Great Moments in Soccer - Selection #6

Listen to Thyself

Before our first games of the season, I spoke with the parents. I ran down the litany of things they needed to know, practice times, player expectations, team expectations… and of course, “Don’t yell at the referee. It doesn’t help. It doesn’t make our club look good. We may have the referee again and if you do yell excessively at the ref, it could result in less playing time for you kid. You get the point: treat the referee and game with respect.”

Then we played and we were terrible. Full of talent and looked perfectly average. Well, we had a game under our belt and meshing new players is tough, sometimes it’s tougher with more talent. We’ll do better in game two.

We were down 0-2 at halftime of game two. The second goal, by my vantage point, was offside. I let the ref know it. “You guys sure missed that one. That’s one goal for the refs.” The second half got worse, we gave up two more goals and one of them was definitely a hand ball. “That’s two, referee. Two goals you’ve given them. It’s like their birthday. You should be ashamed you didn’t give us any gifts.” There was 20 minutes left in the game; 20 more minutes of me educating, scolding, questioning and mocking the referees. Eventually the head ref spoke to me. Whatever he said, it wasn’t what I, we, deserved – an apology.

Post-game I asked a parent for a ride back to the hotel.

“No problem, coach.” His kid was new to the team and I wanted to get to know the family.

I sat in the back seat.

“Coach, I have a question for you,” the dad said earnestly, “Do you remember when you spoke to us this morning?” I nodded my head. “You know the part about yelling at the referees? Does that apply to the coaches?” He smiled and snickered at me in the rearview mirror.

“Yeah, yep – point taken.”