Rocky Mountain Cup, 2012 Match 2, 21 July 8:00 MDT

I still love that Sabo tried to get Espy to come over and tap it in for credit. A lot of players would've just taken credit without a second thought. I've seen plenty of goals where the ball was going to cross the line and someone would still go tap it in for credit even though it wasn't necessary.

Wow, what a picture. Great timing.

That ball was moving pretty quickly, shame it didn't just stop so Espi could get on the score sheet. Sabo is a really cool player. Every time someone gets an assist to him, he points them out immediately after celebrating.

BozFotoz - RSL v cRapids

I don't claim to be an expert, but weren't they already behind all 11 Colorado players? Doesn't that automatically negate the offside call?

Nope, if Espy was ahead of the ball and Sabo played it to him it would be offsides. Once the ball is past the 2nd to last defender then the ball acts as the 2nd to last defender.

I did not know that! Thanks.

...and get the goal disallowed for being offsides when doing so....

And yet In this case Espy the ball and Sabo were past the last defender, that being the keeper. I don't know how you would call a pass by Sabo to Espy in this situation, calling: Dad of 6.

Need a second opinion, eh? How bout this:

Since both players were behind all their opponents we could read the rule like this:

A player is in an offside position if:
• he is nearer to his opponents’ goal line than both the ball and the
second-last opponent

either the ball or second to last defender determine the offsides line. It's not a "both" thing, it's an either. Whichever is closer to the goal being attacked is what comes into play. I've had to call someone off, as an AR, because they received a pass once in behind the keeper, with no one in front of them, because they were ahead of the ball.

Based on the picture above, Espy would have been off if Sabo would have passed to him. He is ahead of the ball

I forgot to add one very important thing to my "THE UGLY" list:

• The word "for" is not in the national anthem. It's o'er - a word I dare you to use in the coming days during some random conversation.

The National Anthem is my least favorite part of going to a sporting event. I have been witness to so many butcherings of it o'er my many years of being a fan. Once at a Jazz game a famous artist (I want to say Kurt Bestor but I'm not 100% sure) actually sang the lines in the wrong order. He realized his mistake and actually started o'er, only to sing the lines in the wrong order again. People were laughing before he was through. Also at the first ever Grizzly game the guy's voice kept cracking until he finally stopped and cleared his voice into the microphone, echoing through the whole arena. Now I cringe every time it is sung live. I wish they just played a recording over the stadium speakers.

play the music over the PA, let the crowd sing it.

@Boz, ridiculously awesome photos. Good work.

Me and my brother are in the background of that Morales one. Now I have two reasons to love that photo!

Or, to put it in layman's terms, you can't be offside if the ball is ahead of you when it's played.

And you're exactly right - a pass from Sabo back to Espy would have been offside since Espy was ahead of the ball. But since no Colorado player even attempted to break up the play after it was obvious RSL was going to score, maybe there was time for Espy to run back a few yards to get behind the ball (putting himself onside) and then Sabo could have passed it back to him. But in the end, a goal's a goal and a win's a win and I doubt Espy will care that it didn't go on his stat sheet.

After the game, Will told me he thought Sabo should have just slammed it home without hesitation.

amidst all this crap the SG's are getting for what have you, I do have to give a very big "WELL DONE" to the streamer shower to start the match.

That was awesome.
Too bad it's quite expensive to do (believe me, I know, I don't buy streamers anymore because of it) or else it would be a cool thing to have as a staple of our games.

Yeah, that one worked pretty well--with the notable exception of the fact that a few of the streamers had apparently been too tightly packed and didn't unroll. Looked pretty cool though, I was especially entertained by the ones that got caught on the stage cables and stayed up the whole game. It's not horrendously expensive, since you can spread the cost out much easier by just having everyone go and buy 5-10 streamers, which for some reason is much easier than coordinating cash donations for tifo and the like.