Welcome to the Soccer Board

Greetings,

After failing to find a broad-topic discussion board for soccer based in the U.S., I asked Grant at Refstripes.com for permission to piggyback on this site. He graciously agreed to let us come in and talk about football the way it's played in the rest of the civilized and uncivilized world.

I'm no expert - I'm just a Grade 7 who agreed to get this thing started - but I have a copy of the Advice to Referees and we can link to position papers from the USSF. For those upgrading, we can start a string dedicated to suggestions on making sure we're in shape for the endurance run.

Regardless of our sport, many of the issues are the same: man management, rules enforcement and grumpy assignors. Use this as a tool to ask questions about obscure situations, vent about a particularly tough match or swap a story you've heard in the tournament tent.

--My favorite is about a coach who wanted a foul called despite his team being given an advantage. His team scored, yet he continued to complain, so the center ref pulled the ball out of the net, but the ball out in the field and said `Here's your foul call.' The moral: be sure you know what you're asking for.

Maybe folks will drop in from other sports and see that our ball bounces funny, too. Maybe some will join us; I worked American football for five years before stepping onto the pitch. Others may not agree, but I'm glad I branched out.

Suggestions, comments? One thing we need to do is get some soccer logos on here.

K.