World cup final

[santa sangria]

Graham Poll thinks it was a penalty.

Monsieur, what do you think about the penalty incident itself, the decision, the handball LotG and the use of the protocol?

 

[santa sangria]

There's 2 questions - was the initial decision wrong? If so, was it clearly and obviously wrong? You can say 'yes' to the former without saying 'yes' to the latter.

There's a few things to consider. Position of the arm, movement of the arm, time to react being a few things.

The attacker did touch the ball first - but the change to the trajectory of the ball was minimal. So that hasn't changed what the defender had to react to. If, for instance, the ball was going to miss the defender but the path of the ball was significantly changed at the last moment, then you consider that the defender has had no time to react.

The defender also had a view of the ball the entire time it was crossed in - again, if the defender was unsighted until it passed his opponent, then that's in the defender's favour.

So, the defender has had plenty of time to react to the cross. Now, one could argue that the defender expected the attacker to head the ball in a different direction thus didn't position himself for the ball to go backwards like that - but I think that's a very weak argument at the best of times; in this case, given the goal was behind the players, you should expect the ball to go somewhat in that direction. So given that the eventual path of the ball wasn't a completely unpredictable one, that leaves it being the defender's responsibility to do the most he can to ensure the ball is not going to strike his arms.

And that leaves us with the positioning of the arms. I had to look at it a number of times to work through this decision making process - but I was left with the fact that he jumped with his arms right out to the side. Why on earth would any defender do that?

I find myself making similar arguments to that in favour of the handling penalty in the Australia - France match (this time a French player was penalised). You simply can't be jumping with your arms right out to the side - doing so puts the defender in a position where there's a good chance they're blocking the ball. The onus is on the player to take reasonable steps to minimise the chance of handling the ball. And that means keeping the arms closer to the body when jumping as a defender. Not jumping with arms flailing out to the side.

When defenders are standing in front of an attacker with the ball, they know now to stick their arms right out to the side - it's not different when jumping.

So while the contact occurred while the arms were coming back down, I don't think they should have been there in the first place. The defender has jumped in a manner that broadens his field position using the arms, he's had visibility of the ball and nothing happened to change his reaction time. That makes the handling wholly the defender's responsibility - and that makes it a foul for me.

So the 2nd question is - was it a clear and obvious error? Fortunately this question doesn't affect us as grassroots referees - it's purely a discussion piece. It's difficult to answer this without being party to FIFA's training on 'clear and obvious error'.

I don't think taking a while to reach the decision means it isn't clear and obvious. I don't believe that 'immediately apparent' is a prerequisite for 'clear and obvious'.

I can only wonder - under what circumstances would a VAR review ever leave the referee thinking 'it's a foul, but I can see an argument to say it's not, so I won't change it'?

When the VAR is to intervene is still one of the challenges facing football. The implementation at the World Cup seems to have a fairly low bar on 'clear and obvious' - once the referee thinks it's a foul, the decision gets made. So I think it's consistent with the VAR application this world cup, though I still wonder if it's the best way to implement VAR.

I don't know what 'clear and obvious' means, and I'm not sure anybody else - even FIFA - does.


He didn't have to react to it - the impact on the ball was very slight; had there been no touch it still would have collided with the defender's hand.

Great post. Well said.
(I still think this is not handball due to "(unexpected ball)" but I concur)

 

[Ciley Myrus]

If the ref had seen it real time and made a no call on it, then am fine

the fact he does not appear to have seen any contact with the ball re the Croatia player, (which its fair to say everybody at home did, as well as the players) then, he has clearly made some kind of error,

Am aware VAR does not allow for corner/goal kicks etc, but, if having watched this back, he see's a pk, then fair play
Much the same as the Ronaldo being reviewed for vc but the ref deemed it as aggressive?

oh I dunno

 

[arbitre]

Monsieur, what do you think about the penalty incident itself, the decision, the handball LotG and the use of the protocol?

I will first go back to the free kick that lead to the 1st goal for France. Greizmann cheated, he dived and in his dive he made contact with the opponent. For me, no foul, so unlikely that France would have taken the lead then!

Now, was it a penalty? My belief is No. But there is only one reason you can say yes.

Why No? I believe that the contact was completely accidental and it was an unfortunate hand ball. In jumping a player naturally uses his arms to help with the jump and then the arms lower as the player comes down, and the lowering of arms is not controlled, unlike when defenders on the ground these days put their arms at their side or behind their backs to avoid the possibility of hand ball. If you did this when trying to jump it makes it very much harder to jump or get some height. The French player directly in front of the Croatian defender jumped in exactly the same way as him! You could also argue that the player was lowering his arm seeing the ball at the last minute coming towards him and again made an unfortunate contact. If you see the incident at normal speed it looks even less of a hand ball.

Why Yes? If you believe that the defenders arm was in an unnatural position, then with the new interpretation you must give it. In slow motion it does look more of an offence.

So it is entirely the referee's interpretation of how he sees it. However Mr. Pitana had the help (or not) of VAR. He had 4 colleagues watching and telling him in their opinion it was hand ball, otherwise why would they have made the review. If they thought it was not a hand ball they would have let it pass and not told him to have a look. So even if you as the referee have one view, which is contradicted by a number of your colleagues, you find yourself in a difficult position and this is where VAR is a problem. In this instance as it is a matter of interpretation of the action, and if your interpretation is different to the 4 others you start to question yourself, and maybe feel pressurised into giving the hand ball.

In general I am in favour of VAR, however, in this instance the referee on the field should only have been shown the replays in real time, not slow motion, to see how things happened. Generally the slow motion will help, especially with fouls, but I think in this instance the slow motion helped to make the wrong decision.

I might also say that overall I thought Mr. Pitana missed/made some strange decisions generally in the final. For example the excellent challenge by Giroud to block Lovren's clearance in the 1st half, and others where he allowed advantage and when there was no advantage he did not return to the original foul. I noticed a few of those, more that were not favourable to Croatia.

For me half time would have been 1-0 to Croatia, then who knows how the 2nd half might have played out!

 

[CapnBloodbeard]

Another point to consider, the time from the sight touch from the player in front of him to the his hand is under 0.05 seconds. I am not an biology expert but my guess is that is not enough time to react to anything.

He didn't have to react to it - the impact on the ball was very slight; had there been

Great post. Well said.
(I still think this is not handball due to "(unexpected ball)" but I concur)

Why do you say it was unexpected?

 

[GraemeS]

So, the defender has had plenty of time to react to the cross. Now, one could argue that the defender expected the attacker to head the ball in a different direction thus didn't position himself for the ball to go backwards like that - but I think that's a very weak argument at the best of times; in this case, given the goal was behind the players, you should expect the ball to go somewhat in that direction. So given that the eventual path of the ball wasn't a completely unpredictable one, that leaves it being the defender's responsibility to do the most he can to ensure the ball is not going to strike his arms.

I think you've made a good coherent argument, but I think it falls down on this point. As a defender he's entitled to position himself between the ball/player and the goal, and as a person, he's entitled to have arms - so I don't think it's legitimate to suggest that he shouldn't have had his arms anywhere between the player and the goal.

What I'm looking at is what is the attacker trying to do - and that's a flick-on. If he does what he's trying to do (and what the defender expects him to do), the ball is going to pass the defender at around shoulder-to-head height. If the ball hits his hands at around that height, I'm definitely considering a penalty. But before the ball has arrived, he's taken deliberate action to lower his hands away from the expected height at which the ball would have passed him if the attacker had managed a flick-on. And that's enough for me to make any contact entirely accidental and enough for me to say he's attempted to avoid the ball-to-hand contact.

 

[CapnBloodbeard]

He's entitled to have arms, but he has a responsibility to not be unnecessarily waving them around.

Look at the scenarios where an attacker is bearing down on goal. Defender crouches down in front. Now, if the defender is sticking his arms out to the side, and the attacker kicks the ball and it strikes the arm, we'd award a foul because he shouldn't have had his arms in that position. He's just making himself bigger - it might be 'natural' but it's also unnecessary and defenders have had to learn to make a conscious decision to move their arms elsewhere. Even more to the side of the body works in their favour.

So what's the difference when jumping?

Anyway, your argument against it being a foul is also a perfectly reasonable one and I don't really have anything to try to claim that's the incorrect approach to DHB. I see where your coming from and it makes sense. Not saying I agree ;-)

 

[bester]

My point a while back, slowly but surely the criteria to become a linesman won’t warrant needing a human being.

At the RA conference Hawkeye said they are already developing automatic detection for offsides. The Hawkeye bloke didn’t think it would work without a human element as it could only judge offside position.

In tennis they’ve already had a tournament where Hawkeye replaced all line judges.

 

[one]

He didn't have to react to it - the impact on the ball was very slight; had there been no touch it still would have collided with the defender's hand.

That's the whole point i am making. Any reasonable defender would have expected a bigger deflection and the ball not ending up where it did. He dint have enough time to adjust to the no/little deflection.

 

[GraemeS]

He's entitled to have arms, but he has a responsibility to not be unnecessarily waving them around.

Look at the scenarios where an attacker is bearing down on goal. Defender crouches down in front. Now, if the defender is sticking his arms out to the side, and the attacker kicks the ball and it strikes the arm, we'd award a foul because he shouldn't have had his arms in that position. He's just making himself bigger - it might be 'natural' but it's also unnecessary and defenders have had to learn to make a conscious decision to move their arms elsewhere. Even more to the side of the body works in their favour.

So what's the difference when jumping?

Anyway, your argument against it being a foul is also a perfectly reasonable one and I don't really have anything to try to claim that's the incorrect approach to DHB. I see where your coming from and it makes sense. Not saying I agree ;-)

The question I think we have to ask, is would you have given a penalty if his hands were up high, the attacker had succeeded in flicking it on and it had then been blocked by this high hand? I would, and I think it would have a lot of people on here saying yes.

Therefore we have to consider that in a world where his hands can only be high or low (as I've not having the idea that defenders should be challenging with their hands behind their backs), he has to be allowed to have his hands in one of those two positions. And that surely one of those positions should be opening himself up to the possibility of an offence, and the other has to be considered reasonable arm placement?

 

[one]

This is my understanding of the current law of the game put in simple terms: If the player does not make any conscious decision that has a consequence of him making hand contact with the ball, it is not a handball.

Here is what I think was being applied in the world cup: If a player is not proactive in avoiding making hand contact with the ball and contact is made, its a handball (e.g, when defending a shot, put your hands behind your back).

 

[CapnBloodbeard]

That's the whole point i am making. Any reasonable defender would have expected a bigger deflection and the ball not ending up where it did. He dint have enough time to adjust to the no/little deflection.

I considered that point. There are 2 concerns I have with it
1) didn't have enough time to adjust - given that he had full view of the ball as it was coming in, and given that the ball didn't really deviate from it's course at all, surely it's still his responsibility?
2) Whether he would have expected a bigger deflection - I'm not so sure. The ball was definitely going to be going behind the attacker. The only question is at what angle.

The question I think we have to ask, is would you have given a penalty if his hands were up high, the attacker had succeeded in flicking it on and it had then been blocked by this high hand? I would, and I think it would have a lot of people on here saying yes.

Therefore we have to consider that in a world where his hands can only be high or low (as I've not having the idea that defenders should be challenging with their hands behind their backs), he has to be allowed to have his hands in one of those two positions. And that surely one of those positions should be opening himself up to the possibility of an offence, and the other has to be considered reasonable arm placement?

You've drawn a false equivalance there.

Had the arms been down where they were and the ball struck the as a result of the attacker significantly changing the direction of the ball, then it wouldn't be a foul.

And he most definitely doesn't have to be having his hands in one of those 2 positions.

 

[santa sangria]

He didn't have to react to it - the impact on the ball was very slight; had there been

Why do you say it was unexpected?

The defender is expecting the attacker to make contact with the ball, which the attacker does. I agree that the ball doesn't deviate that much. But you can see the surprise on the defender's face when the ball makes it to him - and, as said, this was milliseconds after the touch from the attacker.

"unexpected ball" is in the LotG as a key consideration. Unnatural position is not.

And then if we go through the checklist:
- Was it "deliberate" in the general meaning of the word - my opinion, no.

Then, we get onto, was it "deliberate" in terms of the LotG:
- Movement is ball to hand, at speed, the movement of the hand is natural based on jumping when not expecting the ball in my opinion. The defender is jumping and the ball hits his hand as he is coming down. This is not hand to ball in my opinion.
- Distance is very small from the previous touch by the attacker. This is unexpected ball. In my opinion this should be the biggest factor in this specific incident.
- "the position of the hand does not necessarily mean there is an offence" - in my opinion this also applies here, very strongly
- From the guidelines - is the arm in an unnatural position, could the defender have not had his arm out? He could have jumped without using his arms, yes. But in my opinion he is not expecting the ball so I do not think this is a factor to weight heavily. To do so we should be asking all jumps to be hands-by-your-side.

So, overall, in my opinion, there's crushing weight in all factors in the checklist as I understand it that this should not be a handball offence.

 

[santa sangria]

I will first go back to the free kick that lead to the 1st goal for France. Greizmann cheated, he dived and in his dive he made contact with the opponent. For me, no foul, so unlikely that France would have taken the lead then!

Now, was it a penalty? My belief is No. But there is only one reason you can say yes.

Why No? I believe that the contact was completely accidental and it was an unfortunate hand ball. In jumping a player naturally uses his arms to help with the jump and then the arms lower as the player comes down, and the lowering of arms is not controlled, unlike when defenders on the ground these days put their arms at their side or behind their backs to avoid the possibility of hand ball. If you did this when trying to jump it makes it very much harder to jump or get some height. The French player directly in front of the Croatian defender jumped in exactly the same way as him! You could also argue that the player was lowering his arm seeing the ball at the last minute coming towards him and again made an unfortunate contact. If you see the incident at normal speed it looks even less of a hand ball.

Why Yes? If you believe that the defenders arm was in an unnatural position, then with the new interpretation you must give it. In slow motion it does look more of an offence.

So it is entirely the referee's interpretation of how he sees it. However Mr. Pitana had the help (or not) of VAR. He had 4 colleagues watching and telling him in their opinion it was hand ball, otherwise why would they have made the review. If they thought it was not a hand ball they would have let it pass and not told him to have a look. So even if you as the referee have one view, which is contradicted by a number of your colleagues, you find yourself in a difficult position and this is where VAR is a problem. In this instance as it is a matter of interpretation of the action, and if your interpretation is different to the 4 others you start to question yourself, and maybe feel pressurised into giving the hand ball.

In general I am in favour of VAR, however, in this instance the referee on the field should only have been shown the replays in real time, not slow motion, to see how things happened. Generally the slow motion will help, especially with fouls, but I think in this instance the slow motion helped to make the wrong decision.

I might also say that overall I thought Mr. Pitana missed/made some strange decisions generally in the final. For example the excellent challenge by Giroud to block Lovren's clearance in the 1st half, and others where he allowed advantage and when there was no advantage he did not return to the original foul. I noticed a few of those, more that were not favourable to Croatia.

For me half time would have been 1-0 to Croatia, then who knows how the 2nd half might have played out!

Well said

 

[santa sangria]

The question I think we have to ask, is would you have given a penalty if his hands were up high, the attacker had succeeded in flicking it on and it had then been blocked by this high hand? I would, and I think it would have a lot of people on here saying yes.

Therefore we have to consider that in a world where his hands can only be high or low (as I've not having the idea that defenders should be challenging with their hands behind their backs), he has to be allowed to have his hands in one of those two positions. And that surely one of those positions should be opening himself up to the possibility of an offence, and the other has to be considered reasonable arm placement?

And we can cite the Pique penalty of a great example. In my opinion the Pique incident was a clear offence because, specific to that incident, it was a deliberate attempt to use the arm to block the ball - though it was not hand to ball - and the unnatural position was a very strong factor (based on the guidelines and LotG as I understand them).

 

[one]

I will first go back to the free kick that lead to the 1st goal for France. Greizmann cheated, he dived and in his dive he made contact with the opponent. For me, no foul, so unlikely that France would have taken the lead then!

Now, was it a penalty? My belief is No. But there is only one reason you can say yes.

Why No? I believe that the contact was completely accidental and it was an unfortunate hand ball. In jumping a player naturally uses his arms to help with the jump and then the arms lower as the player comes down, and the lowering of arms is not controlled, unlike when defenders on the ground these days put their arms at their side or behind their backs to avoid the possibility of hand ball. If you did this when trying to jump it makes it very much harder to jump or get some height. The French player directly in front of the Croatian defender jumped in exactly the same way as him! You could also argue that the player was lowering his arm seeing the ball at the last minute coming towards him and again made an unfortunate contact. If you see the incident at normal speed it looks even less of a hand ball.

Why Yes? If you believe that the defenders arm was in an unnatural position, then with the new interpretation you must give it. In slow motion it does look more of an offence.

So it is entirely the referee's interpretation of how he sees it. However Mr. Pitana had the help (or not) of VAR. He had 4 colleagues watching and telling him in their opinion it was hand ball, otherwise why would they have made the review. If they thought it was not a hand ball they would have let it pass and not told him to have a look. So even if you as the referee have one view, which is contradicted by a number of your colleagues, you find yourself in a difficult position and this is where VAR is a problem. In this instance as it is a matter of interpretation of the action, and if your interpretation is different to the 4 others you start to question yourself, and maybe feel pressurised into giving the hand ball.

In general I am in favour of VAR, however, in this instance the referee on the field should only have been shown the replays in real time, not slow motion, to see how things happened. Generally the slow motion will help, especially with fouls, but I think in this instance the slow motion helped to make the wrong decision.

I might also say that overall I thought Mr. Pitana missed/made some strange decisions generally in the final. For example the excellent challenge by Giroud to block Lovren's clearance in the 1st half, and others where he allowed advantage and when there was no advantage he did not return to the original foul. I noticed a few of those, more that were not favourable to Croatia.

For me half time would have been 1-0 to Croatia, then who knows how the 2nd half might have played out!

Agree with you with only with only one change.

Anyone who thinks this should not have been reviewed because it was not a clear and obvious error is looking at the wrong reason. It should have been reviewed because the referee missed a possible KMI which is also a reason for review. How did the VAR know the CR missed it? because CR signalled for a goal kick. So the VAR did not necessarily think it was a handball. He could have told the CR "you missed a possible handball". From there it all went wrong by influencing his decision by multiple slow mo replays.

 

[CapnBloodbeard]

The defender is expecting the attacker to make contact with the ball, which the attacker does. I agree that the ball doesn't deviate that much. But you can see the surprise on the defender's face when the ball makes it to him - and, as said, this was milliseconds after the touch from the attacker.

"unexpected ball" is in the LotG as a key consideration. Unnatural position is not.

And then if we go through the checklist:
- Was it "deliberate" in the general meaning of the word - my opinion, no.

Then, we get onto, was it "deliberate" in terms of the LotG:
- Movement is ball to hand, at speed, the movement of the hand is natural based on jumping when not expecting the ball in my opinion. The defender is jumping and the ball hits his hand as he is coming down. This is not hand to ball in my opinion.
- Distance is very small from the previous touch by the attacker. This is unexpected ball. In my opinion this should be the biggest factor in this specific incident.
- "the position of the hand does not necessarily mean there is an offence" - in my opinion this also applies here, very strongly
- From the guidelines - is the arm in an unnatural position, could the defender have not had his arm out? He could have jumped without using his arms, yes. But in my opinion he is not expecting the ball so I do not think this is a factor to weight heavily. To do so we should be asking all jumps to be hands-by-your-side.

So, overall, in my opinion, there's crushing weight in all factors in the checklist as I understand it that this should not be a handball offence.

So basically your approach is that 'he expected the ball to deviate and it didn't is just as valid as other scenarios where 'he didn't expect the ball to get deflected to him.

Which also isn't an unreasonable position. Although I actually think he should have expected the ball to go roughly in that direction given that the goals were behind the attacker. So that was my main thinking in moving past the question of whether he expected it.

What is interesting here is that we're all seeing different interpretations of what should be considered for a handball offence.

Kind of suggests that the law is still unworkably ambiguous....

 

[JamesL]

Agree with you with only with only one change.

Anyone who thinks this should not have been reviewed because it was not a clear and obvious error is looking at the wrong reason. It should have been reviewed because the referee missed a possible KMI which is also a reason for review. How did the VAR know the CR missed it? because CR signalled for a goal kick. So the VAR did not necessarily think it was a handball. He could have told the CR "you missed a possible handball". From there it all went wrong by influencing his decision by multiple slow mo replays.

And I this is where and why we need to see transparency in the process. Whether that be in game or aftermath, teams, spectators, fans and match officials deserve to know how a decision was arrives at.
In play decisions are easy its the refs opinion from his position. With VAR whikst we are now told review tsaking place and outcome it still leaves too many questions.

 

[Deleted member 3014]

At the RA conference Hawkeye said they are already developing automatic detection for offsides. The Hawkeye bloke didn’t think it would work without a human element as it could only judge offside position.

In tennis they’ve already had a tournament where Hawkeye replaced all line judges.

Frightening really add to that VAR & the compromising position it’s putting referees under, I’m starting to wonder what the description of an onfield referee will be in 10yrs time & if Lino’s will even exist.

 

[one]

And on a pedantic point



The earpiece is in the other ear mate