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MCI vs AV

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Hmm I sat through a training session 2-3 years ago - UEFA stuff I think - and I thought there was guidance that if the PIOP is within playing distance when the defender controls, and then makes the challenge, that's enough for the offence.

(And I'm aware that as Mings chests it, Rodri needs to take a stride before the challenge, so even "within playing distance" is arguable)

Letter of the law book says goal. Spirit of the game says offside for me (talk about gaining an advantage!). The book cannot cover everything.

But I'm really interested if anyone has had specific training on this?
 
Hmm I sat through a training session 2-3 years ago - UEFA stuff I think - and I thought there was guidance that if the PIOP is within playing distance when the defender controls, and then makes the challenge, that's enough for the offence.

(And I'm aware that as Mings chests it, Rodri needs to take a stride before the challenge, so even "within playing distance" is arguable)

Letter of the law book says goal. Spirit of the game says offside for me (talk about gaining an advantage!). The book cannot cover everything.

But I'm really interested if anyone has had specific training on this?
Forget "gaining an advantage". It's a redundant, superfluous and confusing idea. If a player does something that would make him offside, i.e. interfering with play or interfering with an opponent, the offside position doesn't apply if the ball was deliberately played by an opponent (unless a rebound or a save) before the interfering.
 
This type of offside has been discussed here a few times. It has been considered and given offside in the past.



The explanation given: UEFA and FIFA have though stated that situations like this are OFFSIDE OFFENCES as the ball is not played to the attacker, but the attacker comes from an offside position to challenge the defender (very shortly) after the defender has "taken hold of the ball" or "controlled the ball".

If the defender touches the ball first (not to the attacker), for me its a matter of judgment on how far the attacker has to be and how fast after the first touch he becomes active for it to be offside. My rule of thumb is if the defender is challenged for the second touch, or before the second touch, or ball is played by attacker before the second touch then I call offside. That is given the defender had the opportunity to play a decent fist touch and it was played away from the attacker. That makes the OP and offside for me.
 
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As far as LOTG, offside law was not particularly designed to cover this scenario but does kind of point to it. I think IFAB got themselves in a tangle here and they tied the relevant bit for "deliberate play" by a defender to "gaining an advantage" while they meant it to apply to all offsides. Otherwise "deliberate play" does not reset offside for other offside situations. Remember the Lovren indecent for Liverpool? It had nothing to do with gaining an advantage but was considered deliberate play.

Law 11: "A player in an offside position receiving the ball from an opponent who deliberately plays the ball,..." The bold bit is in line with the interpretation that deliberate play only resets offside if the ball is played to the attacker by a defender not away from him.
 
Forget "gaining an advantage". It's a redundant, superfluous and confusing idea. If a player does something that would make him offside, i.e. interfering with play or interfering with an opponent, the offside position doesn't apply if the ball was deliberately played by an opponent (unless a rebound or a save) before the interfering.
Mostly agree with this, but I think it is important to note that gaining an advantage is expressly defined in the LOTG as receiving a rebound or deflection and nothing else. I agree that it is a ridiculous use of language for that purpose, as no one reads "gains an advantage" and thinks it means that.

Aside: its use is historical. Law 11 used to include seeking to gain an advantage, which made sense as a separate provision. But it also made the involvement very broad. Seeking was deleted to narrow what involvement was--and IFAB kept narrowing over the years to where we are today without really changing that language.

I do think we could use better clarity on the exact contours of how these challenges should be considered.
 
As far as LOTG, offside law was not particularly designed to cover this scenario but does kind of point to it. I think IFAB got themselves in a tangle here and they tied the relevant bit for "deliberate play" by a defender to "gaining an advantage" while they meant it to apply to all offsides. Otherwise "deliberate play" does not reset offside for other offside situations. Remember the Lovren indecent for Liverpool? It had nothing to do with gaining an advantage but was considered deliberate play.

Law 11: "A player in an offside position receiving the ball from an opponent who deliberately plays the ball,..." The bold bit is in line with the interpretation that deliberate play only resets offside if the ball is played to the attacker by a defender not away from him.
The Lovren example is a very good one to bring up. That was a sliced clearance, the end result of which was that the ball pretty much ended up going where it would have gone anyway if not for the touch. That was still considered enough to reset offside.

In this case, the touch is taken and the ball goes pretty much where the defender wanted it to - and then he was challenged and lost posession. If Lovren is the edge-case that was deemed to be a correct not-offside call after much debate, this is clear-cut by comparison. As much as I agree that they both "feel" offside, refrees applying the law correctly and consistently is way preferable to them making it up based on what they think should or shouldn't be offside.
 
Hmm I sat through a training session 2-3 years ago - UEFA stuff I think - and I thought there was guidance that if the PIOP is within playing distance when the defender controls, and then makes the challenge, that's enough for the offence.

(And I'm aware that as Mings chests it, Rodri needs to take a stride before the challenge, so even "within playing distance" is arguable)

Letter of the law book says goal. Spirit of the game says offside for me (talk about gaining an advantage!). The book cannot cover everything.

But I'm really interested if anyone has had specific training on this?
Maybe Rodri had training.... and knew the law well enough to stand back and not challenge Mings for the ball until he'd played it without interference. We shouldn't penalise players for knowing the law.....

That doesn't solve the conundrum of Son given offside in the other clip. When was that?
 
That doesn't solve the conundrum of Son given offside in the other clip. When was that?
That was 4 years ago. The laws in relation to deliberate play hasn't changed in recent years. And that is not the only one. There are other similar ones that are given. In general when the laws are not clear on something specific, no matter what the decision, the FA or the RA would find a way to say it was the correct decision like the PL did for this one (kind of like VAR being 99.7 accurate :) ).

@GraemeS What you say is one way to look at it, the other as I mentioned is that in the case of Lovren the deliberate play was to the offside player, in the OP deliberate play was away from the offside player, so was Son's. That is why we need better clarity in laws (not just secret directive and training videos shared with elite referees only).

Here is a vid for the Lovren one to jog memory
 
On plays like this, I think the key is whether the player who is in an offside position is impacting the opponent who is making a deliberate play on the ball. As an example, is the player "coming back from an offside position" forcing the player to make a rushed decision? Or, is the player acting as if the opponent isn't there?

I had a game a few years ago where a player came back from an offside position. The center back knew the player was coming and had to hurry a cleared header. This was a high school game with a moderate level of skill. I flagged the attacker as offside because his actions forced a rushed clearance from the defender. The coach was not happy with the call, saying (incorrectly) that the attacker had to touch the ball for it to be offside. I explained that the offside law didn't work like that.

The concept of "did the attacker impact the defender?" will undoubtedly change as the skill level of the game increases. The attacker would need to be a lot closer to the defender in the Premier League as opposed to our normal Saturday or Sunday morning games. In the case of the City-Villa match, I think the call on the field was right. I don't see how Mings ability to make his play was impacted in any way by Rodri coming back for the ball. This is a subjective call.
 
This type of offside has been discussed here a few times. It has been considered and given offside in the past.



The explanation given: UEFA and FIFA have though stated that situations like this are OFFSIDE OFFENCES as the ball is not played to the attacker, but the attacker comes from an offside position to challenge the defender (very shortly) after the defender has "taken hold of the ball" or "controlled the ball".

If the defender touches the ball first (not to the attacker), for me its a matter of judgment on how far the attacker has to be and how fast after the first touch he becomes active for it to be offside. My rule of thumb is if the defender is challenged for the second touch, or before the second touch, or ball is played by attacker before the second touch then I call offside. That is given the defender had the opportunity to play a decent fist touch and it was played away from the attacker. That makes the OP and offside for me.
This makes sense.
I would like to hear it from UEFA though.
 
The relevant part of law is below. There is no doubt whatsoever he deliberately played the ball, under the current law there is no requirement for him to control it. The only way it could be classed as gaining an advantage would be if the ball rebounded off him or he "saved" it, and that clearly wasn't the case here.

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.
I think where others are getting confused is that a player is deemed to be offside if "challenging an opponent for the ball" - now there is an argument here that this IS a 'challenge' albeit just after Mings' (poor) control with his chest - in the words of the non referee that 'deliberate touch' 'resets' the offside.
 
I've just reminded myself of the laws as they were before the tinkering. It wouldn't be offside then, simply because offside was reset by any touch by an opponent - back in those days any slight touch by an opponent on a ball played to an offside player would put him onside. "If you are in an offside position ... you can only be put on-side by an opponent playing the ball". That was when "seeking to gain an advantage" could be interpreted very widely (at least until the Leeds - West Brom game in 1971) to mean you really didn't need to do anything to be offside other than be in an offside position.
 
On plays like this, I think the key is whether the player who is in an offside position is impacting the opponent who is making a deliberate play on the ball. As an example, is the player "coming back from an offside position" forcing the player to make a rushed decision? Or, is the player acting as if the opponent isn't there?

I had a game a few years ago where a player came back from an offside position. The center back knew the player was coming and had to hurry a cleared header. This was a high school game with a moderate level of skill. I flagged the attacker as offside because his actions forced a rushed clearance from the defender. The coach was not happy with the call, saying (incorrectly) that the attacker had to touch the ball for it to be offside. I explained that the offside law didn't work like that.

The concept of "did the attacker impact the defender?" will undoubtedly change as the skill level of the game increases. The attacker would need to be a lot closer to the defender in the Premier League as opposed to our normal Saturday or Sunday morning games. In the case of the City-Villa match, I think the call on the field was right. I don't see how Mings ability to make his play was impacted in any way by Rodri coming back for the ball. This is a subjective call.
Quibbling here. There is nothing in Law 11 as raw as "did the attacker impact the defender." (There was something closer to that years ago, but I'm too lazy to look it up.) There are 5 ways in Law 11 to interfere with an opponent:

• 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 . . .​
• a player moving from, or standing in, an offside position is in the way of an opponent and interferes with the movement of the opponent towards the ball this is an offside offence if it impacts on the ability of the opponent to play or challenge for the ball;​
On these types of plays, I think Law 11 leaves us with only the possibility of "obvious action which clearly impacts" or "challenging an opponent for the ball." Just being there is clearly not enough under either of these. If neither of those happens before the defender's play, then it seems the OS discussion would be over. But there have been some indications, none of which I think have been adequately defined and formalized, that a challenge of the opponent immediately after the play is still considered an offense. And how long "immediately" lasts is dependent on level of play. But I really think this concept needs to be further refined and formalized (or, I guess, abandoned) as its far too unclear to have consistent application, especially outside of leagues that may be giving additional instruction to refs to gain consistency. This issue has been out there for a few years now--I was expecting IFAB to provide more clarity, but they were to busy #$%&ing up the handball and worrying about walls.
 
I think by the letter of the law it’s offside.

But, previous guidance from UEFA et al has been along the lines of - if the challenge comes quickly it should be an offence.

We are discussing this in our local forum where I’ve got three Fifa-badged ARs saying it’s not crystal clear but their understanding is they think it should an offence.

IMHO this is a hole in the laws. The book can’t cover anything. And I don’t think City needed it - I think they’ll win the league without it;)
 
'receiving' seems a bit of an ambiguous word here - do they mean the ball has to be actively played to the attacking player who was offside or just that once the defender has deliberately played it the attacker is free to dispossess them?
 
And how long "immediately" lasts is dependent on level of play. But I really think this concept needs to be further refined and formalized (or, I guess, abandoned) as its far too unclear to have consistent application, especially outside of leagues that may be giving additional instruction to refs to gain consistency.

This is the biggest issue. While I know my language hasn't been precise, hopefully my comments have shown that I think there are major questions about how this is applied. I agree with you in that we may look at the same play in the same game completely differently when it comes to determining whether we should call offside. It's the old example of, "I know it when I see it." The problem is we can (and probably will) see it two different ways.

What would worry me is IFAB getting too far down the road of trying to make this too objective. I realize that IFAB is trying to make more of the game objective, but I just don't see how you can do that on a play like this. How many steps would you give the attacker before it turns from "not involved" to "active involvement"? I just don't know the answer to that question.
 
It's a bizarre part of the law I think.

Semantics aside, for me, the attacker has quite simply challenged Mings whilst coming back from an offside position.

You can even see Mings glance over his shoulder at him as the ball is approaching for which you might argue that his presence is impacting Mings ability to play the ball. Mings's poor first touch would indicate this.

Whatever the outcome, there's no way I'm not giving that as offside during one of my grass roots matches. :cool:
 
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