd minute -- the last minute of the added time in the second overtime -- by Alex Morgan (click here to see the highlights from the game). Now in the finals, the U.S. will be given opportunity to avenge its loss from the last World Cup final against Japan. The gold medal match between the U.S. and Japan will begin at 2:45 p.m. ET on Thursday, August 9, 2012 at Wembley Stadium in London. It should be equally entertaining game.
On July 18, 2012, Toronto FC continued its recent good form (after a truly horrible start to the season) and defeated Colorado Rapids 2:1 before home crowd at the BMO Field. This was an important game to both teams which were seemingly heading in the opposite direction. Toronto FC was playing for its third win in a row. Colorado, on the other hand, was trying to avoid its fourth loss in a row. Ultimately, Toronto FC prevailed and continued its remarkable recent resurgence while Colorado’s search for a better form goes on.
On June 30, 2012, in an entertaining game before the sellout crowd of 50,000 that saw a total of seven goals scored, San Jose Earthquakes defeated LA Galaxy 4:3. The spectators witnessed a flurry of goals and their home team clawing back from a 1:3 deficit to win the game 4:3. There was another goal -- a game wining goal -- by a league leading scorer Chris Wondolowski in the 61st minute of the game and also a spectacular goal by David Beckham in the 31st minute of the game. But Beckham was also involved in another - much less glamorous - incident in the 93rd minute of the game which almost caused a melee between the two teams.
In the 62nd minute of a recent FC Dallas vs. Chicago Fire game, MLS referee Mr. Hilario Grajeda awarded a penalty kick to Chicago Fire. Dallas goalkeeper Kevin Hartman saved Sebastian Grazzini’s shot, but another Chicago Fire striker, Marco Pappa, pounced on the rebound and knocked the ball into the net. Pappa, however, entered the penalty area well before his teammate Grazzini struck the ball (see the picture to the left and the video below). In other words, Pappa entered the penalty area illegally and the referee should have disallowed the goal. In addition, the footage from the game showed that another player from FC Dallas also illegally entered the penalty before the kick was taken. Therefore, the referee should have disallowed the goal and should have ordered the penalty kick to be retaken.
The year’s biggest soccer tournament -- Euro 2012 – has just got under way. We, of course, anticipated that the tournament would provide a fertile ground for interesting articles about the game and, obviously, refereeing. But we did not suspect that we would be so quickly confronted with controversial refereeing decisions. Well, in the opening game of the tournament between the host nation Poland and 2004 Euro Champions Greece, Spanish referee Carlos Velasco Carballo was the center of controversy.
We hate diving! Unfortunately, diving or “simulation” has long been the scourge of world soccer and FIFA has made repeated attempts, with varying degrees of success, to eradicate it from its competitions. MLS has also stated that it would not tolerate diving. In fact, back in 2011, following a suspension of a former D.C. United forward Charlie Davies for diving during a game between DC United and Real Salt Lake, MLS stated that “all instances of behavior that serve to deceive and that directly impact the game will be subject to severe discipline, including a fine, suspension or both.”
There was plenty of drama in the Premier League during the last round. Understandably, a lot of attention was paid to the two Manchester teams that were vying for the title trophy of the Premier League. Ultimately, after much drama and in an incredibly nail-biting fashion, Manchester City defeated QPR 3-2 and was crowned the Champion of the Premier League. But there was a similar and heart-wrenching drama at the bottom of the table as well. Before the weekend games began, everybody knew that only a win - and a QPR defeat at Manchester City - would have resulted in Bolton staying up in the English Premier League.
In this article, we are highlighting a no-offside decision that was made by the assistant referee in the game between DC United and FC Dallas. As the video clip rather indisputably shows, when the ball was played , Blas Perez of FC Dallas was clearly in an offside position. However, as all referees and students of the Laws of the Game should know, simply being in an offside position is not an offense. The Laws of the Game require more. Thus, before we start passing our judgment on the assistant referee’s decision, let’s review waht happened (see video below), analyze the applicable law and then apply it to the situation at hand.
We wanted to highlight one referee’s decision from this past weekend’s MLS game. In a game between Columbus Crew and Montreal Impact, Mr. Mark Geiger, called a foul on a Montreal Impact player, Jeb Brovsky, for elbowing the opponent. The infringement occurred roughly in the middle of the field and early on in the game in the 19th minute. For these reasons, many referees would be inclined to “look the other way” and only caution the offending player. However, Mr. Geiger correctly sent off the Montreal player who, as replays clearly showed, made no real attempt to play the ball (see video below).
We watched several local games over the past couple weeks. It boggled our mind that all of the refereeing crews in all of these games failed to observe and enforce a proper substitution procedure. Unfortunately, this was not something out of ordinary. Over the past several years, we have noticed that referees consistently fail to adhere and enforce the substitution procedure that is spelled out in the Laws of the Game. For example, referees regularly let substitutes to enter the field of play before substituted players exit it. Or, the substitutes were allowed to enter the field of play from the area next to their team’s bench and not from the halfway line. We also saw the referees allowing substitutions to take place before their assistant referees were even informed that a team wanted to substitute a player or before a substitution slip was completed.
Regular readers of this blog already know that we covered the goal line technology debate in a number of posts. However, we seem to be unable to get away from this subject mostly because referees continue to make glaring mistakes and fail to award goals where they are clearly merited. The latest error was committed by the referees who officiated a game between Bolton Wanderers and Queens Park Rangers this past Saturday, March 10, 2012.
At the time when the game was still scoreless, Clint Hill, QPR’s defender, headed the ball towards Bolton’s goal. Adam Bogdan, Bolton’s goalkeeper, dove after the ball and desperately tried to stop it from going over the line but all of the replays and pictures (see above) clearly showed that the ball crossed over the goal line. In fact, it appeared that by the time Bogdan got to it, the ball was already one foot over the line. QPR should have been leading Bolton by a score of 1:0.
Have you ever considered that your judgment was biased simply because your brain is wired in such a way as to negatively perceive events unfolding from right-to-left? Well, the scientists at the Neurology Department and the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience of the University of Pennsylvania conducted a scientific study to test whether movement from right-to-left (leftward movement) predisposed soccer referees to call a foul. According to the authors of the study, populations that read from left-to-right demonstrate a well-documented perceptual-motor bias which creates discomfort with the leftward motion. This discomfort leads these populations to view or perceive events moving from right-to-left (opposite to the direction in which they read/write) in a negative way. So, for example, readers of left-to-right languages were found to "rate goals scored from left-to-right [rightward motion] as more beautiful than goals scored in the opposite direction." The experiment's hypothesis proposed that American referees (or, simply put, those from western-world nations whose languages are read from left-to-right) would be more predisposed "to call a foul when the direction of play moves leftward."
This past Saturday, AC Milan and Juventus played a pivotal game that could determine the championship of the Italian Serie A this season. AC Milan struck the first blow in the 14th minute of the game when Antonio Nocerino's shot fortuitously ricocheted off a Juventus' defender. The ricocheted ball completely fooled Buffon who hopelessly watched it go into the goal and AC Milan was up 1-0. In the 26th minute of the game, AC Milan should have been up by two goals after Sulley Muntari's header but the Referees - and more critically, the Assistant Referee - failed to notice that the ball crossed over the goal-line. The replays, and the pictures, clearly showed that, despite Buffon's valiant effort to stop the ball from going over the goal-line, the ball was already inside his goal when he parried it away.
We were glued to our TV sets this past Wednesday and Thursday watching the Champions League matches between Barcelona v. Bayern Leverkusen and AC Milan v. Arsenal. However, as referees and not just simply fans of the game, we could not help but notice the positioning of the additional assistant referees in those matches. The additional assistant referees in both of these games were positioned on that side of the goal that was nearer to the assistant referee. This immediately struck us as a rather curious positioning.
On December 2, 2012, Richard Nieuwenhuizen, Dutch soccer referee, has died after a group of youth players from SV Nieuw Sloten, whose ages ranged from 15 to 16, allegedly attacked and beaten him to death. The Associated Press reported that Mr. Nieuwenhuizen was “working as a linesman during his son's youth soccer match.” While the precise cause of Richard’s death was not yet officially disclosed, it was reported on Dutch television that his death had been caused by brain damage sustained during the attack. The AP also reported that the “the players were still in custody and investigations were ongoing” and that the “police would not rule out arresting more suspects. The USA Today later reported that “prosecutors [were] charging three players, two 15-year-olds and a 16-year-old, with manslaughter, assault and public violence for alleged involvement in a vicious attack on Nieuwenhuizen.” The AP reported that the club, Nieuw Sloten, said in a statement on its website that “it has banned the players involved and pulled their team out of the league” and further stated that such “incidents ‘do not belong on a football field.’" We immediately wrote on our 
In front of a record setting sell-out crowd at the Home Depot Center, LA Galaxy came back from a 0:1 deficit to beat Houston Dynamo 3:1 and claim MLS Cup 2012. While the game was sloppy at times, it was also hugely entertaining and not entirely free from controversial refereeing decisions. The game was refereed by Silviu Petrescu, who also was voted the MLS Referee of the Year, and the assisstant referees were Daniel Belleau and Darren Clark. For the first time in MLS league history, the MLS Cup final was refereed entirely by a Canadian crew of referees. Mr. Petrescu, as expected, had his work cut out for him and, for the most part, we believe that he managed and refereed the game well. For example, Mr. Petrescu’s two penalty calls were spot-on. There is no doubt in our minds that the handball (first penalty kick) and foul on Robbie Keane (second penalty kick) were correctly called. However, a couple of his decisions – one involving the second penalty -- merit additional scrutiny.
The New York Red Bulls clinched their playoff spot after tying Sporting Kansas City 0:0. The Red Bulls came out energetic and eager to avenge their loss to Kansas City from a couple of weeks before the encounter. The 0:2 loss to Kansas City was also the Red Bulls’ first season loss at home so perhaps, with their high energy and enthusiasm, the Red Bulls wanted to send a message to their potential play-off rivals that “you don’t tread on us at home.” Indeed, the Red Bulls were a better team in just about every category that matters: they outshot their opponents 10:6, their possession was 63.7% to Kansas City’s 36.3% and they had 9 corner kicks to their opponents only 3. Thus, being clearly a much better team in this game, the 0:0 draw had to feel disappointing to the Red Bulls.
Even though this was only his sixth game in the Major League Soccer, Referee Ismail Elfath has already handed out four red cards and pointed to the spot on three separate occasions. It seems that Mr. Elfath is not afraid to call a foul when he sees it or dish out severe punishment when he thinks it is merited. It was no different in this game as Mr. Elfath pointed to the spot two more times. That is five penalties in only six games! The first penalty call came in the 75th minute of the game after Houston’s Macoumba Kandji’s low cross into the five yard box was pounced on by his teammate Will Bruin. Even though it looked like Bruin would never get to Kandji’s low-cross in time, RSL’s defender Chris Schuler wanted to make sure that he didn’t and pushed him in the back (see video below). Without any hesitation, Mr. Elfath correctly pointed to the spot. Houston’s Brad Davis, however, was not able to convert the penalty as Nick Rimando made a great diving save. 
