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Deliberate Play / Deflection / Save

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Apparently this info was dropped on the UEFA Elite referees who were together yesterday. Sounds like there was some very animated discussion.
 

Flag up by AR, wave down by referee as a deliberate play and goal awarded.
Based on the "new" advice its offside?
 
Yeah, I think that's a really good example.

He clearly makes a movement towards the ball with his foot - so that resets and means the striker is onside under old laws guidance.

Under new laws guidance, the fact the ball is waist high and travelling quickly means he clearly never has that under control, so no reset and offside.
 
Goldfish said:

Flag up by AR, wave down by referee as a deliberate play and goal awarded.
Based on the "new" advice its offside?
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This, I reckon, is a clear example of what football expects and IFAB moving towards that in its clarifications.
I think in any of our games, it we didn't give this as offside there would be uproar, despite believing until now that we are correct in law..
 
All I know is I'm very happy they've clarified it. So much easier now. Just need to think of it in terms of was it 'deliberately played' or 'played at'. Then you're sweet.

There's a world of difference between sticking your leg out and adjusting your body and making a deliberate play at the ball.

Well done IFAB.
 
Type 'deliberately played' into YouTube to see why the law was clarified. So many skimmed off foot and heads that were determined to be 'deliberately played' and then put the player onside it was ridiculous.
 
I'm still not getting it - so many of the examples are where the ball "skims off" a defenders boot after they tried to make contact. If the defender got slightly better contact, they would have taken control of the ball. That's nothing to do with deliberate play, but the players ability to lift their foot a couple of inches higher.

The variables seem to be speed of the ball and height of the ball from the ground. How can this be applied consistently?
If this happens twice in a match with slightly different circumstances, do I tell a player that theirs was different because the ball they were trying to control was closer to the ground?
 
So I think this is what I'm going to keep in my head for this. Putting myself back in my playing days.

As a player...

Am I trying to do "something" with the ball? Pass it, control it, clear it with a reasonable expectation of it happening = Deliberate play.

Am I trying do "anything" at all to the ball? Just get any body part by hurling myself in the direction with no real expectation of if happening = Not deliberate play.

How does that sound as a guiding principle?
 
Murri O said:
All I know is I'm very happy they've clarified it. So much easier now. Just need to think of it in terms of was it 'deliberately played' or 'played at'. Then you're sweet.
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I respectfully think that you haven't thought this through enough if you think this is a more clear distinction that what was being taught previously. I think there is a lot more subjectivity in where the line is drawn under the new guidelines.

I do think it is a more fair line being drawn for defenders, a the scales had tipped awfully far in favor of attackers on how we evaluated OS resets.
 
socal lurker said:
I respectfully think that you haven't thought this through enough if you think this is a more clear distinction that what was being taught previously. I think there is a lot more subjectivity in where the line is drawn under the new guidelines.

I do think it is a more fair line being drawn for defenders, a the scales had tipped awfully far in favor of attackers on how we evaluated OS resets.
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As it was explained to me one of the considerations is is the player trying to change the course of the ball. So in that case skimming off the head, skimming off your boot wouldn't be 'deliberately played'. And that's fair. No way an attacker should gain an advantage from that situation.

Also was the ball 'deliberately played' or 'played at'.

Skimming off the top of the head wouldn't be changing direction if you ask me. Yes it's gone up which is a direction but that's not really what it means. I'm happy with the player tries to deliberately play the ball somewhere vs 'played at'. Skimmed off top of head 'played at'. Attempted header to goalkeeper that went wrong 'deliberately played'.

I'm happy with the clarification. Instinctive reactions aren't in control. Skimming off the top of your head isn't in control. The ball hitting you when you didn't have time to react isn't in control. Watch the Australia Peru one. He's jumped up to kick it and got a touch but was never in control so should have been offside. I'm pretty confident given all that I could sell 99% of the decisions which, because we're not in the big leagues, is better for us.
 
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Why was this sub clause originally put in anyway? When the ball leaves the attackers foot and the intended pass is to the player in an offside position what's the inbetween player got to do with it?

After all we're told 'was he in an offside position when the ball was kicked?' That's the consideration for 99% of the decisions but oh no they had to introduce this stupid sub clause and make everything 10 times harder.

The game wouldn't suffer at all if they removed this 'deliberately played' bit and reverted back to where was the attacker when the ball was passed to him.
 
Murri O said:
Why was this sub clause originally put in anyway? When the ball leaves the attackers foot and the intended pass is to the player in an offside position what's the inbetween player got to do with it?

After all we're told 'was he in an offside position when the ball was kicked?' That's the consideration for 99% of the decisions but oh no they had to introduce this stupid sub clause and make everything 10 times harder.

The game wouldn't suffer at all if they removed this 'deliberately played' bit and reverted back to where was the attacker when the ball was passed to him.
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Introduce? Your history is shaky. The fact that a player cannot be offside if the ball was last played by a defender has been in the Laws for an extraordinarily long time. (I only go back to the 70s, but it was there then and not a new concept.) What changed, I believe in the 80s, was the definition of active involvement. It used to be that it was an offense to seek to gain an advantage from an OS position. That pretty much meant any player who wasn't ignoring a ball towards him would be instantly flagged--resulting in a lot of OS calls against players who, in reality, had nothing to do with the play. So that concept got dropped (I believe in the 80s), so that it took actual involvement to be OS. That made the distinction between a deflection and a play by a defender much more important, as active involvement couldn't' be discerned at the moment the ball was kicked, which meant there was more opportunity for an intervening play. Since then, the scope of when a deflection becomes a play has ebbed and flowed. Until last week, the pendulum was (I believe) as far towards favoring considering things as "plays" as it had ever been. With the new interpretation, it has drifted back a bit, but is probably still more towards "play" that it was when the shift was made a few (6-ish?) years ago.

While I agree with you that the shift we are seeing right now is better for the Game conceptually, it is less clear cut than the standard it just replaced.
 
Anubis said:
the clips do not demonstrate anything new, they are merely a collection of e examples of how you should be determining offside..

for the last few seasons
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I'm sorry but I have to disagree. This is, as @cwyeary mentioned, a substantial change in how we're supposed to judge a deliberate play.

Just consider the following wording from this "clarification":

‘Deliberate play’ is when a player has control of the ball with the possibility of:

passing the ball to a team-mate; or
gaining possession of the ball; or
clearing the ball (e.g. by kicking or heading it).
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(Emphasis mine).

For many years now, there has been no hint of the player having to have actual control of the ball, for it to be considered a deliberate play.

The part about having the possibility to pass, gain possession of, or clear the ball is also brand new.

Previously, so long as the player made contact with the ball in any way that looked like they intended to play the ball, that was considered a deliberate play. Whether the player established control of the ball or ended up with the possibility of doing something useful with it, was wholly irrelevant.

As others have said, there were a large number of incidents in recent seasons where the ball skimmed off the head or leg of a defender who was never remotely close to controlling the ball, gaining possession, passing or clearing it and that was considered a deliberate play. Examples have been given above.

Now, virtually all of those incidents, if they occurred in the coming season(s) would result in an offside call.

For me, this is a major change and the IFAB trying to disguise it as a mere clarification is somewhat disingenuous.
 
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