A&H

Junior/Youth Offside or Goal

st john

Member
Hi All.......I had an incident recently in an U14's game......the attacking team played a long ball from deep inside their own half and a striker was offside by a good few yards, the actual pass was over hit and ran through towards the goalkeeper, the striker ambled towards the goalkeeper but made no attempt to chase the ball, at the same time the defending teams manager is shouting for the offside......as the ball headed into the penalty area I've told everyone "Its with the keeper we play on"...... the keeper then fumbled the ball on the edge of his area and chose to kick the ball and kicked it straight at the striker who then scored.

I allowed the goal to stand but was given an earful by the defending teams manager who asked what was the point in teaching his players the offside rule if I didn't enforce it and said the striker moving towards the keeper caused him to drop the ball.
Is it okay for me to say 'play on' and not give the offside in these circumstances?
Was it the correct decision to allow the goal.?
 
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Welcome to the forum.

I think you handled the offside incident well and made the correct decision.

Did you do anything about the manager who gave you and earful?
 
Thanks for the reply.......I must admit I didn't take any action against the manager other than explain why I gave the goal......he just kept saying it was offside and his team had played for it, as he had taught them to do, and I shouldn't have told the keeper to 'play on'.
 
Well obviously the manager has taught his team wrongly and needs to learn the offside law correctly. A player in offside position has not committed an offence unless he interferes with play, an opponent or gains an advantage from it. The latter has a specific meaning within the LOTG. Your description indicates the striker did not commit an offence and by shouting play on you even gave the keeper a hint that no offence has been committed. Good job on that front.

Always back yourself up against aggressive managers and sanction any aggression at you. More often than not, failure to takes action against it will lead to escalation of his misbehaviour and further protests against your decisions. It also often spills over to his players too.
 
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Hi All.......I had an incident recently in an U14's game......the attacking team played a long ball from deep inside their own half and a striker was offside by a good few yards, the actual pass was over hit and ran through towards the goalkeeper, the striker ambled towards the goalkeeper but made no attempt to chase the ball, at the same time the defending teams manager is shouting for the offside......as the ball headed into the penalty area I've told everyone "Its with the keeper we play on"...... the keeper then fumbled the ball on the edge of his area and chose to kick the ball and kicked it straight at the striker who then scored.

I allowed the goal to stand but was given an earful by the defending teams manager who asked what was the point in teaching his players the offside rule if I didn't enforce it and said the striker moving towards the keeper caused him to drop the ball.
Is it okay for me to say 'play on' and not give the offside in these circumstances?
Was it the correct decision to allow the goal.?
Always good on your first post to find you were correct......welcome aboard
 
Sounds like you got it spot on. A couple of questions I can think of:

1) How close was the striker to the keeper? Did the manager have a case to say he was close enough to suddenly be in a position where he was interferring?
2) Would it have been better to acknowledge the offside by a thumbs up to the assistant to then allow you to luxury of returning to the offside IF the striker suddenly got too close to the goalkeeper? After all, that striker was originally offside but hasn't committed an offence unless he interferes with play and if he makes himself active by chasing down the goalkeeper you can pull it back?

From what you have said I agree with your decision, I can just see on another occasion that perhaps the ball takes a while to run back to the keeper, the striker is fast and closes him down quicker than anticipated or perhaps the goalkeeper hesitates because he is expecting the offside. At what point has the offside offence effectively passed?
 
I would have done as @Mada says, but think you made a good call. The phase of play was over where the ball played through for the striker to chase had been dealt with by the keeper. He then makes a mess of his kick. Not your fault it then goes to the striker who is well up the pitch to capitalise. Shout loud and clear (as you seem to have done here) and gesture clearly to the lino and don't put up with abuse from managers, as @one comments.

Well done.
 
Hi All.......I had an incident recently in an U14's game......the attacking team played a long ball from deep inside their own half and a striker was offside by a good few yards, the actual pass was over hit and ran through towards the goalkeeper, the striker ambled towards the goalkeeper but made no attempt to chase the ball, at the same time the defending teams manager is shouting for the offside......as the ball headed into the penalty area I've told everyone "Its with the keeper we play on"...... the keeper then fumbled the ball on the edge of his area and chose to kick the ball and kicked it straight at the striker who then scored.

I allowed the goal to stand but was given an earful by the defending teams manager who asked what was the point in teaching his players the offside rule if I didn't enforce it and said the striker moving towards the keeper caused him to drop the ball.
Is it okay for me to say 'play on' and not give the offside in these circumstances?
Was it the correct decision to allow the goal.?

a not uncommon thing I’ve seen with youth coaches is thTt heir entire knowledge of the Laws is based on when they played. Twenty years ago we looked at OS very differently than we do today. AsI picture what you described, it would have been considered OS in the past, but is not now. It’s important for us as refs to focus on the specifics in Law 11, especially when it comes to the narrow scope of interfering with an opponent.
Nice job.
 
Sounds like you got it spot on. A couple of questions I can think of:

1) How close was the striker to the keeper? Did the manager have a case to say he was close enough to suddenly be in a position where he was interferring?
2) Would it have been better to acknowledge the offside by a thumbs up to the assistant to then allow you to luxury of returning to the offside IF the striker suddenly got too close to the goalkeeper? After all, that striker was originally offside but hasn't committed an offence unless he interferes with play and if he makes himself active by chasing down the goalkeeper you can pull it back?

From what you have said I agree with your decision, I can just see on another occasion that perhaps the ball takes a while to run back to the keeper, the striker is fast and closes him down quicker than anticipated or perhaps the goalkeeper hesitates because he is expecting the offside. At what point has the offside offence effectively passed?
Cheers Mada.......the striker was some distance away and that's why I was happy to let the play continue, I was about to turn away expecting the keeper to simply collect the ball and then kick it out of his hands when I realised he dropped it and it fell outside the area which I think caused him to panic. The manager was asking for the offside as soon as the ball was hit forward and in his view his defenders had done their job, he said I should have stopped the game at that point.
 
Im not having that any U14 manager has coached his team to play offiside by the way.

Its a very easy one, did the centre forward have any impact at all in the GK dropping the ball, if no then its a goal.
 
Cheers Mada.......the striker was some distance away and that's why I was happy to let the play continue, I was about to turn away expecting the keeper to simply collect the ball and then kick it out of his hands when I realised he dropped it and it fell outside the area which I think caused him to panic. The manager was asking for the offside as soon as the ball was hit forward and in his view his defenders had done their job, he said I should have stopped the game at that point.

I think you handled it correctly then, good work.
 
Im not having that any U14 manager has coached his team to play offiside by the way.

Its a very easy one, did the centre forward have any impact at all in the GK dropping the ball, if no then its a goal.

I’d agree with the conclusion “if no then it’s a goal.”

But we have to be careful because, for better or worse, the converse is not necessarily true. For the OSP attacker to be sanctioned for OS, he needs to interfere with the GK in one of the four specified ways. He might have some impact without meeting one of those standards.
 
Hi All.......I had an incident recently in an U14's game......the attacking team played a long ball from deep inside their own half and a striker was offside by a good few yards, the actual pass was over hit and ran through towards the goalkeeper, the striker ambled towards the goalkeeper but made no attempt to chase the ball, at the same time the defending teams manager is shouting for the offside......as the ball headed into the penalty area I've told everyone "Its with the keeper we play on"...... the keeper then fumbled the ball on the edge of his area and chose to kick the ball and kicked it straight at the striker who then scored.

I allowed the goal to stand but was given an earful by the defending teams manager who asked what was the point in teaching his players the offside rule if I didn't enforce it and said the striker moving towards the keeper caused him to drop the ball.
Is it okay for me to say 'play on' and not give the offside in these circumstances?
Was it the correct decision to allow the goal.?

Good decision by the sounds of it, so well done on sticking to your guns and applying the LOTG properly. It's not your problem if the Manager doesn't understand the Offside Law correctly.
 
@st john - Welcome to the forum.

From a learning point, never apply advantage when the ball has gone to the goalkeeper in such a situation (there is a host of threads on that!). You didn't, and in law your decision was correct. The goalkeeper was able to take procession of the ball and then messed it up....

My only comment is "play on" is the wrong narrative. "Lets keep going / playing, he got it" would be better - no confusion about whether you were applying advantage.
 
@st john - Welcome to the forum.

From a learning point, never apply advantage when the ball has gone to the goalkeeper in such a situation (there is a host of threads on that!). You didn't, and in law your decision was correct. The goalkeeper was able to take procession of the ball and then messed it up....

My only comment is "play on" is the wrong narrative. "Lets keep going / playing, he got it" would be better - no confusion about whether you were applying advantage.

You're an observer so I'm not going to overrule you! I'm just curious - are you suggesting he should make it clear he is playing an advantage? He's not - no offence has been committed so no call for advantage. If I'm shouting 'play on/keep going' or any such phrase I'm always adding 'no offence, no offence'.
 
TBH a few years back I was on the same page as not using play on when there is no advantage. Even though I still don't use it as a force of habit I really don't see an issue with it. I have never seen or heard of any confusion being cause by it in all my years in football, playing or refereeing. Honestly as observers/assessors/coaches we should look into dropping the little things which have very little, if any, impact on improving a referee. Something that I have been guilty of and trying to improve on.
 
TBH a few years back I was on the same page as not using play on when there is no advantage. Even though I still don't use it as a force of habit I really don't see an issue with it. I have never seen or heard of any confusion being cause by it in all my years in football, playing or refereeing. Honestly as observers/assessors/coaches we should look into dropping the little things which have very little, if any, impact on improving a referee. Something that I have been guilty of and trying to improve on.
I never had the habit of calling play on, don't know why but my go to phrase was always, 'keep going'
 
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