New Poll ... Offside or Not?

As many of you have seen, there is a question if the video clip posted here is offside or not.

There is now a poll dedicated to the question. So the question is ..

Offside or not?

Bye - Bye Uruguay?

We've all see this image or some form of it by now in the refereeing world from the GER v. ENG match (report here). A relevant question may be, is this the end of the Uruguayan penta-refereeing team? (All 5 are from Uruguay) Will we see them again in this World Cup?

Similar to before, I'm not going to answer, nor am I going to go into (right now anyway) the howls for technology to become more a part of the modern game. I will also not go into depth of some of the absolute ludicrous commentary that is floating around. One piece of note is here. There were two quotes from this article that I found interesting.

Fact: Espinosa should have seen it. Practically everyone else did, without the need for video technology. It was visible with the naked eye. 

Okayee ... the juxtaposition of "Fact:" and "... should have seen it." are odd to me as clearly the JAR did not see that the ball crossed the line. I would be interested to know where the author was sitting for that one. Granted the ESPN coverage I was watching did clearly show it, but you had to be looking for it.

The non-goal was also edited out of a 2-minute highlight reel of the match on FIFA's website.

Ewwww ... I am with the author on that one, I don't like that at all. Yeah the refereeing team got it wrong, but hiding it does not help.

In the spirit of learning, what could we as referees change in this case?

When the ball was played the JAR was in the exact correct position, level with the second to last defender just about on the edge of the 18 yard box. The referee too seemed to be in a good position, with the play mostly penned in between he and his AR, trailing about 10 yards behind when the ball was struck.

It was at this point that LAMPARD struck the ball which rang off the crossbar, the ball deflected down, over the line, by about the diameter of a ball ... or about 9 inches, maybe a smudge more, but not much, then right out to the goal keeper.

Now the timing. The clock at the shot was at 37:43. This was when the JAR and referee were in the positions see above. By the time NEUER had the ball in his hands after bouncing out of the net, it was 37:45 as see below.

So, the JAR had to travel 18 yards in 2 seconds ... that is about 18.41 MPH or 29.63 KPH, faster than the fastest player on the ENG side, which happened to be LAMPARD at 29.41 KPH (report here). Keep in mind, this is from a dead stop as the JAR was in exactly the correct position at the taking of the shot. Is this even possible? Also, the time the ball was over the line was about half of that 2 seconds, really meaning we are talking about an AR moving 18 yards in a second, or at about 60 KPH to be in the perfect position. Now THAT is not possible. From the tape and the commentary the JAR was able to get about 10 yards from the goal line by the time the goalkeeper had the ball in his hands.

The referee was about 25ish yards back when the ball deflected down over the line and back out. He was also coming in straight on and had the worst possible angle.

So what do we do here?

Here is my prophetic answer ... I don't know.

This is tremendously unlucky for ENG and the refereeing team, and tremendously lucky for GER ... and honestly extraordinarily well played by NEUER to not let on at all what may, or may not have happened. I don't think that even he knew where the ball had been.

To me this is the ARs call all day as the referee has to trail the play here. If this was off a corner kick or other close set piece, my answer is very different, but quick counter attacking play moving forward like this, it is the ARs call.

This is, in my opinion, the single hardest and consequential out of bounds decision an AR has to make. Goal-line in/out is fairly routine albeit consequential, but ball struck on a rope 18 yards away, no defenders nearby and make that call in 2 seconds or less ... well that changes things. All the AR can do is run as fast as they can to the goal line while looking inside the field and see if you can catch a glimpse of the ball going over the line.

We know the AR can not give up his offside position. They have to follow the ball, so the JAR was where he was supposed to be. This leaves it to getting in the correct position just as quickly as possible and hope to get lucky. I'm sure the AR was trying to read the keeper to help determine if it was in or not ... and as stated above NEUER played it perfectly from that regard.

A guess then? No way. You have to be sure. Unlike the offside decision which I would opine has a preponderance standard (if there is doubt, let them go), a goal has a higher standard to bear and must be beyond reasonable doubt. Very plainly the JAR had doubt, so he had to not call it a goal.

Now a further note on mechanics for the referee. If a ball gets played deep as it had in this case, and the AR follows the ball, as they need to, it is imperative that the referee follow up and cover the offside, and remain there until the AR resumes their position. The team can not leave the offside position uncovered at any time in the match when the ball is in play. If the AR is otherwise engaged, the referee must cover.

So back to the match at hand. Was it a goal? Yes. Should the AR have seen it? Tough to say. One thing I know for sure, is that he is going to be thinking about it for a long, long time.

The Living Daylights

For those who have not seen the opening match of the 2010 World Cup featuring South Africa and Mexico, we were treated to a good match in all aspects, in particular was the refereeing. Irmatov, did an excellent job of ushering in the World Cup at an elevated, yet controlled pace.

One incident of note that I wanted to highlight was that at the 37:08' mark, where the Senior Assistant referee,  RAFAEL ILYASOV, made a brilliant offside call. A still of the video is below, and while hard to see, here is the gist.

The still is at the moment that the ball was flicked on by a Mexican player on the 6 yard box. It was flicked to the Mexican player inside the 6 yard box (the only one).

ESPN has a neat video technology that shades from the 2nd the last defender (remember the one that is where  we judge offside from) to the goal ... think of it as the "offside zone". Below we can see the RSA goalkeeper (wearing red) and the shaded area back to the goal, that is the "offside zone", and there is a Mexican player standing right inside of it.

It was really close though (in real time) as the amount of time for the ball to travel about 3 yards at about 40MPH is quick. Couple that with the RSA player going one way, and the MEX player going the other ... and bing, bing, we were pulling the ball out of the back of the net.

There are a couple of ways to go with this one from here (at least). One angle for later is similar to the Joyce post from before ... when should this one stand as a goal, even if offside? World Cup? Opening match? FIFA wants goals ... right?

As I teased before, I will answer this one later ... I am ducking again.

Now is the time to ask, when is even - even? Or how does one judge when a player is even with another and preclude an offside decision?

One way to think about it is if the two players are, when looking across the field, overlapping each other substantially when the ball is played. One question that is often asked, is if there is "daylight" between them, or specifically their torsos.

Simple question, impossible circumstances. This can be hard to do with everything going fast, or if you are asked to do this across the width of the field, which in this case is around 75 yards (look at the marks on the field in the still).

If you look above, or saw the match, you can see there is a bunch of "daylight" between the RSA keeper, and MEX forward that puts the ball in the net. Like I said, it was close, and moving at 100 miles an hour made it that much harder. ILYASOV got it right though, 100% in my opinion.

So when that is you running a line, and there is "daylight" between the 2nd to last defender and the attacker, with the attacker ahead of the 2nd to last defender, raise the flag if they are gaining an advantage from that position as they are offside.

It bears noting that the "experts" calling the match for ESPN got it dead wrong and really dug themselves a pretty good hole about it. It still boggles my mind that folks involved in the game at such a high level genuinely have no clue understanding one of the laws of the game that has such critical bearing on the result.

For those looking for the official match report, it can be downloaded from FIFA here.

Sir ... Step away from the ice cream cone

Much is often made about referee fitness, and rightly so. Fitness is a critical component to match control. While not always used, it must always be available in the event it is called on.

What is not often discussed is assessor fitness. A brief story to help illustrate ...

Over this beautiful Memorial Day weekend I had the opportunity to stop with one of my kids for an ice cream at a local establishment for such. While waiting for our order, I overheard (it was really not that hard as they were speaking VERY LOUDLY) a conversation about how poor the refereeing was at a local soccer match, in particular regarding offside decisions.

My first reaction was to look in the direction of the speaker, and when I did I almost immediately dismissed their comments. Why you ask? Because the speaker was about 300 pounds with ice cream dripping from the hand that was not holding the phone.

How could I take that opinion seriously? They certainly did not look like a referee, or act like a referee, or even seem knowledgeable in the game beside knowledge of the term "offside" which seemed to be in the correct context.

It got me thinking (as I was eating my cake batter ice cream with rainbow sprinkles) that how can a referee take an assessor seriously when they don't look or act the part? Now, granted I may be taking this example to an absurd extreme, but the message stands. It is important for referee and assessor alike to be knowledgeable, act, and look the part.

Now fitness for an assessor clearly need not be to the level of a referee, but to "sell" a message to a referee that much better, putting down the ice cream cone may not be a horrible idea. I know I'm going to.