A&H

Women World Cup 2019

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I'm afraid intent is no longer relevant. Is it a natural position? For me, no. We can and will debate the new LOTG forever but the fact is that under them, the officials got it right.
It’s only irrelevant if we think they’ve made their body unnaturally bigger, and in this case, I don’t. This is all down to opinion at this stage though
 
Apparently these new laws were brought in to stop players needing to place their hands behind their back. I think it's fair to say they well and truly messed up.
 
It’s only irrelevant if we think they’ve made their body unnaturally bigger.

True - all opinion but for me I'd be looking at it this way; if the arm was by the side as though walking where would the ball go? Past the body. It is therefore unnaturally bigger and a penalty. Though all opinion, again.
 
True - all opinion but for me I'd be looking at it this way; if the arm was by the side as though walking where would the ball go? Past the body. It is therefore unnaturally bigger and a penalty. Though all opinion, again.
It would, but the player wasn’t walking, She was lunging. Part of the motion of the body when lunging is the movement of your arms to propel your body. Again, interpretation, but it’s wrong to compare it to something it’s not
 
This will now however go around in circles, so we’ll just have to agree to disagree
 
This will now however go around in circles, so we’ll just have to agree to disagree
And the plain fact is that you're both right. The player chose to lunge in a position which then put her at risk of the ball hitting her (slightly) outstretched arm when goalbound. Under the new Laws I believe this makes the decision correct even though what she did was an entirely normal / natural action for a defender. IMO this is unfair and wrong but it's how the Law is now apparently meant to be interpreted :(

Many similarities for me to the debates over defenders feeling "forced" to play a ball because of a nearby attacker in an offside position .. playing it badly and in the process rendering the attacker onside.

The future seems to be very heavily weighted towards the attacking team and defenders will need to fundamentally rethink their current approach ....
 
Give me strength, who gave these lawmakers the oxygen of life to dictate such new pathetic guidances. They've sold out to TV. Absolute garbage decision and goes against 150 years of relative common sense....
There was an easy fix available that they shied away from. It would be far better than extending the nonsense that's been going on prior to and following the recent changes.
I could be extending my retirement from refereeing to watching and discussing football full stop.....what about you @Sheffields Finest ?
 
Natural silhouette for that playing movement.

Unfortunately players are now going to have to defend with arms behind your back on VAR games. I’m sure Elleray said the intent of the change was to stop defenders having to do that.
 
There was an easy fix available that they shied away from. It would be far better than extending the nonsense that's been going on prior to and following the recent changes.
I could be extending my retirement from refereeing to watching and discussing football full stop.....what about you @Sheffields Finest ?
I'm making a stand @Mintyref , no more lower league football for me, watching these journeymen teams seeking out an existence, pretending to be contenders, i'm going to concentrate mainly on the premier League this season, we have the new wonderful VAR this season so everything in life will be rosey and my faith in football will be restored!! Whose with me???
 
I'm making a stand @Mintyref , no more lower league football for me, watching these journeymen teams seeking out an existence, pretending to be contenders, i'm going to concentrate mainly on the premier League this season, we have the new wonderful VAR this season so everything in life will be rosey and my faith in football will be restored!! Whose with me???
On your own pal.......VAR as it currently operates is a varce! ( see what I did there) The handball law is even worse than it was.......perhaps I should re-register just so I can resign in disgust?
The only exception will be the Pool games where every positive Impact on their results will be greeted with joy and celebration whereas the opposite, well even you don't want to hear that one.....
 
VAR shouldn't be a farce in principle, the current form is, we all want correct decisions,, they're following silly new nuances bestowed on them by the top table and they are justifying their existence in being panicky in almost telling tales to the now useless referees...It could be so much better but they've opened the lamp now and the genie doesn't want to go back in!!
 
Still think it would be better with teams given so many reviews per game/half, lose it if you're wrong.
Makes far more sense.
I also quite like the American football system of 'flags' on a play....
 
when i am agreeing with sheffields finest it shows the law makers have gone badly wrong,
every other break in the laws we penalise is deiberate, not this one. an opposition player smashes a ball
at the hand frrom less than half a yard and that is to be penalised, without the least intent from the player oh boy
 
Still think it would be better with teams given so many reviews per game/half, lose it if you're wrong.
Makes far more sense.
I also quite like the American football system of 'flags' on a play....
sadly var was set up to let another referee give an opinion , but at the wwc they are getting it badly wrong
 
Her arm was not near her side when it hit her arm. The force of the ball hitting her forced her arm behind her back making it look like her arm was closer after the ball had hit it. This is a foul.

I'm sorry, but you've just posted a picture of the ball hitting her arm while it is close to her body and when it was kicked at her by an opponent from close range. Incidentally, 'close' does not mean 'pinned tight against the body,' it just means not too far away from the body, which this player's arm is not, at least as far as I'm concerned. As others have pointed out, the IFAB had specifically said that the new laws would mean players did not have to run around with their arms pinned to their sides, to avoid being penalised for handling.

I wouldn't have said this is handball even under the new laws. They say that:
it is not usually an offence if the ball touches a player’s hand/arm
[...]
directly from the head or body (including the foot) of another player who is close

if the hand/arm is close to the body and does not make the body unnaturally bigger

The explanation goes on to say that:
having the hand/arm above shoulder height is rarely a ‘natural’ position and a player is ‘taking a risk’ by having the hand/arm in that position

The ball was kicked at this player by "another player who is close" and for me, her arm was both close to her body and in a natural position, or at least certainly not in what the explanation says is the unnatural position of above the level of her shoulder.

Maybe I'm reading this completely wrong but I thought this was actually a fairly clear example of what is not supposed to be handball under the new laws.
 
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sadly var was set up to let another referee give an opinion

No, it was set up to give the R the chance to fix clear errors. It is the R, not the VAR, that decides to review (after the check the VAR can only recommend a review to the R), and it is solely the R's opinion that matters. (Where the issues is black and white--like OSP or GK off line, there is no opinion involved, as it is simply a determination of an objective fact.) The purpose was to catch those blatant errors that everyone who watched new was a mistake but the R had a bad angle or didn't see or for some other reason missed an obvious call.

but at the wwc they are getting it badly wrong

Too simplistic. Yes VAR has created insane delays at times. But the biggest things people seem to complain about on VAR related calls are not really VAR issues, but complaints about the underlying rule. VAR is not wrong on GK movement--the rule is the rule and FIFA decided it wanted it enforced tightly. We'd be having exactly the same conversation about those calls if the ARs had been tasked to call that. (And it is a bit mystifying, given that the VAR protocol says calls are always made on the field, that ARs have apparently been told to leave that to VAR.) And the biggest brouhahas have been about OS involvement--but that is not really about VAR at all, but about a disliking the dictates of Law 11--and improperly blaming that on VAR when the VAR properly raises an issue.

I'm not a fan of VAR at all. If I were in charge it would be gone instantly. But much of what we see in the WWC is inherent. The pretense that there is always a right answer. The fact it takes time to look at video. The fact it then takes more time for an OFR. The pretense that video reduces controversy. (Video can reduce controversy on objective decisions--it works great in tennis where the question is if the ball hit the line or not or american baseball to see what happened first, and indeed can very precisely determine OSP in most cases. But on subjective decisions (and soccer is unique in the scope of subjective decisions that can be reviewed), there is never going to be 100% agreement on any but the simplest of calls, and anyone who thought about this in advance knew that. And that, if anything, creates more controversy, as there is no longer a "the ref had a different angle" issue--everyone gets to see exactly what the R saw.) FIFA got lucky in the MWC that the biggest issues of VAR didn't come into play at a critical time. Not so lucky in WWC.
 
i dont suppose anybody knows where to get the blue on one side green on the
other side coins being used in the wwc i know a lot of my scottish colleagues who would use one lol
 
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