VAR again

[essex canary 516]

2 minutes ago, Jim Smith said:

The rule is that if the ball is deliberately played by a defender to an offside player then they are not offside. 
 

 

 

Thanks Jim. The level of misunderstanding of this rule down the years is the best testament to the lack of understanding of football rules even amongst those who have been involved in the game for ages.

The other interesting dimension is whether a defender stretching for the ball to try to make an interception should qualify as 'deliberate'. Reasonably the answer to that ought to be 'no'.

[PurpleCanary 5,601]

53 minutes ago, essex canary said:

Thanks Jim. The level of misunderstanding of this rule down the years is the best testament to the lack of understanding of football rules even amongst those who have been involved in the game for ages.

The other interesting dimension is whether a defender stretching for the ball to try to make an interception should qualify as 'deliberate'. Reasonably the answer to that ought to be 'no'.

They are actively trying to play the ball to stop it reaching an opponent, so I think that counts as deliberate. It would be odd if 'deliberate'  was defined only as a defender seeing an opponent lurking offside and actually passing to them.  'Deliberate' has to include the unintended consequence of trying to defend in the usual ways.

The only non-deliberate would be cases where a pass or a shot hits a defender who is not trying to play the ball, which then carries on to a player in an offside position.

But then perhaps even that doesn't count as offside because it is a different phase of play?!?!?!

[Jim Smith 2,365]

15 minutes ago, PurpleCanary said:

They are actively trying to play the ball to stop it reaching an opponent, so I think that counts as deliberate. It would be odd if 'deliberate'  was defined only as a defender seeing an opponent lurking offside and actually passing to them.  'Deliberate' has to include the unintended consequence of trying to defend in the usual ways.

The only non-deliberate would be cases where a pass or a shot hits a defender who is not trying to play the ball, which then carries on to a player in an offside position.

But then perhaps even that doesn't count as offside because it is a different phase of play?!?!?!

That does count as offside as it’s not deliberate which kind of shows how nonsensical the situation has become unless some common sense is shown with the interpretation. But then you could equally argue the offside player has already become active before the defender touches the ball as it is Mbappe attempting to play the ball (by running towards it) that causes the defender to try and cut it out snd thus impacts on his opponent.

[sgncfc 1,262]

In my days as a centre back, if we held a high line to leave opponents offside we were coached not to touch through balls in case we played them onside. Things were simpler then.......!

[ncfcstar 296]

20 hours ago, Jim Smith said:

Sorry i've read it now. I wsn;t having a go at you if thats how it came across. I just find the current trend of officials twisting and interpreting the rules incredibly frustrating. When you ask any of them (or indeed this Johnson chap) where it says something in the rules they just say "thats how its interpreted" - case in point being that every touch is a new phase of play. i thought we were done at Arsenal though the application of the same interpretation (i.e. that when Aubamayang scored it was somehow a new phase of play just because Pepe fell over and the ball came off his ankle with him knowing nothing about it. 

In my view, if you are offside in the immediate build up to a goal and you end up sticking the ball in the net then you have become active in doing so and its an offside offence.

In this case, that rule about a defender deliberately playing the ball is not meant for a situation such as this where he tries to intercept it and gets an unintentional deflection on the ball. 

I agree in this scenario that Mbappe is clearly gaining an advantage by being in the position he is in, and therefore should be offside (which he certainly would have been flagged for if the defender hadn't touched the ball).

The problem here is that the defender does touch the ball, and in failing to make an adequate connection with it, Mbappe benefits.  He has deliberately tried to get the ball, so I'd argue that regardless of where the ball ends up you can't call it 'unintentional'.

The issue with the laws here, for me, is that there is no doubt that the defender DOES NOT try to intercept the ball if Mbappe isn't there, but apparently because Mbappe is not directly interfering with the player himself then it doesn't matter.  This is clearly a nonsense, but the laws allow this situation to arise.

If I'm really generous to the officials you could argue that the defender should have been confident in the defensive line and therefore didn't have to try and intercept the ball when Mbappe would have been flagged offside if he'd have let the pass reach its intended target.

[AJ 1,235]

4 hours ago, lake district canary said:

What happened to the old rule that said if the ball comes off a defender it can't be offside?  When did that stop being a thing? 

but the defender didn't play the ball, the French player did to a player who was offside. All these different phases of play rubbish is exactly that, rubbish. At no point in the whole attack was Mbappe onside, therefore how can it be anything but offside?! Bizarre interpretation of the rules, but technically correct by the dodgy wording. Offside all day long, the defender deflected it at best, it wasn't intentionally played. Mbappe was offside to begin with, so it shouldn't matter, it should still be offside.

[Jim Smith 2,365]

36 minutes ago, PurpleCanary said:

They are actively trying to play the ball to stop it reaching an opponent, so I think that counts as deliberate. It would be odd if 'deliberate'  was defined only as a defender seeing an opponent lurking offside and actually passing to them.  'Deliberate' has to include the unintended consequence of trying to defend in the usual ways.

The only non-deliberate would be cases where a pass or a shot hits a defender who is not trying to play the ball, which then carries on to a player in an offside position.

But then perhaps even that doesn't count as offside because it is a different phase of play?!?!?!

But then also if the keeper or defender “saves” the ball the attacking player is still offside! So I’m struggling to see why it should be that if it takes an accidental deflection it’s offside, if it rebounds to the striker due to a “save” it’s offside, if the defender leaves the ball it’s offside, but because the defender stretches out a leg to attempt to play it (snd only does so due to the run of the offside player behind him) and gets an slight touch on it should render the forward onside. It’s a nonsense really snd needs clearing up. 
 

I think the “deliberate play” by the defender is more intended to deal with a wayward or careless backlash type scenario although I do accept there still remains a “where do you draw the line” debate there.

personally I would like to see the rule revised so that it’s made clear that the “offside offence” occurs as soon as the ball is kicked and so if the offside player goes on to become active and score or set up a goal either from a pass which was intended for him or as part of the same passage of play during which he was offside then it’s offside. 
 

The Aubsmayeng scenario was a nonsense as well. No way that was a new “phase of play” or that he didn’t directly benefit from having been offside moments before when Pepe first played the ball. The laws seem capable of interpretation to allow or disallow all these goals.

 

 

 

[PurpleCanary 5,601]

11 minutes ago, Jim Smith said:

But then also if the keeper or defender “saves” the ball the attacking player is still offside! So I’m struggling to see why it should be that if it takes an accidental deflection it’s offside, if it rebounds to the striker due to a “save” it’s offside, if the defender leaves the ball it’s offside, but because the defender stretches out a leg to attempt to play it (snd only does so due to the run of the offside player behind him) and gets an slight touch on it should render the forward onside. It’s a nonsense really snd needs clearing up. 
 

I think the “deliberate play” by the defender is more intended to deal with a wayward or careless backlash type scenario although I do accept there still remains a “where do you draw the line” debate there.

personally I would like to see the rule revised so that it’s made clear that the “offside offence” occurs as soon as the ball is kicked and so if the offside player goes on to become active and score or set up a goal either from a pass which was intended for him or as part of the same passage of play during which he was offside then it’s offside. 
 

The Aubsmayeng scenario was a nonsense as well. No way that was a new “phase of play” or that he didn’t directly benefit from having been offside moments before when Pepe first played the ball. The laws seem capable of interpretation to allow or disallow all these goals.

 

 

 

Jim, you're going way beyond what I know. I see very little football (the last time I watched anything was the Euro Championships final) and none of these recent incidents, and have no idea what the current interpretations are. Only that they are producing farcical decisions.

I was purely making the point that 'deliberate' had to include the unintended consequences of a deliberate defensive action. The obvious solution is the one that won't be taken, which is to rule someone offside under all circumstances unless they are lying by the corner flag with a broken leg.

[essex canary 516]

The logic of this seems to be that if a defender in this situation takes a desperate lunge at the ball to try and intercept and misses the ball completely the attacker is offside whereas if the defender gets a hairs breath touch the attacker is onside, That is clearly a nonsense. I believe the original law design was intended to cover the defender being careless in the sense of having the ball completely under control then giving it away.

[Jim Smith 2,365]

14 minutes ago, PurpleCanary said:

Jim, you're going way beyond what I know. I see very little football (the last time I watched anything was the Euro Championships final) and none of these recent incidents, and have no idea what the current interpretations are. Only that they are producing farcical decisions.

I was purely making the point that 'deliberate' had to include the unintended consequences of a deliberate defensive action. The obvious solution is the one that won't be taken, which is to rule someone offside under all circumstances unless they are lying by the corner flag with a broken leg.

I don't disagree with what you say. All very open to interpretation unless they simplify it. Deliberate is defined as being:

Deliberate

An action which the player intended/meant to make; it is not a ‘reflex’ or unintended reaction

So again you can debate whether a defender, sticking out a leg to intercept the ball and the ball deflecting off his toe to the striker is a "deliberate play" or otherwise.

The fundamental problem in my view remains that a player is "offside" at the point the ball is played by his team mate but yet does not get penalised until they become active. You thus have this "gap" between the two events where its possible for various scenarios to play out and scope for all these slightly perverse outcomes. 

Leaving that aside though if the position of an offside player is making the defender attempt to play the ball I would argue they are already active and impacting on their opponant before the opponant even touches it.

 

 

 

[PurpleCanary 5,601]

14 minutes ago, essex canary said:

The logic of this seems to be that if a defender in this situation takes a desperate lunge at the ball to try and intercept and misses the ball completely the attacker is offside whereas if the defender gets a hairs breath touch the attacker is onside, That is clearly a nonsense. I believe the original law design was intended to cover the defender being careless in the sense of having the ball completely under control then giving it away.

That's nonsense. The laws were not drawn up taking account various gradations of contact on the ball, not least because it would put referees into an impossible position.

[TheGunnShow 6,094]

The offside rule is very unwieldy nowadays and the issue I have with it, as I have said before, is that FIFA and the International Board have come up with rules for football on television that are not practical when refereeing at lower levels - often even without assistant referees. Johnson's explanation of the rules and the decision is absolutely spot on, so this isn't about referee interpretations - it's about how the powers that be want Law to be interpreted. One of their decisions, readily found in the diagrams in the Laws of Football at the back of any paperback edition, states that "gaining an advantage" means "playing the ball".

The Mbappe call did turn out to be correct, but when the offside law is that cumbersome that people still don't get it, then simplification is needed. The law's not too difficult to explain, but it is difficult to apply at speed.

 

Edited October 12, 2021 by TheGunnShow

[PurpleCanary 5,601]

4 minutes ago, Jim Smith said:

I don't disagree with what you say. All very open to interpretation unless they simplify it. Deliberate is defined as being:

Deliberate

An action which the player intended/meant to make; it is not a ‘reflex’ or unintended reaction

So again you can debate whether a defender, sticking out a leg to intercept the ball and the ball deflecting off his toe to the striker is a "deliberate play" or otherwise.

The fundamental problem in my view remains that a player is "offside" at the point the ball is played by his team mate but yet does not get penalised until they become active. You thus have this "gap" between the two events where its possible for various scenarios to play out and scope for all these slightly perverse outcomes. 

Leaving that aside though if the position of an offside player is making the defender attempt to play the ball I would argue they are already active and impacting on their opponant before the opponant even touches it.

 

 

 

Jim, thanks for that definition, which I hadn't seen. But I think it backs up what I was saying, because it refers only to the action and not any possible undeliberate consequence.

So an action is deliberate if the player tries to do it, even if the consequence is unintended. That means any attempt at interception in which the ball is touched is deliberate, even if it has the not wished for result that the attacker is then onside.

[Jim Smith 2,365]

1 minute ago, PurpleCanary said:

Jim, thanks for that definition, which I hadn't seen. But I think it backs up what I was saying, because it refers only to the action and not any possible undeliberate consequence.

So an action is deliberate if the player tries to do it, even if the consequence is unintended. That means any attempt at interception in which the ball is touched is deliberate, even if it has the not wished for result that the attacker is then onside.

Possibly Purple. I accept it was a deliberate action in the sense he was trying to reach the ball. Clearly though he didn;t intend to play it in the way he did which isn;t far off being a deflection or a reflex either! I tend to agree with the post above that this wording is more envisaging an offside player intercepting a careless backpass or the ball breaking loose from a tackle to a player who is offside. 

As I've said I still think its offside because Mbappe going for the ball as he did and being in an offside position impacted on the defenders decision making and action so i think they could have ruled that the offside offence happened first as arguably it caused the defender to play the ball.

Either way though I think it needs reforming (i just can;'t see the rationale for wanting that to be considered onside and think (although I may be wrong) most football fans would think it should be offside) although if they do change it they will no doubt just make it worse as there don;t seem to be many amonsgt football's rulemakers who ahve a great deal of common sense. 

[essex canary 516]

Again I agree with you Jim. Offside. Why should a defender lunging at the ball be expected to make judgements about whether the player he is trying to defend against is in an offside position? He should only be expected to have such spatial awareness when he has the ball under control. 

Perhaps another problem with VAR is that referess are becoming like robots and focusing on the camera only rather than the law interpretation in a wider sense?

[Jim Smith 2,365]

One thing that seems to be missed here is the bit about the "deliberate play" by a defender is only relevant to whether a player is "gaining an advantage" and not whether they can still be offside. Gaining an advantage is only one of the possible offside offences. I would argue any of the three I have underlined below could apply.

"Offside offence

A player in an offside position at the moment the ball is played or touched* by a team-mate is only penalised on becoming involved in active play by:

• interfering with play by playing or touching a ball passed or touched by a team-mate or
• interfering with an opponent by:
• preventing an opponent from playing or being able to play the ball by clearly obstructing the opponent’s line of vision or
• challenging an opponent for the ball or
• clearly attempting to play a ball which is close when this action impacts on an opponent or
• making an obvious action which clearly impacts on the ability of an opponent to play the ball

or

• gaining an advantage by playing the ball or interfering with an opponent when it has:
• rebounded or been deflected off the goalpost, crossbar or an opponent
• been deliberately saved by any opponent

A player in an offside position receiving the ball from an opponent who deliberately plays the ball, including by deliberate handball, is not considered to have gained an advantage, unless it was a deliberate save by any opponent. 

A ‘save’ is when a player stops, or attempts to stop, a ball which is going into or very close to the goal with any part of the body except the hands/arms (unless the goalkeeper within the penalty area)."

[TheGunnShow 6,094]

20 minutes ago, Jim Smith said:

One thing that seems to be missed here is the bit about the "deliberate play" by a defender is only relevant to whether a player is "gaining an advantage" and not whether they can still be offside. Gaining an advantage is only one of the possible offside offences. I would argue any of the three I have underlined below could apply.

"Offside offence

A player in an offside position at the moment the ball is played or touched* by a team-mate is only penalised on becoming involved in active play by:

• interfering with play by playing or touching a ball passed or touched by a team-mate or
• interfering with an opponent by:
• preventing an opponent from playing or being able to play the ball by clearly obstructing the opponent’s line of vision or
• challenging an opponent for the ball or
• clearly attempting to play a ball which is close when this action impacts on an opponent or
• making an obvious action which clearly impacts on the ability of an opponent to play the ball

or

• gaining an advantage by playing the ball or interfering with an opponent when it has:
• rebounded or been deflected off the goalpost, crossbar or an opponent
• been deliberately saved by any opponent

A player in an offside position receiving the ball from an opponent who deliberately plays the ball, including by deliberate handball, is not considered to have gained an advantage, unless it was a deliberate save by any opponent. 

A ‘save’ is when a player stops, or attempts to stop, a ball which is going into or very close to the goal with any part of the body except the hands/arms (unless the goalkeeper within the penalty area)."

None of the underlined three apply simply as Mbappe was running away from the opponent. Garcia was not impeded by Mbappe when going for that ball.

There's plenty of scope for reforming the offside rule, but application as it stood, and how IFAB instruct referees to interpret it, was absolutely correct. In other words, the referees got it spot on. 

There's an excellent argument for the law needing radical reform. However, when it segues into a criticism of refereeing, that's borne of ignorance.

[Mr Angry 1,574]

1 hour ago, PurpleCanary said:

Jim, you're going way beyond what I know. I see very little football (the last time I watched anything was the Euro Championships final) and none of these recent incidents, and have no idea what the current interpretations are. Only that they are producing farcical decisions.

I was purely making the point that 'deliberate' had to include the unintended consequences of a deliberate defensive action. The obvious solution is the one that won't be taken, which is to rule someone offside under all circumstances unless they are lying by the corner flag with a broken leg.

The really obvious solution is to remove the offside rule completely.

[TheGunnShow 6,094]

4 minutes ago, Mr Angry said:

The really obvious solution is to remove the offside rule completely.

I think Marco van Basten proposed that using hockey as a guide for his argument, but the real problem there is this: in hockey the ball has to stay on the ground whereas in football, we all know it's merely an option to keep the grass on its ****. You'll probably end up making long ball a more viable strategy again without intending to.

As I've said before, a problem I have as a former referee is that many amendments to laws don't seem to take the notion of applying football rules in local level football into account. Hell, we often don't have assistant referees. I'd actually say they should change it to making offside an offence rather than not.

[ncfcstar 296]

23 minutes ago, Mr Angry said:

The really obvious solution is to remove the offside rule completely.

Never going to happen as it would be a fundamental change to how the game is played.

[Baracouda 47]

19 minutes ago, TheGunnShow said:

I think Marco van Basten proposed that using hockey as a guide for his argument, but the real problem there is this: in hockey the ball has to stay on the ground whereas in football, we all know it's merely an option to keep the grass on its ****. You'll probably end up making long ball a more viable strategy again without intending to.

As I've said before, a problem I have as a former referee is that many amendments to laws don't seem to take the notion of applying football rules in local level football into account. Hell, we often don't have assistant referees. I'd actually say they should change it to making offside an offence rather than not.

not sure when Van basten used hockey as an example. But field hockey scrapped offside in 96. Football could implement ice hockey rules that no one can be beyond the defensive blue line when the puck crosses it. But once it's in the defensive zone you can be anywhere. (Obviously once the defence clear it from their zone, everyone has to leave). 

I believe most sports that have an offside rule, its only intention has been to make the games more entertaining/sporting balance. For example, rugby you would have defenders stood next to attackers and the game would become silly. Football likely to see 505 formations, where it is just hoofed into the opponents box all game. 

 

Edited October 12, 2021 by Baracouda

[TheGunnShow 6,094]

4 minutes ago, Baracouda said:

not sure when Van basten used hockey as an example. But field hockey scrapped offside in 96. Football could implement ice hockey rules that no one can be beyond the defensive blue line when the puck crosses it. But once it's in the defensive zone you can be anywhere. (Obviously once the defence clear it from their zone, everyone has to leave). 

I believe most sports that have an offside rule, its only intention has been to make the games more entertaining/sporting balance. For example, rugby you would have defenders stood next to attackers and the game would become silly. Football likely to see 505 formations, where it is just hoofed into the opponents box all game. 

 

Might not have mentioned it explicitly (although Johan Cruyff famously said Total Football could never have come around in a country that didn't play hockey, as off-the-ball movement really is key in hockey), but this article probably sums it up.

Marco van Basten on the offside law, why it should be scrapped, and the hockey precedent that might surprise | Football News | Sky Sports