The Ref Stop

Juv vs Sal

ARF said:
Just attempting to play the ball isn't an offside offence on its own.
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I wont lie. This caught me off guard yesterday rereading the laws. I’ve called offside for this before so glad I’m aware of it now.

I read somewhere that Bonucci touches the ball but I can’t remember where I seen it.

It’s unfortunate that VAR has missed the far defender.
 
The Ref Stop
Russell Jones said:
Rightly or wrongly, I think football expects this goal to be chalked off because of the attempted play on the ball (in the scenario where the attacker is deemed to have been in an Offside position). You're right, there's no evidence that the GK was impacted, however the argument would be that he didn't move because of the possible header from the attacker in an offside position. It's the same kind of logic as chalking off the goal because of an offside attacker clearly in the light of sight of the GK, even when it's blindingly obvious that the GK wouldn't have saved it regardless. I have sympathy with your POV but would still have been massively surprised to see VAR or the referee follow through with that logic
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I am with you here Russel. Football expects offside here. But also agree with @ARF about the laws intention.
If we go back to when interfering with an opponent was clarified and subsequently we had pretty much the same text in the following editions of the laws the IFAB said this:

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I think it's a safe refereeing decision to call this offside.
As you say the keeper can't start to make an attempt at a save, possibly because he is wrong footed initially, but also potentially because he is aware of the threat of attackers very close to him and who ultimately get close to the ball and there is your impact.
That said, with benefit of being able to sit in a VOR and really assess the impact it could also have been sold as onside (ignoring the obvious player missed in the calculation.)
On Saturday afternoon, no cameras, I want, and will accept, the flag.
 
How many opponents need to be attempting to head the same ball for it to count as 'challenging an opponent for the ball'?
 
GraemeS said:
Your prejudices are stopping you taking a fair look at this.

If we ignore the wide player, this is textbook VAR and exactly what it exists for - a game that would have otherwise been decided by an "unfair" goal is 100% what people would have moaned about pre-VAR and is absolutely part of the justification for it's existence.

The players are a full-on disgrace though. They have no idea what he's being sent to the screen for - so what are they arguing about? He's given the most mandatory of mandatory yellows, which happens to be a second, then has been asked to review "something" - these are incredibly standard calls, nothing controversial happens until well after the bench-emptying brawl has already occurred. Awful discipline from these "professionals", it's a shame the actual VAR call is going to overshadow that, because that's the real story here for me.
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Nah - the game might have been decided by a weird marginal technical offside that experienced referees cannot agree on.

Instead VARse! VARse and VARse again!
 
Russell Jones said:
Rightly or wrongly, I think football expects this goal to be chalked off because of the attempted play on the ball (in the scenario where the attacker is deemed to have been in an Offside position). You're right, there's no evidence that the GK was impacted, however the argument would be that he didn't move because of the possible header from the attacker in an offside position. It's the same kind of logic as chalking off the goal because of an offside attacker clearly in the light of sight of the GK, even when it's blindingly obvious that the GK wouldn't have saved it regardless. I have sympathy with your POV but would still have been massively surprised to see VAR or the referee follow through with that logic
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That is my take on it as well. The keeper probably wasn't getting there even if he dived early, but as a keeper you can't dive if there is any chance of someone getting a touch on the shot / cross.
 
I wasn't particularly interested in whether or not it was offside. Most of us don't get 5 minutes to study our decisions in slow motion
I only commented because of the absurdity of these frequent shameful spectacles the game throws up and the complete lack of ambition to stop them from happening. The offside decision is neither here nor there in comparison. The VAR delay and unexpected offside probably didn't help, but that's also a side-show. Referee must've felt like a prat, not that he was obviously at fault for any of the nonsense
 
RustyRef said:
That is my take on it as well. The keeper probably wasn't getting there even if he dived early, but as a keeper you can't dive if there is any chance of someone getting a touch on the shot / cross.
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I think anyone who has played keeper will agree that attempting to head the ball right there impacts the ability of the keeper to play the ball. I would call this every time myself. (Well, ya know, if the attacker was actually in OSP . . .)

(Aside: for an attempt, the standard is impacts; for an obvious action, it is a heightened standard of clearly impacts. As much as I criticize IFAB drafting, I don't think that is a mistake--the attempt is more significant involvement and has a lesser standard for how much it affects the opponent.)
 
It seems people are arguing if there was any IMPACT by the opposition / keeper or if the ball was going into the goal regardless. I was in the "Goal should stand" camp (barring the far defender of course) until I imagined this incident happening 30 meters from the goal.

If there was a line of defenders and the ball was headed by an attacking player over all of them and another attacker attempted to head it in a offside position then an offside offence has occurred in my opinion. If I was AR I would raise my flag because the attacking player was actively attempting the play the ball in an offside position.

We've all called offside when a player attempts to head or play the ball regardless of whether they touch it or impacts any opposition. Why is this situation any different? Just because the ball was going in the net?? I think it makes it tougher but is it still offside?
 
rayb said:
We've all called offside when a player attempts to head or play the ball regardless of whether they touch it or impacts any opposition. Why is this situation any different? Just because the ball was going in the net?? I think it makes it tougher but is it still offside?
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Well, if we have, we were wrong.* Law 11 is pretty clear that merely attempting to play the ball isn’t enough. It has to impact an opponent. That is pretty clearly set out in the quotes above.

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*Unless it was a long time ago when active involvement was different.
 
socal lurker said:
Well, if we have, we were wrong.* Law 11 is pretty clear that merely attempting to play the ball isn’t enough. It has to impact an opponent. That is pretty clearly set out in the quotes above.

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*Unless it was a long time ago when active involvement was different.
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Yes, I see what you mean. I suppose that term "Interfering with play" (stated in the LOTG) as a player lunges for the ball might be interpreted differently.
 
It can be a pretty loose term.
Technically anyone is interfering with play because defenders are thinking about where they are and positioning themselves in response to where everyone else is on the field.
 
Big Cat said:
mostly the fault of the way the game is officiated IMO (players/managers only behave the way they've been conditioned or allowed to)
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Disagree strongly. I have made my view on this clear before. You would have been right if they were children or animals. But these are adults, responsible for their own actions. "You made me do it" is just an excuse, and a bad one.
 
higdawgy said:
It can be a pretty loose term.
Technically anyone is interfering with play because defenders are thinking about where they are and positioning themselves in response to where everyone else is on the field.
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Before the clarification of what is interfering with an opponent was introduced into law then I'd agree.
Interfering with an opponent could take many forms if you loosely apply the English definition of the statement.
However it is interfering with an opponent "by " ....
There are lots of example diagrams about what is and isn't offside. just being offside is not an offence and being offside leading to an opponent taking interceptive action is not an offence.
An example I see of bad offside calls at grassroots are where a defender intercepts a pass to offside player and puts it out for a corner. This under the guise of the defender having to play the ball due to offside attacker and consider them interfering. But this is wrong as they haven't committed any of the interfering with an opponent offences
 
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higdawgy said:
It can be a pretty loose term.
Technically anyone is interfering with play because defenders are thinking about where they are and positioning themselves in response to where everyone else is on the field.
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No. Interfering with play is specifically defined in the Laws as contact with the ball. this play is only about interfering with an opponent. As @JamesL explains, that is also defined in the Laws.
 
All this fuss about whether he interfered with an opponent when he was not even in an offside position!
An absolute mess.
 
Redster said:
All this fuss about whether he interfered with an opponent when he was not even in an offside position!
An absolute mess.
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That isn't really clear. One angle looks like he is offside the other looks like he isn't. There has to be some element of trust in the line drawing technology, at least until the semi-automated technology is fully up and running.
 
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