Help for Referees, in a Can
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Version 0 of 1. SÃO PAULO, Brazil — Even casual soccer fans may already be familiar with the sport’s infamous “magic spray,” the ubiquitous mist that team trainers use on seemingly every type of injury to help stricken — or, as they are occasionally known, faking — players recover from grave maladies without missing a single kick. Beginning with Thursday’s opening match of the World Cup here, however, the magic spray will have a new partner in mystical vapor: the vanishing spray. This latest addition to the aerosol array is not a medical tool to get players moving but rather an official’s tool to keep players back. At various points during every game, the referee will instruct one team to stay at least 10 yards away from the ball while the other team prepares to take a free kick. In the past, the referee would make a show of stepping off the required distance before indicating with his hand where the defenders, who often bunch together as a wall, had to stand. This display would then be followed by a familiar, wearying routine: As soon as the referee turned away, the players in the wall would shuffle forward, as if wiping their dirty shoes on a floor mat. The subversive shimmying effectively made the 10-yard rule more like 7 or 8, which is a significant difference for attackers hoping to curl a shot around the wall. If the referee noticed and had to readjust the wall, the inevitable delay — particularly if it happened multiple times each half — could make a game feel interminable. Now, the officials have (foamy) help. Once the referee calls for a free kick, he whips out a tiny can that he carries in a special belt, then sprays a bit of what looks like shaving cream at the spot where the kick should be taken before quickly pacing off the 10 yards. He then draws a line on the ground to show where the wall must go. If a player moves in front of the line before the ball is kicked, the referee can easily show the offender a yellow card for encroachment. It is a fast, clear and obvious way to handle the situation, and agronomists need not be concerned: Games with a heavy foul count do not leave fields looking as if they have been finger-painted on because by the time the players run back in the other direction, the spray has disappeared. “It’s a vital tool for ensuring that the rule is observed,” said Howard Webb, a top English referee who took charge of the 2010 World Cup final in South Africa and will be working in Brazil as well. Webb, who normally officiates in England’s Premier League, which does not use the spray, said that he was “still getting used to having a spray hanging from my waist the whole time.” The spray, which is nontoxic, was invented in its current form by an Argentine journalist, Pablo Silva, and it first gained notice in 2008 when it was used in some South American competitions. In the years since, use of the substance, which can be used on all surfaces and is designed to fade away in 45 seconds to 2 minutes, has steadily become more widespread. “I think it makes it easier for the referees to make decisions,” United States defender Fabian Johnson said. “They have a hard job, and I think it makes the game a lot easier for them.” That is the biggest attraction of the spray, which will be seen far more often than the other new referee aid making its debut in Brazil, goal-line technology. The goal-line instruments are computer-operated cameras that will signal the referee, via a wrist buzzer, if a shot has fully crossed the goal line. They figure to be used a handful of times during the tournament. The spray, though, is quickly becoming a critical component in how referees manage a game and keep the pace of play moving. Major League Soccer is using the spray in its games. Peter Walton, a former Premier League referee who now heads the professional referees association in the United States, said he was initially skeptical about using the spray but had changed his mind. “When I first came to America, I thought it was a gimmick,” he said. “Within three weeks, I was totally sold on it.” The key, Walton said, is that the spray streamlines a process that was previously muddled. Once a referee sprays his line, “his management of that free kick area is done with, and he can then concentrate his thought process on the holding, the shoving, the blocking in the penalty area,” Walton said. “And the players accept it, because it’s tangible — you can see it,” he said. At least most of the time. While there have been a few comic slip-ups in the use of the spray — Jeffrey Solis, a Costa Rican referee, accidentally sprayed suds all over the shoes of two Mexican players last weekend — the most notable malfunction came during last season’s M.L.S. Cup. That game, which was officiated by Hilario Grajeda, was played in December in Kansas City, Kan., where temperatures dipped to about 20 degrees. When Grajeda went to use the spray in the frigid conditions, the spray was frozen. “He took the can out,” Walton recalled, sweeping his arm left to right as if to spray, “and nothing was coming out.” Walton then laughed before referring to the Amazonian site for several World Cup games in Brazil. “You won’t have that problem in Manaus,” he said. |