That was tough. Calls of handling in the box many times due to close quarters use to make me feel as you do…especially if the play was point blank and the ball runs up the defender’s arm…no way to prevent that. Dodged a bullet last night on that call. Seen enough soccer learned it’s a hard fast law and in time it cuts both ways.
Welcome to the club “Best”. You can see and appreciate a nil draw between evenly matched teams.
It's a tough rule. My GK daughter received a red card for handling outside the box in the U14 state tournament a couple of years ago. She had come out of the box to play a back pass from our defender with her feet and made a sloppy pass back out which the opposing striker jumped and fired back at her. She retreated and caught the ball either just out the box or right on the line per video. It was tight. The center ref didn't make the call but the assistant ref made it about 10 yards up the field. No way could he determine where that ball was from his position. We played a man down for the remainder of the game and she missed her next game. We lost that game so her suspension had to be served at the next state tournament a year later.
That’s not fun. Sure you handled it well.
Had a similar thing 20+ years back, I was the local LSA rep that sat with the player under the tent during her suspension match the following year. Kid was great, talked about anything but soccer, think it was U-12. Dad went ballistic, was given the option to leave the park for 2 hours or have a government sponsored urber ride downtown. Fortunately, he left after much shouting. I felt their local association dropped the ball on that. Parents and player should have known.