Fifa
New Member
Hi,
I would just like to stress the importance of the wait and see approach when dealing with law 11.
At a game this past weekend, I was the AR and within the first 5 minutes there were 2 offside infringements that I had to call (my first 2 calls of the game). The first one was bang on! The second one I should have waited....waited....and waited some more to be absolutely certain that the player in the offside position was going to be actively involved with play. I was a little premature and unfortunately got the call wrong. Here is what happened...
Blue has the ball in their own half. I am directly in-line with the second and third last white defenders as they are pretty much in line with eachother, in the middle of the FOP. One defender is slightly ahead of the other and therefore I see nothing but white jerseys in front of me (no space between them at all). On the far side, there is a blue player standing in an offside position. Blue kicks the ball forward, and across the field toward the direction of the player in the offside position. As the ball begins to travel and just as it passes the 2 defenders I am in line with, I make the realization that the ball is going to reach the offside player and so instead of delaying the inevitable, I raised my flag and signaled for the offence. Unfortunately, just as my flag went up, the white defenders slightly split and I found a blue attacker hiding in between them who moved forward and actually go the ball. By that time, the damage was done. The referee had already blown his whistle and stopped play. There was nothing I could do except feel like a complete ham and just take the abuse being shouted at me from the Blue teams bench directly behind me! I sure learned my lesson...the rest of the game, I waited until the offside player physically touched the ball before my flag went up!
Let that be a lesson...delay....wait...wait....wait some more, and see what happens before you signal for the offside offence.
(I'm still kicking my self in the ass for this!)
David
I would just like to stress the importance of the wait and see approach when dealing with law 11.
At a game this past weekend, I was the AR and within the first 5 minutes there were 2 offside infringements that I had to call (my first 2 calls of the game). The first one was bang on! The second one I should have waited....waited....and waited some more to be absolutely certain that the player in the offside position was going to be actively involved with play. I was a little premature and unfortunately got the call wrong. Here is what happened...
Blue has the ball in their own half. I am directly in-line with the second and third last white defenders as they are pretty much in line with eachother, in the middle of the FOP. One defender is slightly ahead of the other and therefore I see nothing but white jerseys in front of me (no space between them at all). On the far side, there is a blue player standing in an offside position. Blue kicks the ball forward, and across the field toward the direction of the player in the offside position. As the ball begins to travel and just as it passes the 2 defenders I am in line with, I make the realization that the ball is going to reach the offside player and so instead of delaying the inevitable, I raised my flag and signaled for the offence. Unfortunately, just as my flag went up, the white defenders slightly split and I found a blue attacker hiding in between them who moved forward and actually go the ball. By that time, the damage was done. The referee had already blown his whistle and stopped play. There was nothing I could do except feel like a complete ham and just take the abuse being shouted at me from the Blue teams bench directly behind me! I sure learned my lesson...the rest of the game, I waited until the offside player physically touched the ball before my flag went up!
Let that be a lesson...delay....wait...wait....wait some more, and see what happens before you signal for the offside offence.
(I'm still kicking my self in the ass for this!)
David
