Back to Millennium Park for finals & outrage

By a strange quirk of scheduling, Ottawacker Jr.’s final group stage game was against the Montreal team Lakeshore – which was also the same team they would meet in the final. Lakeshore were not so much unbeaten as unbeatable – they had won their first three games 10-0, 6-0 and 5-1, I think – and so we weren’t too confident about the result. In the end, thanks to an excellent defensive performance and some Ottawacker Jr. heroics, OISC lost the group stage game 1-0. They didn’t create much – indeed, anything – but it was a solid performance and a scrappy goal.
 
The final was a little more dramatic. Again, on a scorching hot day, OISC put in a really good performance, and created chances this time. In the second half, Lakeshore found a bit more space and scored three unanswered goals. They were by far the better side, but the better side doesn’t always win the football match…
 
Anyway, the game was marred by a few controversial refereeing decisions. For some reason, youth tournaments are refereed by people who are either as young as the players or are adults but have special needs. This is true for referees in general, of course, but the referee for today’s match was a particularly egregious example of what the kids have to put up with. It’s hard to teach kids respect for referees when the referees don’t deserve it.
 
From the start of the game, Lakeshore were more physical. Not dirty – just physical. That’s okay, it’s a contact sport and the sooner kids realise they are going to get tackled, the sooner they learn to pass and speed up their game. Ottawacker Jr. got thwacked once or twice: once he was winded (on the stroke of half time) when he went up for a ball with the striker, and the striker arrived a little late to the party. It happens. The striker got a yellow card; the referee blew for half time; then he waddled off. No checking on the goalkeeper’s welfare – he was fine, but the referee couldn’t know that – no explaining the decision. It wasn’t a yellow card – it was a genuine attempt to play the ball (I think) and Ottawacker Jr. got hit a little late. This was just a taster for the second half though.
 
The problem with having a clinically obese referee is that, when it gets hot, he tends to move a little less than he should. In this case, not so much not out of the centre circle as not out of the two-cm diameter mark where the kick-off happens. He broke into a jog once – when he dropped his whistle. He missed fouls, didn’t call offsides, and right at the end, made a decision so bad that neither side could believe it. Leading 3-0, Lakeshore had a superb strike from the edge of the box, which Ottawacker tipped over the bar. Unfortunately for him, the field also doubled as a Canadian football field, which meant there was a “double” bar (see extra). The ball hit the top of the upper bar and rolled down the back of the net for a corner. The Lakeshore striker went to get the ball to take the corner – only to find the referee had blown for a goal. Stunned silence.
 
Poor Ottawacker Jr., this really wound him up. In fairness, he didn’t say a word to the referee (takes after his mum), but was in tears of frustration at the unfairness and stupidity of it all (takes after his dad). Then the referee decided enough was enough and blew for full time. Cue paternal consoling about how this happens in games, etc. etc. It didn’t help. An entire performance cast into the shadows by one appalling decision. Worse, by one appalling decision made by a referee who hadn’t moved from the centre circle in the second half, hadn’t seen what had happened, and blew because he made an erroneous assumption. Oh well, c’est la vie. It’s a good lesson to learn because the world is full of injustice and stupidity, and you may as well learn it in the relatively sanitized field of football as on the mean streets of Ottawa. Anyway, just to clarify, this isn’t a moan-fest about a referee making a poor decision. It happens all the time. They are human and mistakes really happen. The bitching is about a referee who didn’t move and was essentially unfit to referee. For an expensive tournament, where referees are well paid, this is pretty much inexcusable.
 
I made sure he joined the honour line to congratulate the winners and thank the officials. I think he might have done this through clenched teeth. After the final, he got plenty of kudos for his performances – and it helped. At one stage, I was being given a run-down of all his plus points by a member of the TFC Academy as I was filming the medals ceremony. I realised halfway through I had tears streaming down my cheeks. I must have got some suncream in my eye.