RSL at FC Dallas, 25 April, 6:30 MDT [P/I/P]

how is that he deliberately put his arm out to the side to block the ball, his arm was already out to his side as he was trying to balance himself. the ball clearly plays his arm, watch it in real time, its a bang bang play that happens in an instant. he didnt have time to look at the ball and make a conscious decision to play it with his arm. at the point where the ball deflects towards beltrans arm there is no attacking dallas player. george john is to beltrans right, facing the opposite direction the ball is traveling and he is actually moving away from that trajectory as well. shea, who collects the ball after it bounces off beltrans FOOT who is at that point on the ground on his knees, is some 5-10 yards away and level with beltran, not behind him. the only reason shea is even able to play the ball is because beltran deflects/backward kicks it right to him, beltran had absolutely no thought about kicking the ball to shea, its completely unintentional. if beltran doesnt deflect the ball to shea it's heading over the endline for a corner kick.

his reaction after it happens is he gets up and tries to tackle/block the cross from shea. then he's on his knees hitting the ground out of frustration. the look on his face they show in the replay comes after the ref has already ruled for the penalty. its a look of total disbelief.

edit: it's funny watching the replay a couple dozen times, just thinking about the sheer odds of this happening, its gotta be like a million to 1. ball nicks of the very top of sabo's head, barely misses schulers right arm, tony sticks his right foot out and kicks the ball, the ball bounces off the inside of schulers left foot/heel and bounces backwards directly towards the where the 6 yard box meets the endline, beltran's right foot is slipping backwards and his left arm is already extended out to its position when he first kicks it off schuler as a way to balance, when beltran comes down his right foot slips back, ball bounces off the underside of his upper arm/elbow, balls goes behind beltran who has no idea where it is, then beltrans left foot comes back as he goes to his knees and he deflects/kicks it straight to shea.....who then bloops one of the worst crosses i've ever seen out of bounds on the far side. in real time this all happens in about 1-1.5 seconds, ball clears sabo's head just after 44:41, at exactly 44:42 the ball is right before deflecting beltran's arm, at 44:42.5 beltran kicks the ball backwards and shea runs toward the ball and bloops cross at almost exactly 44:44.

I asked the refs on the ref forum
http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1940043
I'm still amazed how differently refs and players see the game

i certainly wouldnt be writing paragraphs blasting the call, but like when i called out sabo for flopping, or when i said colorado was wronged with the no-call for the offsides goal we scored last year and the espy hand ball he scored a few weeks ago. or how about the lucky/bullshit double penalty we received against DCU way back in the RES days? i have no problem admitting when we got the benefit of an undeserved call and i have done so many teams.

dont assume to think that i am such a homer to not recognize when RSL has wrongfully benefited from bad reffing decisions. it's happened many times and i have bemoaned those reffing decisions. i've gone to opposing teams forums and even stated as such on their threads as well.

They also regularly dont call hand balls when players deliberately kick the ball into opposing players arms.
Also, most here would call that play if reversed in RSL's favor a huge GIFT which it was for FCD.

Is it just me, or does anyone else remember Mathis getting so mad about an inadvertent handball called against us that he did just that? (Kicked the ball--pretty far upfield, IIRC--and hit someone walking away from him in the hand, then yelled at the ref for not calling it.)

Good times. I wonder if Mathis is on the DisCo? For someone who knew the Laws of the Game as well as he apparently did, he oughta be.

Thanks folks, this has been instructive. I hadn't read the FIFA rule, word-for-word, so most of what I've said has been based on experience as a player, kids' coach and fan. It seems to me that, according to a literal reading of the rule, the vast majority of handball ("if a player handles the ball deliberately") calls are incorrect. Even the "consciously or subconsciously" argument, alluded to in a linked thread, doesn't account for all the calls made when a ball inadvertently hits someone's arm, right?

I rarely, if ever, see a ball hit someone's arm that's not called a handball, in kids', high school, college or professional soccer (aside from the goofy stuff like RSL Punk 2 mentioned). I realize you've got to make some allowance for when the ball is inadvertently directed in favor of the team whose player handled the ball, but for the most part, is it fair to say the rule just isn't applied the way it's written?

I still say a bunch of you lot need some time relaxing on the beach.

I'd say that's very fair to say.

P.S. I don't like the beach...I get sand in my crack.

Here's one way to look at this constructively.

We've given up a lot of header goals this year (5 by one count), we're 2nd in the league in fouls committed. Our set piece defense is a shadow of where it was in past years so far...and we're giving up a lot of free kicks in dangerous spots.

In this case, we gave up the dangerous free kick, we missed on the clearance, and random things happened. The odds won't be 'ever in our favor' but they can improve as the team D improves.

16 points in 9 games is not great, but it's not bad. 19 in 10 would be better

16 points in 9 games = 1.78 ppg.

2010, our best ever season = 1.86 ppg

2011, our 2nd best season = 1.56 ppg

given how tough our schedule has been thus far, with away games: LA, Portland, SKC, SJ and FCD.....ya i'll take 1.78 ppg thus far. our schedule is MISERABLE this year, if we manage to finish at 1.78 ppg we will finish with 60-61 points, the most we've ever had.

Not to be nit-picky, but in fouls committed per game we're 7th in the league. It just so happens that we've played 9 games so far, while there are some teams that have only played 5(!), so it looks like we've committed a lot more fouls than everyone else. I really wish that MLS would report all stats on a per-game basis, as they're pretty meaningless when teams have played a different number of games.

We are tied with 2010 on ppg at the 9th game. That is, we have the same number of points now as we had in 2010 at this point in the season.

ya i should have indicated that the ppg for 2010 and 2011 were for the total season and not just the first 9 games. my bad.

but a long that train of thought, if you look at our schedule given the away games we have played, i'm still extremely happy with our current 1.78 ppg. at the beginning of the season, staring at those away games you are looking at 5 of the hardest places to play in the league currently. granted i dont think we foresaw SJ and SKC being so good, but we knew FCD is almost impossible for RSL to get points at. i dont think anyone would have predicted LA and Portland to start so poorly, but LA has turned it back on lately and getting 3 full points in Jeld Wen isnt an easy task for any team.

i believe this is the best RSL has ever done on the road so early in the season, they're definitely on track to set a team record for road points if they can keep it up. it certainly doesnt get much easier on the road, still have seattle 2 times, LA once more, SJ once more, houston, and chicago will be tough at home. break down our schedule and we REALLY got ********ed this year.

The sad thing is that if the PK had not been called, nobody would have thought twice about it. Nobody. The game would have gone into half time 0-0 and it wouldn't have been a talking point. That's how trivial the contact was.

Instead, the referee decided to insert himself into the game and gifted FCD a goal which they were happy to accept without question (as we all would). That's what it boils down to for me. The impact would have been monumentally lower if the call was never made.

The lone Dallas player that yelled for hand ball was Ugo Ihemelu.

******** that guy
former cRapid

What did you expect?

The guy that spent the whole game riding Sabo every time the ball was in the air near them. I still can't believe he didn't get called for it ever.

I looked like Sabo was giving him a piggy back ride all game.

and Hydman had the balls to yell at the ref about RSL players challenging his guys in the air.
It was rather ironic.

If you read the USSF directives on handballs (RSL Soapbox had them printed in a recent blogpost, but I didn't exactly agree with his argument that they're difficult to understand and/or overwhelming for refs) they indicate that you can "deliberately" handle the ball in an "ball-to-hand" situation if the arm is extended in an unnatural position; say to cut off passing angles for an attacker. In that case, the defender wouldn't have to move his arm to the ball for handling to be considered deliberate.

I'd guess that a lot of those handball calls that look like they're misapplied could fit under this interpretation of the rules.

Uhh...did you already forget the video Ismitje posted? Hyndman's got the balls to do just about anything. Anything.

You, sir, just won the internet.

Your guess would be correct. The official"s ruling was justified per the rules that you referenced. Nonetheless, I will be so bold as to say that less than 20% of the referees out there would have called that one.

I actually don't think that it should count in Beltran's case. His arm was away from his body because he was falling down and trying to maintain balance. He wasn't trying to cut down passing/shooting angles by sticking his arm away from his body.

WHY his arm was there is not a factor. WHAT he was trying to do is not a factor.

IF his arm was out and IF the ball was blocked are all that matter.

When I first started as a ref there was a saying that the correctness of handling calls would improve if refs stopped calling it altogether. With the currect guidelines, I think it would be improved if they called handling every time there was ball/hand-arm contact.

This is not progress.

Not according to FIFA, "deliberately" .....as in "intention"......as in "why his arm was out there."


This whole bullshit US Soccer reference and remake of the rule is what is causing this debate, it's become too complicated. A deliberate act of handling the ball, that's all it should say. Tony's was not deliberate.

They should just call every handball contact. End of story. 'Deliberate' or 'natural position' are far too subjective in a lot of cases. Call them all and there's no argument. The only time I feel they shouldn't get called is if your arms are at your side next to the body.