Our team had a very eventful weekend of games as well. On Saturday, my son received two yellow cards within about 3 minutes of each other. First card came as a defender beat him to the ball. From where I was standing it appeared that he shoved the defender in the back. Fair call, in my opinion, however, I don’t necessarily think it was yellow card worthy but I can see why the Ref did card him. The second card came a couple minutes later. A through ball was played down the line and my son has his head turned toward the ball as it was coming and the defender went through my son on his way to the ball. In the defender’s defense, he too was focused entirely on the ball and I don’t think he even saw my son. The defender got knocked down, while my son stumbled but stayed on his feet. Incidental contact if I ever saw it from my Ref experience, but my son was given another yellow.
Then the Center Ref from Saturday was the AR of our game on Sunday. In about the 2nd or 3rd minute of the game, our team’s goalie comes out to make a play on the ball outside of the penalty area. Goes to ground, only gets a glancing touch off his body on the ball but does clip the attacker. Not huge contact but enough to trip up the attacker. Straight red for DOGSO. If you go over the 4 D’s of a DOGSO, this call doesn’t check any of those situations. The Center initially had his yellow card out, which I completely agreed with, but after a discussion with the AR (who officiated our game the day before), decides to pocket the yellow and go straight red.
I know reffing is difficult, I do it most weekends myself, but what I struggle with is these referees who take their interpretation of the Laws is the Game to extremes and forget that these are youth players and not professionals.
The biggest compliment I can get as a referee is if no one remembers I reffed their game.