Offside Straight After Advantage

[Dicky Herts]

Hi. Two almost identical incidents recently in different matches open age and u18s. Would appreciate your feedback.
Attacking player striving forward around halfway line on right side. Careless tackle foul by oppo but they carry on I give signal and shout "play on - advantage".
Then within 2-3 seconds (on advantage I count 3 in my head before I might bring it back) the attacker has played a cross field diagonal ball to a fellow attacker who is flagged as being offside.
On both occasions I went with the offside decision based on the same view that I would have if I allowed advantage and an attacker missed the goal i.e. they have had the advantage and it is their fault, not mine, that their player is offside (or misses the shot).
On both occasions although it was not a huge drama the attacking side felt aggrieved and suggested I should have bought play back for the attacking side free kick where the foul occurred a couple of seconds before.
What's the view on this please? And is there a passage in IFAB LoTG that deals with this? Thank you.

 

[RefereeX]

Personally, I would suggest it comes down to would you still have played advantage if the offside player wasn't there. Was it a clear enough chance on it's own merit?

If it was, then in theory it's their own loss that they chose to pass to an offside player. If not, then it is perhaps worth bringing it back. But there's no perfect one size fits all answer. Sometimes it's an easier sell to bring it back, even when in reality it's their own fault.

 

[ChrisBLD]

Context of individual situations is the deciding factor in pretty much all cases here and is totally down to whether you feel the attacking team actually fulfilled the advantage played or not.

Once the advantage has been squandered, take a couple of seconds to process what has happened and come to your conclusion. Counting to three might do the job as a guidance but it's frequently too complex of a situation to be the primary or even the deciding factor. As you said, if instead of playing that cross the player had a pop at goal, you're probably not bringing it back and you can justify that with "advantage was played, you missed your shot, GK".

In these scenarios, these are questions I can think of:

• Did the cross take place close to where the foul occurred, or had the player dribbled it forward and had the time to make the conscious decision?
• Did the crossing player seem rushed or have pressure applied from other opponents when making the cross?
• Did the attacking players stop or hesitate expecting a whistle but then continue when they heard/saw your advantage call?
• Was it a counter-attack where attackers outnumbered defenders and the advantage was more valuable than the FK?

Determining whether a team just wasted an opportunity that they had fair and square, or were unable to develop a legitimate opportunity based on their own mistakes, is something only you can do. In your described scenarios I can easily justify the call being made in both directions because I didn't see it play out myself.

At the end of the day players will deflect their own errors onto you to save face. Sounds like exactly what happened in both scenarios. If you blow it's "why didn't you play advantage ref", if you don't it's "why didn't you bring it back ref". If the players really wanted that free kick they'd all stand still and make the decision for you. But they ran onto the ball, blew their chance, and now want a re-do

I've also posted page 198 of LotG detailing practical advice for match officials on advantage, but it just details deciding to play the advantage or not versus deciding whether an advantage has been actualised.

Advantage
The referee may play advantage whenever an offence occurs but should consider the following in deciding whether to apply the advantage or stop play:
• the severity of the offence – if the offence warrants a sending-off, the referee must stop play and send off the player unless there is a clear opportunity to score a goal
• the position where the offence was committed – the closer to the opponent’s goal, the more effective the advantage can be
• the chances of an immediate, promising attack
• the atmosphere of the match

 

[Dicky Herts]

Context of individual situations is the deciding factor in pretty much all cases here and is totally down to whether you feel the attacking team actually fulfilled the advantage played or not.

Once the advantage has been squandered, take a couple of seconds to process what has happened and come to your conclusion. Counting to three might do the job as a guidance but it's frequently too complex of a situation to be the primary or even the deciding factor. As you said, if instead of playing that cross the player had a pop at goal, you're probably not bringing it back and you can justify that with "advantage was played, you missed your shot, GK".

In these scenarios, these are questions I can think of:

• Did the cross take place close to where the foul occurred, or had the player dribbled it forward and had the time to make the conscious decision?
• Did the crossing player seem rushed or have pressure applied from other opponents when making the cross?
• Did the attacking players stop or hesitate expecting a whistle but then continue when they heard/saw your advantage call?
• Was it a counter-attack where attackers outnumbered defenders and the advantage was more valuable than the FK?

Determining whether a team just wasted an opportunity that they had fair and square, or were unable to develop a legitimate opportunity based on their own mistakes, is something only you can do. In your described scenarios I can easily justify the call being made in both directions because I didn't see it play out myself.

At the end of the day players will deflect their own errors onto you to save face. Sounds like exactly what happened in both scenarios. If you blow it's "why didn't you play advantage ref", if you don't it's "why didn't you bring it back ref". If the players really wanted that free kick they'd all stand still and make the decision for you. But they ran onto the ball, blew their chance, and now want a re-do

I've also posted page 198 of LotG detailing practical advice for match officials on advantage, but it just details deciding to play the advantage or not versus deciding whether an advantage has been actualised.

Thank you. Really helpful advice. Appreciate the time taken to write all that.

 

[Kes]

Thank you. Really helpful advice. Appreciate the time taken to write all that.

One of those "damned if you do etc." scenarios to be honest @Dicky Herts. However you call it on the day, from a player perspective you're always gonna be wrong. From the way you describe it, once you'd decided to call Advantage, you made the right decision in allowing the offside offence to then be penalised.

 

[DJIC]

Could the careless foul have delayed the cross field pass which would have meant the players run would have been onside?

Reason to pull back the advantage? Is that what the players expect?