Category: Uncategorized
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Ref Life: Developing new refs and the IFAB’s Footballrules.com
This is part 3 of a 5 part series. After recertifying for US Soccer officiating in 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026 the US Soccer Referee Program has made changes in how to handle situations. In 2022 coaches and bench personell were typically not issued cards. There was a training method that believed handling situations…
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Ref Life: Doing the Work
My US Soccer Mentor journey. My journey in football started when I was only 8 years old, the game has been with me for the last four decades. As a player I learned that the game is the best teacher. I’ve been playing the game through most of those four decades. I’ve been coaching the…
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Healthy kids, healthy communities. Support soccer for free.
I’m revisiting this two years after my initial publication. I’m not seeing a change. I still see a situation where children are for profit in soccer clubs. I’m looking for ways to change the current status. We need to find more ways to make soccer for children. Me- Dec 2025 Writers note- Phoebe has started…
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Indoor: Attacking methods.
How can we make the court play bigger than it really is? How can we slow the game down to find better attacking options? What type of goals do we want to score? Play 1 13 minutes. 3 sets of goals , goals scored by dribbling across goal line. 2 man teams playing on small…
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Indoor: Attacking–Restart by goal clearance
How can we give our GK as many options as possible? How can we open the court up to immediately attack from a goal clearance? Can we design a basketball fastbreak to immediately overload a side of the court in order to change the point of attack? Play 1 13 minutes. 6 sets of goals…
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Ref Life: Friendly fire and violent conduct.
On Saturday one of my coaches asked what would happen if he tripped his own kid running up the field. My response was a quick tap to my back pocket. In the Commonwealth knowing that an adult physically assaulted a minor, I would be required to not only report the red card to the league…
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Ref Life: Reflection and Video Review using Hudl.
The angles of a 2 man, 2 whistle system are bad. The joke is you have a bad look at the play or an even worse when it comes to making calls in a football game. The one angle from the center of the field on Hudl is the worst possible for reviewing game film,…
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Ref Life: Becoming a Referee Mentor in Pennsylvania.
US Soccer changed the hierarchy and naming strategy of it’s referee program a few years ago. Since all of the state associations that implement the US Soccer changes are run by volunteers getting everything up and running and onboarded often takes a little time. Here are the steps if you’d like to get back into…
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Ref Life: If you hear thunder we have to wait it out.
This rule apply to all games under US Soccer and the PIAA. Even adult leagues fall under the official lightning guidance. This past week my 6:30 kickoff became an 8pm kickoff due to lightning.
FCArmstrong 