“Thanks for ruining our game” – Rodric Leerling

Rodric Leerling, Leerling.biz, Sales Power Provider, RefRod

Reading back a report on a game I reffed is not a thing I pursue passionately. But when a tweet with my pic appears on the home team’s web page, my interest is aroused. Especially the pictures showing me running down the line and keeping up with the speed of the game.

Looking at the pics, the game itself came back to memory. Another game followed this one and I reffed a field game on Saturday as well, so you tend to forget quickly. I showed two yellow cards both for the home team. They played lousy, as their report honestly stated. The cards were not disputed either and clearly described why they were ‘one man down’ for two minutes each. The first for purposely bumping into the goal keeper, not the first time, and the other one for pushing away an opponent. The 17-year old captain was irritated and showed his frustration.

Their 2nd half effort to try and catch up with the score was not sufficient. They lost and the captain would thank me ‘for ruining their game’. I held on to his hand and told him he was not being fair and should know better. His coach acknowledged the bad attitude and told me he would talk about it. Well, he can also read their own game report. And probably watch the game video.

“Rare Double Yellow” – Rodric Leerling

In a relatively short game of 2×25 minutes, it doesn’t happen a lot. Double yellow and thus ejection from the game. Last week it was the first time for me after years of futsal reffing.

It was a game full of irritation. Early in the game I was asked by the guest team to pay special attention to the home captain. Shortly before he apparently punched his opponent in the stomach and I missed it. His opponent was gasping on the floor for air. I allowed their coach to check him out but one of home players thought he should intervene and started pulling the coach away. Weird action and it was rewarded by me with his first yellow. He kept talking, basically telling his coach he was pulled first. Yeh, right.

In the second half he again committed a foul and was sent off after showing his second yellow and thus red. No more blabla this time but accepting his punishment. None of his teammates complained and they didn’t even have to sit out the full 5 minutes penalty as the guests kept punching their goal. They won 2-12.

I would report ‘total game frustration’ as reason if the futsal association would ask for one. Guess not.

”Annoying twins” – Rodric Leerling

While checking the player passes before last week’s (adult) match, I noticed two similar last names and dito faces. In futsal, many teams play with siblings, so I didn’t really take further notice of it.

The game, however, proved to be a difficult one with lots of fouls, resulting in three yellow cards (= 2 mins penalty time). Especially the twins in the home team behaved obnoxious but at first I couldn’t tell whether it was the same one or if they took turns. One of them started shaking his head during 2nd half indicating he didn’t agree with anything I decided. Reason enough to warn him with yellow, but gentle as I am, I just told him to stop that behavior and called out his number to make sure I had the right one.

Three minutes before full time, he accidentally tripped an opponent. A light foul and normally no reason to pull the yellow card, but I was so fed up with this bloke I decided to take revenge for his dissent and sent him off with hardly time left to come back in the game and support his team. He exploded but had no choice. His team lost the game with only 1 goal difference. I didn’t feel any guilt. Good riddance.

“Winter games” – Rodric Leerling

Maybe there is a correlation between cold weather and lousy football games. Not only for the two teams, but also for the referee. Especially when he gets hit by a ball, smack on his mouth, his teeth cutting the upper lip. You feel numb for ten minutes, but with a little cold water the bleeding stops quickly. In hindsight though, I was kind of lost for a few minutes and made an error judgement shortly after, which I had to correct during half-time.

Not that the lucky away-team (yellow card withdrawn) was grateful. On the contrary, their coach kept yelling for yellow cards during second half. I warned him – one more call and he would be sent off to the stands himself. It did the trick. The home-team won 4-1 and despite their similar lousy performance, they thanked me for my effort to keep things under control. They only told me afterwards that the previous encounter resulted in two players been sent off, so they were relieved with no cards this time.

The defeated away-team didn’t bother to say thank-you and just walked off the pitch. But worse than that, they neither showed up for the formal digital paperwork. Nobody seemed to care to approve the game registration and this way missed the (recently installed) option to express their feeling towards the game. Well, it might come as a nasty surprise as I did it for them and awarded the highest score. A cold and lousy game upgraded after all.