Soccer Coaching Blog | Professional Soccer Coaching Advice

When you have to referee youth matches it can be difficult getting your position on the pitch right.

I started refereeing games involving U6s right through to U10s, and the game sometimes moves quicker than you and you find yourself hit by the ball. It causes huge cheers and laughs when the referee gets in the way, but it happens at all levels.

It can be quite an art making sure you can see all that is going on, balls hitting the bar and bouncing onto the line, corner kicks when the ball comes out of a group of players, it can be hard to be in the right place at the right time.

Sometimes you see the top referees getting hit because the game has moved quicker than they can. I came across this clip of a match earlier in the season between Lazio and Torino where the ref gets caught in the wrong place. Ouch!