2018 MLS Week 11 Referee Discussion

I could be wrong, but I thought the "clear and obvious" didn't apply to offside. Or is that exception only true in FIFA contests? Assuming MLS and FIFA have the same instructions, which they may not, but offside error doesn't have to be clear and obvious.

BTW: I love that Elfath didn't go to the screen. Although remember the Austrailian final where the VAR got a reversal wrong because he wasn't looking at the right part of the play? That play made me wonder if it is wise to have the R or AR look at the screen instead of going with VAR blindly. Here it looks like it worked out.

 

At 2:35 of the video, the pass before was to an offside player. I don't know if VAR looked at all the passes or just the last one. On the final pass, the attacker and defender's feet were close. The attacker's arm, which you can't score with, was offside. The attacker's head was close but I would say offside.

 

On the DOGSO, I’m having trouble seeing a clear error. I don’t see a foul until after the pull down after the defender plays the ball, which bounces forward off the attacker. I presume Stott thought that distance to ball (given where the GK was) meant the GSO was not obvious, hence the yellow. I don’t think that was clearly wrong (or clearly right). Perhaps there is something on a different angle that might show an earlier foul, which would support DOGSO?

 

According to a few journalists I know that cover TFC, they were informed earlier this season that, yes indeed, "clear and obvious" was required for offside position.

Which seems to be opposite to what IFAB has been pushing for the last ~18 months.

 

But clear and obvious for an objective decision is going to very different than clear an obvious for a subjective one. With the tools at their disposal, a clear and obvious offside error could be an inch.

 

Well Portland-Seattle was interesting. Looking forward to figuring out how Blanco escaped a yellow after donning a mask to celebrate his goal. The fact that he earned a yellow in stoppage time compounded the error. And then just to top it off, the VAR recommended a review on the tackle, but the decision didn't change.

 

Three possible red card challenges in Portland v Seattle. Think they probably got them right, and they were certain ly consistent.

Blancos should have been a second yellow, though. No card for using a prop in a goal celebration.

100 minutes on the clock at the end of the second half.

 

Oh please....put a sock in it!

 

I agree with this -- but it's not clear what they mean by "clear and obvious" when it comes to offside position, because this year, there's been ones that have been 4-6" offside on a goal not pulled back, and ones that have been 1-2" offside that have.

My biggest issue with VAR continues to be:

Communication with the fans in the stadium is atrocious (and that's being generous).

This could be improved by (for an offside call) showing one of those graphics on the big screen where they rotate the camera around 360 degrees to show the offside position of the player for example.

 

When it comes to boundary lines, "clear and obvious" can be an inch, in reality. It's in an area or it's not, and the painted line makes it clear and also obvious.

An offside decision close to the penalty area camera is not going to be as clear cut as the example above, but the lines provide a fairly reliable framework to judge offside position. (See the call in Houston a few weeks ago that happened right on the 18.)

While the scorer's body is ahead of the kicker, he seems to be level with the ball. I think this is a good correction, but it is oh so close of a decision.

The cameras are generally on the top of the PA. The further the play is away from the camera, the more difficult it is to say that the video evidence is clear. Especially if the player's position is not near a mow stripe.

If this same decision was 6 yards downfield or 10 yards upfield, the VAR would not have been able to have a definitive opinion on the play.

I agree. I blame stadium operations & the in-stadium announcer. Their choice to not show a decision is really astounding. Additionally, if the definitive replay is shown, yet the in-stadium announcer doesn't tell the fans "hey, look at the screen", most fans will miss the replay that happens after the play restarts.

 

This picture of Orlando City's Will Johnson after the late non-foul was, IMO, correctly not called just screams for a caption.

 

I’m late to the party but a couple of comments/questions regarding the offside decision from Geiger. As many stated, this seems to be a reversal of what we were initially instructed to see as deliberate 4-5 years ago when this first came out.

In typical fashion however we have no formal change in the law law’s language, just the standard “you didn’t understand what we meant”. Never an admission of error on their part.

With regard the concept that players have to be balanced, well positioned and in control (or however you want to word it) with regard to a deliberate play. How does that apply to jumpin and heading the ball? The way I see it, a player that stays on the ground and is lunging or kicking out to get a ball is certainly in more control and has better balance of their body than someone that jumps and it flicks off their head. Yet I have not seen any instance where a player that jumped and contacted the ball was ruled to have deflected it instead of played it.

Is this a third standard we now need to consider for what deliberate means?

My biggest gripe, as others have said, is that while I can stomach saying “deliberate” has a specific meaning with regard to the laws, that doesn’t necessarily translate to normal language, it should at least mean the same thing within those laws, wherever it is used.

And in regard to the announcers comments, do we think that type of criticism would be accepted in any other sport in the US? This is getting to be a joke.

 

See I don't see it the same way as you. Decision to not show a red card initially is CLEARLY wrong to me. If this were in the World Cup or at the CL Final Kiev, and no red would be shown it would be absolutely scandalous.

I don't know why or how Stott came to the conclusion to not show the red card, initially. When he did go and review it he barely went over and looked at the screen before he realized he made a mistake. For a referee that has, historically, been on the more conservative side of DOGSO over the years to take one look at his initial decision and change his mind tells me everything.

I can, kind of, understand and see the argument about touch being too heavy just from a technicality stand point. I remember when USSF was emphasizing the 4Ds and referees were not giving red cards when attackers were trying to go around the goal keeper. They said the "direction" wasn't there because he was going "straight" towards goal. Instead of 90 degrees or 0 degrees depending on how you look it was more like 95/85 or 5 degrees away from goal when they tried to go around the goal keeper.

I feel like this is the same argument that some could try and make here. Yes, there is a chance that he might not get to the ball, but the cynicism of the foul overrides that there.

The spirit of the law and what "football expects" clearly overrides that there. Everyone expects a red card for a cynical play like that.

I have no issue with a review here. I think this is what VAR was brought in for. To me there is no judgment or "in the opinion of the referee" for a play like this. Football expects a red card.

I can't say the same about the decision about Geiger to disallow the goal in the Atlanta and Sporting KC match. That genuinely is a play that can go either way. Stott's is not.

 

I'm glad they sent him off, but this is lazy refereeing that it wasn't caught in real time. A one goal game, the goal scorer grabs the ball (which is not his to grab) and then runs up field with it, I mean at a U-17 game you'd expect problems there. The 4th should have seen it, the trailing AR should have seen it, and certainly the referee shouldn't have "taken his eyes off the ball" on this. Marrufo's go to move on those PK's is for him to get the ball himself from the goal scorer. I'm not saying that is the right thing to do, but there really isn't an excuse for missing this in real time.

 

The most important thing for you to remember is that the refs are always right, especially when using VAR. Definitions can and will be changed after a call to prove how right that call was. You're just a guy with a keyboard so you don't know this.

 

What?

 

Our local conspiracy theorist . . .

 

It was just a poke at the local "everything PRO does it right" moderator.

No conspiracy, I just don't think that the head of PRO would come out say that his "top ref" got the interpretation of "deliberate" wrong right before he's set to go to Russia. I might agree with the call if there hadn't been very similar calls with the exact opposite explanation from PRO. Either way, I don't have a dog in the fight, it's just funny to watch PRO apologists do rules interpretation gymnastics to explain how deliberately doing something isn't deliberate, but only sometimes.

 

"Jet fuel can't melt steel beams.."

 

Just watched those idiot announcers from the Philly game. They sound like a couple of dads freaking out over a call in their sons’ U15 game.