Friendly Weekend

I was asked to work a local club's friendly tournament. It wasn't a tournament from the standpoint of the teams paying a lot of money and having a large number of teams at a big facility. No, this was a local club that asked 8 teams to come together, throw enough money together to have referees and play a bunch of full-time scrimmages to get ready for the upcoming season. Knowing that I'm looking to be assessed this season, my assignor was nice enough to ask me to work one of the two fields while he was on the other.
This turned out to be a great way to start the season. Before these games, I didn't have any recent opportunities to be in the middle for anything above U-12. I've been doing US Soccer Development Academy games, but I'm always the 2nd AR on those games. I did a youth tournament a week ago, but they were all U-11 and U-12 games. So these games allowed me to knock some of the rust off and get a great work out in the process as we worked without assistants. I haven't done that in a long time!
Give that these were "friendlies", the atmosphere was pleasant. I really didn't have any issues to speak of, except for one sarcastic coach, but she was easily ignored. It was a great chance to concentrate on positioning and tuning up the eyes to follow the action. I was pretty tired after 4 games, but I'm happy to have been out on the field. For being friendly games, the players really made an effort on the field. Much of the action was exciting!
As the day went on, my assignor offered some good tips for my anticipated assessment. He pointed out that I should make sure the referee crew is not wearing the same color as either team, or either goalkeeper. I have to admit, I would not have thought much about the goalkeepers. He suggested that I make sure my uniform is perfect and that I'm not wearing anything not deemed acceptable by US Soccer (which I never do anyway). Also, he suggested I wear two watches. I've never done this because I usually work with assistants and at least 1 is backing me up on time. This was told to him once and he felt it was important for an assessment game. These are great tips and they really got me thinking about things that might be imporant in an assessment. It's good to have someone in your corner that wants to help you out.