Change in offside rule in England

[mpruitt]

Originally posted by Statesman


3) Offside should be ignored if the play is generated in the section of the field whose boundry is set by the line of the penalty area, the touch lines, and the goal line.


what do you mean by that?

[Treetaliano]

Originally posted by Craig the Aussie
If you were in the opponents half (you were), in front of the second last defender (you were), in front of your teammate when he touched the ball (I assume you were), and took advantage of your position (you did) - you were offside.

I was on our half of the field when our forward got possession, and trailing the play at about a half speed run. I just assumed he'd easily beat the keeper, which he did, sorta...he did a quick turn to his LEFT instead of the right which would have brought him into the 16 yar box, but going left he fired a weak lob/shank/cross thing with his right foot towards the net and it was so bad that it curved BACKWARDS towards me, when I slotted it in, i was at about the 16 and the keeper was in front of me, as was the forward.

As MassachusettsRef said i was CLEARLY behind the ball and got caught for the "offside" Yet the second the ball hit the net, every SLU player with an arm, had it up and running to the referee for the call.

[voros]

Originally posted by XYZ
I like it, too, but not because it aids the attackers, but because it is more in keeping with the spirit of the offside rule than the present situation, in which there are far too many false positives on offside - that is, players who are NOT in an an offside position when the ball is played but are nonetheless called offside.

This is my biggest complaint and there's one in particular that really bugs me. The "He's to open not to be" offside.

A lot of ARs take the approach that if the player winds up wide open with yards and yards of empty space between himself and the goal, that the player must be offside because how could he get so wide open. Donovan got caught by this one in the opening minutes of the Germany game (bad defending the two German defenders didn't keep their line so the one closest to Donovan was five yards ahead of the one on the far side). He had no one between him and Kahn and the flag went up, and Donovan threw a minor tantrum.

It's tough to complain about it because I see the "wide open" offside called at least once a game where the defender screws up (moves late in the offside trap and leaves the attacker onside) and the attacker finds himself alone with the ball, only to get flagged because it looks so horrendous.

Before they eliminate the offside rule they should try the hockey method (draw a line midway between the goal line and the halfway line and the ball has to cross that line before an attacking player can, and maybe they can even go as far to outlaw the "two-line" pass). It still neatly prevents "cherry-picking" and Hockey refs don't screw up the offside call nearly as much as Football refs do. Positioning wouldn't actually change much as the central defenders would generally play right about where they do now when the ball is forward (a little before midfield).

From a fan's perspective, the rule can simply get very aggravating.

[Craig the Aussie]

Then it was a bad call - if you were behind the ball at the time it was kicked you couldn't be offside.

[Treetaliano]

Originally posted by Craig the Aussie
Then it was a bad call - if you were behind the ball at the time it was kicked you couldn't be offside.

eheh that's the same thing I told him right before I asked him, and direct quote "If I was f*****g your wife and you walked in on us, would you miss that too?"

Then I offered to take him to LensCrafters.

Maybe thats why I got the red card :)

[Craig the Aussie]

mmm - maybe you were a bit harsh (but fair)

[SoccerEsq]

Simply put, England is applying the clear, simple interpretation that the attacker is not in offside position until the entire attacker has passed beyond the entire second last defender (in the attacking half and in front of the ball, of course)

A look at the two key components of the offside law (which I think we'd all agree could and should be more precisely written) strongly support their approach.

Nearer To : "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."

The most obvious interpretation of this is that whoever has the nearst part of themselves to the goal line is the nearest player. I sincerely don't see why this idea is controversial or complex--where in the letter of the law or the spirit of the game is it necessary to add special body part rules about the positions of torsos vs heads vs legs?

Level With: "A player is not in an offside position if... he is level with the second last opponent"

Again without special body part rules for determining offside position (which add unnecessary complexity), the simplest interpretation is that a player is level with the opponent if any part of their body is level with any part of the opponents body.

By the way: you don't need this Level With exception if you think every attacker body part must be level with the opponent because then there's no possibility of any part being nearer--this rule would be merely redundant and add no meaning to the main section requiring the attacker to be "nearer to" in the first place.

The whole attacker past the whole defender...

Isn't it interesting how this interpretation fits both the language of the law and the spirit of the game (no cherry picking) while also matching up with the mechanics of other laws?

England's "seeing air" interpretation is nothing more than a colorful (or colourful) way of saying the exact same thing. A referee must see that the attacker is both nearer to the goal line and not level with the defender.

[Jeff L]

As correctly stated by one writer, it is not a change in the law. This "see air" was advice given to the referees in the World Cup just passed, and the English F.A. have now published it this season's "amendments" to the laws of the game, that this will be continued with during this season. Had this confirmed at our Referee Society meeting tonight when the amendment pamphlet from the F.A. was distributed. The reason to to give more advantage to the attacking team to encourage more adventurous football.

[Alberto]

Originally posted by Jeff Lancaster
As correctly stated by one writer, it is not a change in the law. This "see air" was advice given to the referees in the World Cup just passed, and the English F.A. have now published it this season's "amendments" to the laws of the game, that this will be continued with during this season. Had this confirmed at our Referee Society meeting tonight when the amendment pamphlet from the F.A. was distributed. The reason to to give more advantage to the attacking team to encourage more adventurous football.

Jeff I would be interested in any articles noting a change in the interpretation during the world cup to seeing air between the next to last defender and the attacker. Given the many dubious offside calls it would appear the AR's misintepreted the edict to mean the defender closer to the goal line not the attacker. :D