I'm not sure I agree with the offside call not happening because the defender played the ball. And that's not my RSL bias. I just don't like a defender being punished for playing a ball when he doesn't know if a play will be called offside or not a head of time. You have to play until the whistle. It's what you learn as a youth player.
I don't get how that's not offside. We always say play to the whistle and offside is determined the moment the ball is played but that mentality is out the window with the precedent that has been set on plays like these.
Seriously, what the crap was that call? In this case the defender knocked it to an attacker that wasn't really in the play much... ans that one is taken away?
Dunny stated on the telecast that PRO confirmed that both calls were correct in accordance with how FIFA want the rules interpreted. Unreal.
Damn. The two people I thought had poor games were Lennon (who turned the ball over cheaply several times) and Luiz (who ran all over the place in silly and pointless runs without helping lock down the middle often enough).
RSL definitely deserved something today. The dumb red card put us in crazy bunker mode and it was a matter of time unfortunately.
Yeah, that was anger speaking and the fact that I was only able to follow on game tracker. Bummed. Oh well.
On Rossi goal, Diomonde was in an offside position at the moment that the ball was played to him. Not passive at that moment, which is the moment offsides is determined. Since when has that changed? Both goals were offsides.
He was clearly in an offside position, but IMO wasn't offside because he WAS passive: I don't believe he met any of those conditions. The rule definitely sucks, but the fact that Toia made a choice to play the ball instead of letting it through to create an offsides call does NOT make Dio active on the play. If Dio had been active on the play and crashed in front of Rimando or come back close to the ball challenging Toia, then it would have been a different story. Also, if Toia had deflected the ball and instead it had went to Dio, he would likely have been called offside at that point ala Bofo's denied goal.
What about the argument that by running toward the goal he pulled Rimando to that side? Certainly that’s not passive. At any rate, I flat out don’t necessarily believe PRO when they say those plays were called exactly as FIFA taught them. Toia was really in a no man’s land. He can’t really choose to let the ball go through because there’s the chance the AR will miss the off-sides.
Since when is being behind the defense alone on goal not an advantage for the player? His positioning was 100% an advantage and why the ball was being played to him.
And had the player not been there, the defender doesn't make a move and the ball just rolls to Rimando. I just don't see how that wouldn't be considered offsides. The defender only made a move because there's an offensive player there.
How things are called nowadays is this, from what I can tell: Offside status is determined at the moment of the start of the pass. Therefore, Diomonde was Offside when the pass commenced. But, that doesn't result in an immediate whistle. Suppose the ball had gone towards him and he'd passively avoided it, as we often see happen, then offside is NOT called. We see that all the time. So, just because a player is in Offside position and the ball passed towards the player does not necessarily result in an Offside foul being called. That's why the officials are taught to keep their flag down to see if the Offside player becomes active. So, to those basic points, no Offside foul should be called because Diomonde was not yet part of the play, at least with respect to a pass of the ball to him. However, is his position an influence on the play? That can result in an Offside foul. Rimando may have been pulled towards his side which may be interpreted as influence and an Offside foul. On the other hand, Rimando's movement could be construed as him taking the optimal path to intercept the cross that was actually intercepted by Toia. That's hard to know and both put Rimando out of position to stop a strike from Rossi who had the ball surprisingly at his feet. My guess is this is the interpretation that ruled on the field and is reasonable. I wish it wasn't so, but I can't be too upset about it. The red card to Portillo? I think that was harsh... and there's a decent chance he would have been marking Zimmerman.
Buckle up folks If you offered me a 2-1 loss before this game started I would have said you were high and taken the deal without a second thought. The RSL social media crew (finally) had some fun with the (horrific) starting lineup this week. There is a rumor on twitter that Petke is somewhat behind the graphic? Is this true? I've found that, if anything could partly be blamed on Petke, RSL twitter (at least those I follow) will crucify him like he's a democrat in utah county* To the actual game: I watched the first 5 mins of this at a Chilis in Riverton. I highly don't recommend this. Ok now actually to the game - we started really really well. We were always going to be on the short side of things statistically, but the key was to only give LAFC half chances to bloat their stats with. That is EXACTLY what we did. We hate on Petke on here a lot, but if you're not giving him credit for this performance you're just flat out biased. In a lot of ways, he took the gameplan from the playoff game and modified it to fit this situation. The PK was hilarious as there is absolutely no reason Blessing should even be involved in the play. If I were an LAFC fan I would be livid with him. He should be stepping to cover for his defender that is in front of Bofo, not whatever the hell that was. Lets talk Law 11: Offside. The rule that is written by people who haven't played soccer, it seems. Or, at the very least, is interpreted in a way that suggests it is. Slide 21 of the hyperlink is pretty much what happened on the first LAFC goal. However, it is being stated that slide 20 is what happened. I don't buy that. Specifically, the part that states "Player A (the attacking player) makes any gesture or movement which deceives or distracts Player B (the defending player)" is what happened. Toia does not make the slide tackle if Dio is not there. Rimando tells him to let it run out for a goal kick. The flaws of this Law were then highlighted with the call on Bofo. Bofo is in an offside position, no doubt about that, but is only involved in the play BECAUSE of the tackle by the LAFC player pushing the ball to him. Kreilach is not looking to his left at all in that whole sequence - he's trying to find a far post runner or take a shot. What was even more infuriating in these two situations was the lack of VAR review by Elfath. It seems he at least was listening to the headset and the VAR (Alex Chilowicz) there, but it seems strange to not want to go look at this one yourself. Leaving all that behind, RSL put in a hell of a shift until the subs. And then things went sideways. The Besler sub was just flat out dumb. He looked sooooo lost that it was obvious the instruction he had been given just wasn't working. Bofo was so good in this game and Besler was so bad. That adjustment should be getting more attention than it is - but wont' with all the other items in this game. Schmitt had a hell of a game, as well, and Portillo came on and looked... out of sorts. There is no way that is a red card offense, but it's also easily a yellow card so you run the risk of a ref having a bad angle (which I think Elfath had) and seeing it as far more malicious than it was. I don't know what the hell the Arriaga sub was for besides getting the kid a debut? All in all, though, this was a really good performance. In a lot of ways it was better than most any other game this year. The heart from the players was awesome to watch and was a reminder of what Petke is good at - motivation. An interesting thing from this game was that, for yet another game, Petke went with new blood over more established players. Mulholland has yet to log a minute. Henley was left on the bench. Even Pablo Ruiz is being passed over for new players. In a lot of ways, I like this, but it makes you wonder what exactly was the point of keeping those players around if they are ALREADY being passed over for youth. Lastly, kudos has to be given to Walker Zimmerman, a ********ing CB, for that game winning goal. I'm not convinced it took a deflection or at least much of one. It just looks like an insanely well struck ball. It stung to lose that way, but the performance was one that inspired me much more than a lot of other games this year. *for those that haven't heard, there is a rumor that Petke torpedo'd a deal that would have brought Krzysztof Piątek to RSL instead of going to Genoa in 2018. Piątek has since been sold to Milan and is on an absolute tear. Others I've chatted with say Piątek had a possible deal with MLS with RSL being one of the clubs that could have landed him, but that it fell apart at the MLS level.
My personal tin-foil hat theory is that Waibel himself leaked that rumor since he was hoping to get a contract extension from Dell Loy at the time. It feels like some people are trying to set Petke up as the fall guy if the club disappoints this year. I have no inside sources or evidence, just a personal conspiracy theory. It just feels like every inside-RSL rumor I ever hear is some variation on "Craig Waibel is a genius but he's being thwarted by MLS/Dell Loy/Petke/someone else", which makes me think that Waibel himself may be the source of it all...