In the offseason, coaches right what’s wrong, strengthen what’s good, and point the ship in the right direction. Boston Breakers' coach Tony DiCicco shared his thoughts with me about filming and broadcasting soccer on TV and WPS referees.
LE: Over the past few years, the filming and broadcasting of soccer on TV in this country has improved in quality and quantity. Where are we now and what needs to be better?
DiCicco: Our TV partner Fox Soccer Channel was very, very good - an excellent partner for a couple reasons. One, they are a soccer channel and it’s a destination for soccer followers. Two, they’re growing, so we can grow together and work together to improve our market share and how we go about doing business. TV is such a key thing. I wish all our games were televised and some games were regionally replayed.
LE: How about the actual filming of the games? How can it be enhanced?
DiCicco: Basically, the limitations are the amount of cameras covering the game. If you go to an EPL game I guarantee you there are 12 or 15 cameras. There are two or three covering our games and maybe a couple more on ESPN covering MLS games. When you have all the cameras out there, you really get great looks at offsides, great looks at fouls – was it a foul or wasn’t it a foul - and some of the individual challenges in the game. There’s got to be cameras isolated on those incidents. Sometimes they left the action too soon and there were key plays that might have been missed and they didn’t have replay on it, so you were left hanging. But overall, I think [FSC] was very, very good.
LE: Replays and filming help TV and stadium viewers understand referee decisions. Last summer, like many coaches, you spoke out on referees. Now that the season is over, what are your thoughts?
DiCicco: The truth is the refereeing wasn’t that bad. Was it a factor in the matches? Absolutely. But we can look at the recent headlines about France versus Ireland and the referee decision that impacted that game. I thought our referees got better as the season went along and that’s a big step because there’s no training ground before [WPS]. You can go ref other women’s games – the college game, the W League or the WPSL games - which are amateur games, but the speed of the games is different, the soccer savvy of the players is different, and the skill level is different.
It was a learning experience for the referees and the league made a good decision to bring on Sandra Hart, who mentored them. I was fined and suspended for being critical of the referees and the truth was, it wasn’t during the matches, it was for speaking to reporters like you afterwards that got me in trouble. After a game there is a frustration level, so I have to learn to be smarter after the game and not let my emotions out so easily. At least give the referees the benefit of the doubt and see the game [on DVD] before I comment on it.
When I’ve seen the games afterwards, for sure I think there were calls that I think went wrong. I think there was a trend within the league not to protect the defensive players, but give them a little more license. I think the referees were more concerned with being fooled by the smart, crafty attacking players that sometimes go down easy. They didn’t want to be fooled by those players, so in essence the defenders had a little bit more license to be destructive. But that’s a relatively small adjustment. Overall, I think our refereeing community was pretty good by the end of the season.
Follow Boston Pro Soccer Examiner and LE Eisenmenger on twitter!
Comments