Ref Base – Mentor Evaluations

During active play occurring near the touchline or at throw-ins, Jon needed to be closer to play. At times he would be stationary in, or near the center circle during these situations. We discussed this at halftime. I advised Jon to move closer to play by 5 to 15 yards to achieve presence, and to sell calls should that be needed.

Jon did well to recognize an advantage situation that occurred in the attacking third. Late in the 2nd half a foul was committed by a defender, and Jon was about to whistle, then saw that the ball went to another attacker, and at that moment applied advantage and signaled accordingly. My only critique for him was to verbalize his advantage call in a louder voice.

One observation was that Jon would occasionally miss substitution opportunities, especially for throw-ins along the AR2's touchline. This lead to coaches, substitutes or AR1 calling out to him for the substitution. I suggested that he be more consistent in making checks back to AR1 and/or the officials area at each ball-out-of-play situation.

Generally Jon's signalling was good. One small point was on goal kicks he tended to signal by point slightly upwards. I suggest that he signal more flat or even slightly downwards to give a clear signaling distinction with the corner kick signal. We discussed this at halftime, and in the 2nd half he took my advice and his GK signals looked better and were more in line with general expectations.

Jon was wearing bulky black sweatpants with blue shoes. He did not have on the knee-high referee socks (or at least those weren't visible) and he wasn't wearing the black shorts over the warm-ups. At half time we discussed this. I suggested to all 3 referees that on cold days they can wear thin, black warm-up pants, with the shorts and referee socks on top. But in any event, the solid black shorts, black or mostly black cleats/shoes, and black knee-high referee socks were required items for officials in our games.

Jon, for the fouls that you witnessed, you had a timely whistle and correct signaling direction. You also showed good awareness for seeing your AR flag on an offside situations. This helped with your credibility in this game.

There are two general areas I want you to work on:

1) wearing the complete uniform correctly.
2) showing urgency in response to game situations, such as fouls and presence near play.

For the uniform, please wear the black shorts and socks. And stop wearing sweatpants. If you don't already have a pair of black running shoes/soccer cleats/turf shoes, please invest in these and wear them in your games. This is important if you desire move up in the level of assigned game and for you as a role model for others.

In the area of urgency, please move quicker to location of fouls, get closer to the action when appropriate, and move closer to the left corner of the field when the ball goes there. Doing these things will greatly help how you are perceived by others in the game: coaches, players, your follow referees and spectators.

Please keep at it and commit to improving as an official.

Jon's foul recognition was good and he made the appropriate whistle and signal direction. The two big areas of improvement for him is his uniform and showing urgency. Between Jon's appearance with this baggy sweatpants, and his lack to low key nature for the game situation, especially for a close match (final score 2-1), his credibility was brought into question.

One thing that I discussed with Jon and crew, not documented elsewhere in this report, relates to alternative game control techniques. In the first half he went to pocket to caution a player in response to an unfair charging foul (in my opinion not reckless). My view is he could have instead had a conversation with the player and I believe it would have achieved the same effect. I bring this up because I'm seeing a trend with referees not knowing about, or applying the "ladder of control" in games. We need to have his as a topic in August 2-3 trainings, likely in the Advanced Referee course.

I'm 'passing him' because he knows the game and has a reasonable degree of foul recognition, but he needs to increase his level of urgency, his work rate and invest in the correct uniform items and wear same.