Sure. But as has been said numerous times, sometimes you can have no doubt and still be wrong. I'm not saying he made the right call, I'm saying it was more of a difficult one than people are giving him credit for.
This always gets brought up. If there's one thing a photo or video of one of these incidents can never show us, it's whether the AR had a doubt as to the status of the potential PIOP. I would think guys who say "I wasn't sure if he was on or not." to assessors with any great frequency don't get to that level.
Are you saying we get a lot of ARs flagging when they have doubt? If that's the case, I think your view is a little extreme here. I would be willing to bet there are many, many situations where the AR keeps the flag down due to some doubt but we don't talk about those ones. Why? Because that rarely makes the highlight reel. I've always been of the opinion that most non-calls are quickly forgotten, most of the time.
I think Alberto is saying that the instruction is poorly worded. If he's not, then I am. I would disagree with his "never seems to happen" phrase, and I'd simply change that to "doesn't happen enough". "When in doubt, leave the flag down" translates to us as being "If I'm 50/50 on a call, I will leave the flag down". "Doubt" is anything less than 100.00% certainty for either extreme. As several people have mentioned here, the FIFA offside videos are humbling or embarrassing, depending on your perspective. When you watch those, you realize that what you previously thought was confidence is now doubt. Part of the conversation seems to be comparing and contrasting the words "doubt", "close", "certain", "correct", and "difficult". If, for a FIFA AR, the call is "difficult", then he can't truly be "certain". He has "doubt". If he were "certain", then it wouldn't be "difficult", given the level of experience and training...it would be "easy" because he would know that those plays are typically onside and that he should leave the flag down. He may very well describe it as "close" and want a 2nd look, but the decision to raise the flag or not should not be "difficult" - he should "easily" know to keep the flag down. $100 says that if you asked that AR to diagram where everyone was when the ball was struck, he would put EJ much closer to the goalline than he actually was. $100 says that if you ask the AR if he wants the call back now that he saw the video, he'd say yes.
What? You are reading way too much into this. At least personally, I have no confusion around "when it doubt, keep the flag down." That to me reminds us of two facts: even is on and our eyes tend to deceive us in favor of calling a false infraction. Your "certain does not equal difficult" piece just loses me, haha. It's difficult because of all the elements at play, not because there is doubt if the call is right. Again, I think most ARs at this level don't feel doubt at the moment they are making the call, but clearly it's difficult because we still get this wrong despite fitness, experience and positioning. It's just freakin' hard.
I think the difficulty in this call is that he was in an offside position prior to the ball being kicked. By the time it was kicked he was at the very least in a position where offside is questionable.
This isn't Mission Difficult Mr. Hunt, it's Mission Impossible. Difficult should be a walk in the park for you." I don't know why the entire quote is showing the the draft, but isn't showing after I post. Might be something to look at for the Mods. If it were showing, this post would make more sense.
Precisely. I have always firmly believed in letting play run if it's 50/50 in my mind (even if it's 51/49, for that matter), both because we're directed to and because it's better for the game. Unfortunately, I think, human nature makes more ARs afraid to grant an offside goal than to call back an onside one. It somehow feels like it affects the game less directly, perhaps? I can't figure out why, but it has always been this way. And let me tell you from experience, if you always give the benefit of the doubt to the attacker, you hear it ALL GAME LONG (mostly from coaches and players who bastardize the rule in the form of a trap as a strategy and who replace playing defense with throwing their arms in the air). Maybe that has something to do with it. Because the flag isn't about the goal, it's about the play before the goal, so it's a path of least resistance to stop something that hasn't happened yet than to not stop it and maybe have a goal given up, which can't be taken back. I never really cared what I heard all game long, but I think it affects a lot of ARs, even at the top levels. The point here is that, like others have said, if you need HD freeze frames to see that MAYBE he was off (I don't think that he was), then it's a 100% leave-the-flag-down situation. People focus on the fact that it's "50/50," but the directive is that 50/50 means 100/0 in favor of letting play run. The funniest part of this whole thing is that I was also a goalkeeper most of my life, and I still believe the attacker should get the benefit of the doubt. Not many of my GK colleagues agree with me on that one.
Right! I can see why it might make the call more difficult by the letter, but by the spirit, the fact that he's checking back means that he's actually gaining less advantage by his positioning than someone who is a hair off on a through run. None of this should affect the way the call is made, but it's interesting that an AR might be more likely to raise his flag in a situation that is actually less advantageous to the attacker.
If he didn't have doubt on that play, he is not honest enough with himself to be doing that level....
It just occurred to me that this is probably why I like giving the "he's on" palm up signal on a close through run. It serves to say not only to my center but also to the players, coaches, fans and even myself (but most especially to the coach standing right behind me or directly across the pitch): "No, I wasn't asleep! Yes I saw that, and yes it was close, but I've made a conscious judgment that he's in, and yes he's in!" (And yes I know it's not an approved signal.)
Unless you're watching the play in real time, from his angle, that's an absolutely silly thing to say.
Excellent point. One needs to be careful when criticizing the AR here based on not being sure before raising the flag. I have been sure about many things in life where I have ended up being wrong. We do not know what was in the mind of the AR, nor even what he saw from where he was.
I am. Time and time again I see calls that are so close to tell if the attacker was on or off yet, time and time again, the AR raises his flag rather than giving the benefit of the doubt to the attacker. The reality is that many times when in doubt AR's raise their flag. There appears to be more fear of allowing a goal that in super slow motion replay was found to be offside than fear of making the wrong call for offside when the player was onside.
We had the same at my recert. 19 out of 20 were ON. A lot of people learned a lot about themselves that day!
Yeah but don't you wonder whether they have another set of 20 clips designed specifically to fool the eye/brain in the other direction? I.e., 19 of the 20 are off, but most people think half of them are on? Nah.
As much as the book answer says "no," it seems that the criticism is always far higher for an incorrect call that results in a goal, than an incorrect call that prevents a goal. When I'm solo on men's games, I err on the side of calling offside if I'm not 100% sure that the player is on, because it results in far less dissent, and far less abuse towards me. It's not the best approach for attacking football, but it keeps me from being followed to the parking lot. That said, I try to be as accurate as possible given the circumstances. As an AR in a three man crew, I use the standard "err on the side of keeping the flag down" philopsophy.
I know that's the only moment that matters but we're talking about human perception. Maybe you're right and it's the fact that he was well offside leading up to the pass but once the AR got to watch him holding the line for several steps AFTER it was played, you would think something might've clicked in his head.
You're aware, of course, that in this referee forum, where everyone has seen slow motion replay and a freeze frame, there's significant doubt over whether this was offside or not. It is not a horrible miss, and it's incredibly close. Suggesting anything else is absurd.
I continue to stand amazed at your ability to know exactly what the AR was thinking. I will agree that the AR should have had a doubt. Without talking to the AR, it's impossible to know whether he failed to follow instructions or was certain but wrong.
The challenge is that we are called on to make a hair-breadth decision, and expected to be in precisely the right place to do so. The instruction is NOT "if it is really close, give the benefit to the attacker and don't call it,"but "if in doubt, don't cal it." And we aren't trained to doubt, we are trained to determine. I don't flag in doubt; but as an AR it's very rare that I have that doubt. I may be wrong and have misjudged, but on the field, I see OSP as binary: he is or he isn't (and I constantly sub vocalize that status). I don't see a hazy area of doubt in between that takes up brain space. Frankly, IMO, those that find themselves in doubt a lot probably don't survive long as referees - doubt really isn't part of the role. (Ask a high level ump about ties going to the runner; the pretty universal response is that there is no such thing.)
'Twas always thus. It used to phrased as "better a dodgy offside than a dodgy goal." The re-write that changed "even is off" to "even is on" and "when in doubt keep flag down" as well as training specialist AR-only officials at the top levels, was intended to change this mind set, but if anything it seems to have actually stiffened it in most cases. PH
Obviously, without the actual angle from the ARs position, we won't really know and we are all trying to read angles, but I felt like he was always leaning - doing the "I am keeping my feet onside and trying to be as aggressive as possible to get forward" thing - and it "feels" to me that his head was beyond the 2LD.