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Posted by
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August 3, 2014 |
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Email
Aaron Nielsen
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@ENBSports
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Earlier this season I attended a League One Ontario match and about fifteen minutes into the first half a Vaughan player was provided a through ball that led to abreakaway behind the defense. He ran towards the net before the opposing keeper ran out and knocked him over just as he got into the 18 yard box.
The referee running behind the play caught up awarded a penalty without a second thought and then took out a yellow card for the keeper. The game was very combative, as Vaughan tried to hold on to their lead with many tackles and, as the game wore on, a dislike between both teams was noticeable, which led to some questionable play, as well as some pushing between players.
In the end the referee gave three yellow cards: one to the keeper on the penalty play, a second for a player complaining to the referee and a third on the Vaughan keeper for wasting time near the end of the game.
A couple weeks later Toronto is playing Kansas City in a MLS game and in the 23rd minute Toronto FC striker Gilberto was clipped by Aurelien Collin after receiving a through ball from Michael Bradley. If not for being clipped, Gilberto would have been one-on-one with the keeper. The ref let the play continue to the uproar of the Toronto FC fans.
Both plays involved situations that are supposed to be clear cut referring decision in soccer. If the last defender denies the player an obvious goal scoring opportunity it's an automatic red card.
Referring has become the Black Hat not only in the MLS but of almost every experience I have had with soccer in North America over the past few years. It has become the automatic excuse button. It's talked about during the televised broadcasts and with an even greater emphasis on MLS radio feeds where home friendly announcers spend a big chuck of the game either complaining about the referees or saying how surprised they are that the referee is not influencing the game. Like every topic repeated to death, you tend to get bored of it and you wish they would talk about something else.
Is refereeing poor in North America?
The answer is I don't know.
And the truth is that all aspects of the game are flawed in some ways. Players are not perfect, coaching is not perfect, the league is not perfect, and, after seeing fans cheer goals that are clearly offside or hit the side of the net, it is clear we all get something wrong from time to time.
My basic belief is that it all equals out in the end and that neither the referee nor anybody else involved in the game is purposely trying to make mistakes. It’s just human nature.
So the natural follow up questions are as follows: can refereeing be improved? And is this actually what we want?
I work in statistics and analytics with the main goal of analyzing big data and finding trends within it. The Holy Grail of analytics is to find examples of every occurrence that has happened before and to be able to predict what will happen if the occurrence was to repeat itself.
So for example, in the cases with the referees above we would assume that if those situations happen again, the referees would react in the exact same way and, if not, analyze what circumstances occurred to change his opinion.
The problem with analyzing referees is that 95% of the plays he adjudicates are correct or don't have any impact on the game itself, which can include plays such as goal kicks, throw-ins and stoppage due to injuries. The controversial plays, be they a correct or incorrect decisions, are a very small percentage but they are heavily criticized. So in some cases a referee could have 99 decisions correct but make a mistake on the goal that costs a team the game or in other cases the referee could have a number of bad decisions but also handle the big moments very well. It's sort of like analyzing defenders based on how many own goals they allowed and then concluding their complete ability based on that.
In the late 2000's, the English Premier League went public with a system of grading referees. No analytics or statistics were used. Instead they had people connected to the league grade referees and give a score based on how he performed. The ratings out of five included categories such as Communication, Control, Fitness and Positioning and when you analyzed the results you could see biases in the grading, as none of judges wanted to be overly critical. It end up being a huge mistake as much criticized ref Uriah Rennie ended up being graded as the top ref because he had much better fitness ratings than the others. Rennie was soon demoted and also the only black referee in the league, which added to the controversy and the system was soon abolished.
Since then some almost humorous independent blogs from fans have appeared giving their two cents, with the the most known being http://www.refereedecisions.co.uk/ done by an Arsenal supporter. And guess what? Arsenal has had the most wrong decisions against them.
Where statistics become valuable is in the raw numbers as they don't lie or show favor. Interestingly enough over the past few seasons, MLS and the EPL almost have had the same amount of yellow cards and penalty decisions given per game, with a only a few more red cards per game in the MLS than the EPL.
Historically both Soccer in England and United States/Canada let the players play and of the 60 professional leagues I cover, the MLS, NASL and USL Pro are routinely in the the bottom quarter of the amount of yellow cards, red cards and penalty decisions given in a game. Also if you look at the amateur game, the numbers are quite staggering in comparison. For example, last year in NCAA Division One Men's Soccer there were 4039 games played and only 4982 yellow cards and 289 red cards for a total 1.32 Yellow and 0.07 reds where most professional leagues average 3 yellows and 0.25 reds a game and leagues such as the lower leagues in Spain average 5 yellows and a red card almost in half their games.
So it makes sense that in a country that looks down at diving, faking injuries, and gamesmanship, our referees ignore this side of the game and let the players play, which should make most people happy. Yet in a game scenario we see players breaking the rules and the referee is critized for not taking action. Personally, I enjoy the South American/Mediterranean style of game. I find the gamesmanship intriguing and perfectly fine with the game being played at a slower pace and refereed to death as it creates a more strategic and technical result, although I will also admit that if we are going to sell the game, a faster pace and more goals is better.
I assume in both the League 1 Ontario and MLS decisions the ref debated quickly the question “Am I going to change the complexion of this game and give a red card?” and, if I do this it now means I'm going to have call the rest of the game tighter and when I ref either of these teams again the question of the red card will be in everyone's mind. To that individual ref in how he manages a game, he thought the better of it and, as long as he is consistent, I have no problem with that.
The referee role is to be the unbiased ajudicator and, like any form of judging, it's not about the individual moment, it's about maintaining a culture for long term success. The culture itself is dictated by all participants and, if they choose to be stricter to the rule book, this also has its consequences.
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