NCAA - Albany/Western Michigan

Ha, yeah that was my post. I didn't watch the game so I would call my questions over there "fact gathering." A buddy of mine pointed me to the tweet, which was by the Albany player who's goal was disallowed.

 

Good goal. No idea what you could call there. I didn't even see the striker contact the GK, but it was a pretty small video feed and as an official my eyes are pretty bad...

 

I’ve got nothing. No idea what’s being called here.

 

Remember what angle the referee sees here vs the camera. I'm imagining a very hard hip thrown by the attacker that a camera, from the side doesn't show well.

Surely not enough information for me to be sure. Definitely not enough for me to persecute the referee.

 

Looks like the attacker slowed down a bit to throw a small hip check into the defender to knock him off balance and free him up for a shot.
Doesn't look like enough to justify the foul, but I can see it looking totally different if you're right behind the play. I can imagine that being the MUCH better angle to determine if it's really a foul or not.

 

The trailing ref has a perfect angle to see what is happening between the two players.

If you slow it down you see the defender stumble forward before the striker gets to the ball. My guess is that the ref saw a wrist grab and pull by the attacker to unbalance the defender. Such a thing is very quick and is impossible to resist, and often invisible unless you are at a perfect angle.

 

I think he called the hip check. Didn't appear to be playing the ball at that point, IMO, but it's a tough call for sure.

 

After seeing comments and re-watching it... Nope, still nothing, what some see as a "hip check" I see as the player shielding the defender from the ball. I know the CR has a different angle from what we are seeing, and not saying he didn't see anything, but at that level, I don't see this being the correct call.

 

Shielding the defender would imply that the attacker's hips were in front. My recall, without watching it again, is that this was not the case.

Another argument can be made about a fair challenge.
This is the true essence of this judgement call.
Was this just a result of two players coming together when one player had a better body position? Or did one player physically move his opponent of space he previously occupied?

 

Yeah, I Watched it again on ESPN 3- it’s much clearer than that screen shot in the tweet. no arm grab or really anything else. The attacker’s movement is straight toward the ball- he doesn’t seem to veer left or “leave” the ball.

 

There is absolutely nothing remotely close to a foul on this play, at any level. So much is being said about what the referee "saw", but really this call is about what the referee didn't see, and all you need to look at is this



Very unfortunate for the scoring team.

 

ouch. Game at this level certainly deserved better.

 

I think he might have "seen" an elbow....
Every ref has called phantom fouls, ones that didn't really happen.
We hope we never do, but it is just part of the deal.