Scenario came up in a U17 Boys Match today. I'm an AR. In pregame the center mentions that he wants us to be patient on our offside calls. The other AR asks "So you want us to wait for the player to touch the ball?" Center says, "Yes." Fast forward to the game. Offensive player near midfield is well offside. Maybe 3 yards or so. Long ball gets played over the top. He sprints after it. There is some debate as to whether or not he is going to catch it before it goes out of bounds. He finally catches up and stops the ball just before it goes out of play deep in the corner. I'm the AR. As soon as the ball was played over the top, I'm sprinting back. But I'm not faster than a well kicked ball. So I'm trailing the play. I'm also not faster than a 17 year kid old with a 4 yard head start. (Remember that he was offside and I was up with the 2nd to last defender. So the question is: At what point do I raise my flag to signal the offside infraction? The obvious answer is that I wait until he touches it deep in the corner. But I'm in a full sprint trying to catch up with the play. In this particular case I was still 10 yards behind the play. Do I stop my sprint, face the field and signal? Do I signal while running? Do I wait to signal until I have caught up with the play, but at this point he has collected the ball and is heading to goal and the CR is no longer looking at me. I tried to talk to the CR after the game and what he would have wanted me to do, but he just sort of said, that I should have been even with the ball. Which is technically correct, but also technically impossible. I'm not the Flash. Thoughts? This sort of scenario happened multiple times this morning. (The attacking team just sort of hung out in an offside position.)
In my personal opinion the CR is not following the current guidance on offside. When it is clear no other player has an opportunity to play the ball, then the attacker is involved in play, regardless if contact is made with the ball.
I don't know if that's still the current guidance, but it's still the one I go by -- including telling it no more than 45 minutes ago to a young AR who asked that question when I was mentoring over at the club (along with "and protect the goalkeeper from a collision with an offside attacker").
Sa14 is correct. We can reasonably assume that for a ball that may stay in play and no other player has the opportunity to play that an a player who is in an offside position is challenging for the ball and involved in active play. Once you make this determination...stop and signal.
The correct thing to do is to raise your flag once he becomes involved, in your scenario that would be once he played the ball. If your referee had been to a higher level event, the wait and see method is the only method for determining offside.
This is one of the scenarios where the interpretation and implementation of the laws is different at the 'highest levels' and at youth levels. Yes, at the top levels, an AR and CR can wait and see. At youth levels, there is no need to subject yourself and the player to a long run just to call it back. Plus, as Bubba states, the safety of the players NEEDS to be taken into account. Having a GK and an attacking player collide just so you can feel some sense of moral justice isn't worth it one bit.
As soon as you determime he becomes involved in play stop and raise your flag regardless of where on the touchline you are. Once the whistle has blown lower the flag and move to where he became involved and signal near/middle/far.
If there is no other (onside) attacking player running toward the ball and the solo defender is having to work against him to get there first then the offside player is already involved with play and benefitting from being in an offside position. No reason for EVERYONE to have to run their ass off to the corner flag just to pop a flag. It baffles me how year after year even the referees can't get offside right.... lol
If the referee specifically mentions it in the pre game than you need to do it properly, it's just like subs, if they have mentioned it in the pre game I have no idea why you would ignore it and do your own thing.
Read the guidelines. http://static-3eb8.kxcdn.com/assets/documents/IFAB_laws_of_the_game_practical_guidelines.pdf
@cmonref i do many high level events and games and I can promise you...nobody wants me to let players run for 40 yards with no other possibility than an OS flag. Playing the ball is only one of the ways you can be deemed actively involved.
Actively involved with play... Can't be under "playing the ball" since that has been clearly defined as touching it. Can't be under "gaining an advantage by being in an offside position" as this has also been narrowly defined. So it must be "interfering with an opponent". Merely running in the direction of a ball that is 30 yards away and, potentially, drawing a defender with is interfering with an opponent?
Think of it as a broadly accepted implementation of this narrow definition. At the lower levels many of us work anyway.
Find, ding, ding! We have a winner! IFAB expressly tells us in that diagram that the OSPayercan be penalized for interfering with play before touching the ball when no teammate has an opportunity to play the ball. I think it is is implicit in the diagram (and why it is different from 5) that the OSP player is likely to get to the ball. I have always viewed his diagram as the doctrine of inevitability: when the only remotely probable thing that can happen is an offside offense, we call it early and get the game restarted rather than wasting time chasing the ball. Going back to the OP, it is difficult to tell from a post if it really for the criteria of diagram 4, or looked like a diagram 5 event till the last minute. As an R, I'd be OK with either call from my AR, as there is not great clarity in the guidance on when we differentiate between the two. (Based on how I picture it, I'd *probably* prefer the early flag - but the details matter.) In my view, regardless of where the AR is, the AR should stop and flag immediately upon deciding the OS offense should be called. This also raises a quirk of the new ball placement at the point of interference. I suppose the interference is deemed to occur at the moment the AR decides diagram 4 applies - which means the placement could vary a lot from AR to AR and could change appreciably if the AR waits for the touch.
If you let a player in an offside position run 40 yards to make a touch on a ball that only they can get to you are penalizing the defense with 40 yards of field position on the restart. I don't think that's the intent of the Law.
IDC if you improperly do it in your own games, but if the center request that you do it properly, than you need to do it properly, don't be lazy. I would also advise reading these and watching the video clips when available. https://www.proassistantreferees.com/week-in-review/
Your ignorance is laughable. It has been pointed out that the OP is not only not lazy but is supported from the guide to procedures confirmed by a document you posted but obviously failed to read. If a center tells me to do something that very clearly violates the spirit and letter of the law, I'm going to engage in further dialogue to educate my colleague and I won't call it incorrectly because you want me to
You might want to specify exactly what in there you think supports your stance as diagram 4 seems to contradict you. Sure I think that that should be used rarely but sometimes it is the best option and the OP was one of those times.
Yea I realised that too, kind of a funny side effect of the new law. That sort of situations happens rarely though so it shouldn't be a big issue (guess I jinxed it now though ).
Pulled out the text from under the diagram in case anyone else might have trouble loading it like I was for a little bit. "A player in an offside position (A) may be penalised before playing or touching the ball, if, in the opinion of the referee, no other team-mate in an onside position has the opportunity to play the ball." LotG say it's ok to flag early here. Don't run 40 yards for no reason. Don't let the players run 40 yards for no reason. Common sense and the Laws say flag early in this circumstance.