Week in Review #48 (October 25, 2024)

Last week, we covered some referee-related matters from the game we watched for the U.S. Soccer Referee Coach con-ed on October 5, 8, and 9. This week, we will focus on some incidents involving the ARs.

Let’s look at some offside decisions.

At Min 36, AR1 put his flag up for offside. At the moment of the kick, however, the attacker was clearly onside.

As this offside decision denied a promising attack for Evolution, this is a CRE for AR1. If you do not have a video, it is totally understandable if you give the AR the benefit of the doubt and mark this as correct. If we have video, we want you to check for accuracy. But if you do not, it is ok to give the AR the benefit of the doubt.

However, AR1 had two correct offside CMIs (both “correct not given”). At Min 42, the attacker was onside by less than a yard and this decision led to a goal. At Min 50, from the FK, the attacker was again onside by less than a yard. Both should be marked as correct CMIs (routine).

On this game, we also had two goal-related CMIs (Min 50 and Min 69). Even though we do not see AR1 on camera, it is clear that the referee took AR1’s input. This type of CMI (goal v. no goal) belongs to the AR but not to the referee. These are NOT shared CMIs.

One last note about AR positioning. AR2 did not have good positioning (or movement) on this match. This sequence from Min 23 is a good example of it. Around 22:30, AR2 remains aligned. But even when the Evolution DF has stopped moving, AR2 kept moving down the touchline.

When an offside decision had to be made, he was almost 5 yards misaligned. Fortunately, no error was made. But this is not just being misaligned by a yard. Furthermore, this was not an isolated incident. Positioning was constantly incorrect. We have always said that PS/MV should not be the reason to significantly lower someone’s GP score. But when there is a pattern or blatant nature to the errors, PS/MV can very much affect one’s GP score. It is possible to receive a below 8.0 based on PS/MV even if there was no offside error.

Based on what we observed, this is why an 8.2 is the highest GP score we can give AR2.