Law 11 Redux ... courtesy of US Soccer

Is Law 11 Changing ... Again?

And when do they apply?

If anyone is curious to see what is coming their way, take a peek here, effective since July 1, 2013 ... with a caveat.

So given this new text ... does this change anything?

If yes, what?

If no, why change the text?

Physically Impossible?

Why the ref cannot get offside decisions right

It is just as football fans always suspected. Referees' inadequate eyesight means they can never be sure of getting offside decisions right.

But it may not be the officials' incompetence that is to blame, despite their reputation for needing glasses or a white stick. A soccer-loving GP argues that the rule which has ruled out so many goals should be scrapped because human eyes are just not up to the job of collating all the information needed for split-second verdicts.

Francisco Belda Maruenda, a fan of Real Madrid and his local teams, says applying the offside rule correctly "is beyond the capacity of the human eye, which may explain why so many offside decisions are controversial". In an article in the British Medical Journal today, he suggests the use of freeze-frame television.

But he told the Guardian: "It is obvious that television can be just used in the case of international matches or in Premier League matches but not in the case of regional or young leagues. That is why, as the offside rule cannot be applied scientifically, it should be removed." ...

See the whole article here, courtesy of Guardian.

Kicking Back Comments: I don't buy this on two levels. I don't doubt the science that eyes can not be four places at once, but I would opine they do not need to. (You can access the full article from the BMJ here (subscription required).) First of all, you can always listen to when the ball is struck to determine when you will judge the offside. This can usually be done even at large stadiums. There are times however that this is not possible due to crowd noise, or a subtle touch.

Assuming however that you can not hear what is going on, what is an AR to do in the case of having multiple things to look at?

Well, assuming the entire play is not in the field of view of the AR, and keep in mind, scientifically, the field of view for a human is pretty large (The approximate field of view of a human eye is 95° out, 75° down, 60° in, 60° up. About 12–15° temporal and 1.5° below the horizontal is the optic nerve or blind spot which is roughly 7.5° high and 5.5° wide.[source]), the AR must take "snapshots in time" and infer if a player is offside or not based on ball and player movement. All of this in a second or two. In short, the AR has to put several pictures together to make the call.

A GUESS YOU GASP!

No, a reasonable inference based on actual information the AR observes.

It's not easy, and takes lots and lots of practice, but in the case where you can not see everything in one "look", this is what an AR must do to get the call right. This is the magic of the highest level ARs who can do this and get it right.

This may make some folks uncomfortable, especially Mr. Maruenda I would imagine, but guess what, referees don't actually see everything and still make correct calls based on the other (than visual) information given. It is what makes a good referee, a great referee. This is a part of The Game folks, and frankly it is a wonderful thing that a referee has the freedom in the LOTG to "fill gaps" with reasonable inferences to manage a match.

Second place this goes off the rails is the suggestion that Law 11 should be "removed" because it " ... can not be applied scientifically (at all levels)." To which I say nonsense.

Ignoring the approximate 164 years of history with the offside law, to suggest it should not be enforced because the application lacks "scientific basis" (that's really the wrong term as it does have a scientific basis ... a better word may be "precision") I say is nonsense too.

The Game is not a mathematical equation that has a finite outcome, it is a series of interactions and subsequent reactions that unfold before everyone eyes. The Game is art, not science.

That to me is why, it is truly The Beautiful Game.

More Government Incompetance

Well someone should be very embarrassed over this one. As some may have seen, in celebration of the London 2012 Olympic games, a series of 29 50p coins were released, one per sport.

Well the football (soccer) coin, of which about 500K are in circulation, feebly attempts to explain offside on one side of the coin ... and gets it wrong. Only by about 17 years or so though ... so it was close by government standards.

As you would imaging everyone at the Royal Mint is spinning and believes the coin is "provoking discussion", or is "true" in representing an offside position.

To which I say ... rubbish.

It is true that it is a collectors item however, and I am in the process of getting one for myself. Call me hypocritical.

You can see the full story (and image of the coin) here, from Guardian.

And the reason that the whole thing started

Why is football knowledge measured by the offside rule?

The row over remarks made by Sky Sports presenters Richard Keys and Andy Gray about female assistant referee Sian Massey centres on the offside rules. But why is the offside law such a benchmark of football knowledge? ...

See the full story here, courtesy of the BBC.

Kicking Back Comments:

One thing that my father taught me when I would referee as a youth is a healthy disrespect for authority. While like most kids I would imagine, I was taught by my parents to always be polite, say "please", and "thank you", and generally be nice. One other lesson that was taught was to "respect your elders", which was essentially everyone else at my tender age as I started refereeing.

My dad carved out an exception for me though. He allowed me to use appropriate language and acts to make and defend my decisions inside the field. Essentially I was allowed to (appropriately) stand my ground with my decisions regardless of how the adults involved felt about it.

This was very liberating to me personally as it allowed me to do what I thought was right and appropriately challenge some of the assertions. This had a positive effect of letting some of these youth coaches know I was not a doormat and they would get comments back to out of bounds criticisms. This may actually have been the genesis of the BAYS "Zero Tolerance" policy, which was derived shortly thereafter with my dad leading the charge, while serving as BAYS referee commissioner, and thankfully with the full board in support.  

Granted in my youth I blew it a few times and constructive comments at times degraded slightly (not overly). Also, I was not always correct in my interpretation about what I was calling. Fortunately I was not a prisoner to "confirmation bias" and even then had a few folks who would gently guide me in being less aggressive with my comments and a better listener and referee.

Later in my career what I found was that there are many, many people who really don't understand the LOTG, as the "experts" here clearly demonstrated. I say that fully realizing that your typical youth parent does not, as would your typical adult player. Where I became surprised was my time in MLS and the brief touch with the international game that a percentage of those players and coaches do not understand aspects of the LOTG either. I was floored and continued my policy of challenging the incorrect ... in a more appropriate way these days.

Now beware, there are folks that know an awful lot about the game that inhabit youth fields, and certainly at the professional and international level. Don't assume that you are better because you are wearing the badge. Take an objective look at your performance later, but don't be bullied into calling something a particular way from pressure from someone who may think they know more, or better. Sian knew better. I suspect the other blokes do now as well.

If you want to see what can happen when you assume, take a look at the clip below from the ageless Benny Hill ... it speaks for itself.

Week 31 in Review: A Must Read for AR's

For those who are unfamiliar, US Soccer puts out a series of instructional pieces every week highlighting events from the previous weeks games. These instructional tools are exceptionally well done and are absolutely necessary to review for all referees.

Weeks 31's material, in part, is particularly useful to AR's. See the full material here, and a video clip below from the Seattle v. LA playoff match last week.



In the lexicon of the LOTG, the player who scored the goal was "Gaining an advantage from being in that offside position."

A complete account of the incident, and the excellent call from AR (Tom Supple) is accounted for in the article, and I strongly recommend that all read it.

There are three points however that the article did not mention that I want to bring up here.

First, is the amount of patience necessary from the AR in making this call. When the shot is first taken, there is, and should not be any flag as there is no one at that time gaining an advantage from their position. Imagine briefly as the time of taking the shot if the AR put their flag up and the ball went directly into the net. There you are standing there with the flag up, after a beautiful goal 20 yards out.

Even if the referee was wise enough to understand in that instant and waive the flag down, you can bet your flipping coin that the defenders will be running over to you and the AR saying "he had the flag up, it's not a goal." This would immediately and quite possibly in a match like this one damage your credibility for the remainder. Take particular note to how early in the match this was ... not even a minute was played.

Second, on the amount of time played, everyone has to be ready FROM THE FIRST WHISTLE for anything. [In fact before hand in matches like this as there can be shenanigans that occur well before the first whistle that the refereeing team has to be prepared for.] We have all been in matches that we want to "work our way into". Not so here! (25) Seconds into the match the AR was faced with this, and nailed it. This was absolutely a game critical incident that the AR got right, and no doubt, saved the game with. Again from above, imagine if a goal stood there.

The critical point is, especially for ARs, there is no down time, and you always have to be ready. First minute, last minute, overtime ... always. This is one of the particular challenges of being an AR. A referee has significantly more flexibility in what they can do and how they can manage things. No such luxury for an AR. Offiside is offside, there is no talking your way out if it, and there are no variations of it.

Finally, after the call was made, look at the excellent support that the referee, Ricardo Salazar, gave to the AR, Tom Supple. Hard whistle, run to the spot, point to the AR, and restart. Perfect support for an excellent call.

For anyone looking, the US has some of the very best AR's in the world, and I would opine has for some time. This example plainly demonstrates just how good they are.