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Yellow card rule

Started by Puddle Jumper, March 03, 2018, 09:35:14 pm

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Puddle Jumper

Why in high school soccer if a player gets 1 yellow card they have to come out of the game for a bit. It's not like this in club,college or the pros so why in high school?

pantherdad

It's for a "cooling off" period

Arbitro

Quote from: pantherdad on March 03, 2018, 10:22:52 pm
It's for a "cooling off" period
We assume that is the reason for it, although the NFHS rules committee doesn't always explain the rule differences.  Tweaks in the rules can have unintended consequences though.  Take a situation I had last night:

There was a breakaway with the attacker one-on-one with the keeper.  The keeper came out of the goal to challenge the attacker and dove for the ball just as the attacker poked it past him.  The keeper missed the ball entirely but collided with the attacker.  In my judgement the attacker would have been unable to get to the ball before it crossed the goal line (outside the goal) so Denying an Obvious Goal Scoring Opportunity (DOGSO, red card*) did not apply.  The contact by the keeper was on the border between careless (simple foul) and reckless (foul with caution and yellow card).  If I cautioned the keeper he would need to leave the field and the resulting penalty kick would be taken against the backup keeper.  Did the poor timing of the keeper merit that additional disadvantage to his team?

In the few seconds I had to make a decision, I chose to give the keeper the benefit of the doubt and called the simple foul/PK.  The fact that the keeper would have had to leave the field if I cautioned him probably helped push me toward that decision.  In a USSF sanctioned match (FIFA Laws) I might very well have leaned the other way.  Fortunately for me the PK was scored and I had no need to caution the keeper later in the game, so there were no back-end repercussions from my decision.

In this situation, a "cooling off" period for the keeper would have been pointless.

*In case anyone was wondering, FIFA modifications to DOGSO in the penalty area have not filtered down to NFHS yet.

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