PRO addressed when to flag for an OSP player chasing the ball in this week's Week in Review: https://www.proassistantreferees.com/week-in-review/2017/9/9/week-in-review-26-september-2
That makes sense. Wonder if they would have had the same answer if the OSP player chasing the ball is the only one within 30 yards and no defender was challenging for the ball, i.e., example 4 from the 2017-18 LOTG (p 196).
Ugh, I know I'm beholden to the instruction of higher ups but I just can't mesh this with the law changes and the emphasis on waiting the last couple of years. The offside player is definitely not in the area of play when the ball goes through so I have no flag yet. Even when he starts his move to the ball there is still considerable distance before he is even close to active play. I guess you could make the argument that he is involved when the defender eventually collects the ball and sees he has an opponent nearby. I just don't see this changing anything of significance regarding how the defender has to play the ball. Plus given the two diagrams here: we seem to have different methodology going on. The first diagram seems directly counter to the to PROs instruction.
I don't think that the first diagram counters PRO's direction. In the first diagram from the LOTG, I see the ball going to the defender and him mis-playing it out for a corner kick before the PIOP gets there or interferes with him. The PIOP does not affect the defender's action....which is a judgement call, but it is stated in the caption. In the PRO video, the defender keeps the ball in bounds and the PIOP affect's the defender's actions.
But that's my point. The instruction was to raise the flag immediately. When it starts off the defender is 20 yards from the attacker, how is he being affected especially since he isn't even looking at him, similar to the diagram. I would be ok with he answer of calling the offside offense when he turns around and is actively being challenged for the ball (which is what most people answered) but that's not what the statement from PRO was. If the FIFA diagram hinges on if the attacker challenging the defender for the ball then doesn't the offense not occur until that happens?
PGMO (the English version of PRO) stated (two years ago when the new direction/interpretation was put out?) that when a PIOP closes to within ~5 yards of defending player with the ball and limits their options in any way, that's when the flag should be raised. I see the PRO direction as being of a similar line, but it seems that they're pushing for a bit of an earlier call.
Understood, and I agree....I think it comes down to if/when it becomes obvious that the PIOP will challenge/interfere with the defender and affect their play/options with the ball. I think PRO is asking the ARs to predict the future a little and flag earlier -- which I think is difficult. A crystal ball is not on the standard list of equipment for the AR or the CR. If that defender mis-plays the ball down in the corner well before the PIOP gets there and it goes OOB, I would be awarding a throw-in to the attackers...not an IDFK coming out. I think that this is what the diagram from the LOTG is trying to show...the PIOP moving toward the defender, but the defender screwing up well before the PIOP gets there. This also applies to a PIOP coming back and challenging a defender for a ball, and happened to me at a HS game earlier this week. Is there any ammount of time that the defender could possess the ball that would start another phase of play before the PIOP (or previous PIOP) could get involve without getting flagged?? At that game, a team liked to play a lot of long balls, but also had a couple of lazy attackers that always walked back (a bad combination). Once or twice, a defender went to the landing zone for the long pass with the PIOP coming back to immediately challenging him, and I popped the flag -- easy. However, other times the defender easily collected the ball and had it at his feet for several seconds (3 to 5 or so), then the PIOP arrived to challenge. Is that offside, or did that start a new phase of play? On those plays I kept the flag down. I can see that there is a grey area as to when a new phase of play starts...
The point at which the PRO video is saying to raise the flag does seem rather arbitrary to me - the PIOP does not appear to be involved in play yet. I fear this is just going to lead to even greater inconsistency. Don't give them any ideas. We spend enough on gear as it is.
I posted because I'm having trouble squaring this play with the guidance. The write-up never says whether they are viewing this as interfering with play or an opponent. Is this, in their view, a diagram 4 scenario? If it is a diagram 4 scenario, diagram 4 is far broader than I thought it was in current thought. Is it a diagram 9 scenario? But how can it be a diagram 9 scenario if they are saying to flag when the OSP player is still 20 yards away. Is this "an obvious action which clearly impacts on the ability of an opponent to play the ball"? If so, that provision is far broader than I have understood it to be. And how does it square with page 92 of the magic book: a player in an offside position is moving towards the ball with the intention of playing the ball and is fouled before playing or attempting to play the ball, or challenging an opponent for the ball, the foul is penalised as it has occurred before the offside offence PRO seems to be saying to flag before that foul would occur. I don't have a problem wit this being offside, but I'm having trouble squaring it with other advice. As @threeputzzz says above, this doesn't help consistency. (Indeed, it appeared from the clip that the PRO AR didn't see it the way PRO says he should have.) I try to keep track of guidance that is available, and I'm having trouble knowing where we really are supposed to draw lines. I just don't see how we are getting any closer to consistency on OS. Most calls aren't affected, but there are many that it seems impossible to predict where an AR is going to come out and whether the authorities will say that was correct.
I don't see that instruction. The operative instruction I read is: "Once this attacker has made a clear move to chase the ball and defender is the right moment to raise the flag." That's not "immediately." The very next sentence written by Barkey says, "if you watched the video in its entirety you might have noticed a clue in the second replay when the video freezes for a moment. That is the moment the flag should be raised." The aforementioned freeze is at 0:17 of the replay, which is 2-3 seconds after the ball is played. Barkey is saying that's a clue because it's the point where the player in the OSP has clearly begun to sprint for the ball and that not only are all other attackers at least an additional 15 yards further from the ball, not a single one of them is moving for it. At this point, only the OSP can challenge the defender for the ball and he's pursuing the ball, so the flag should go up. If you wait too long to put the flag up--let's say, until the actual challenge occurs--then the defender has, by that point, controlled the ball and dribbled it several times, which makes the offside decision look very strange and maybe even hard to justify. This case study and instruction is not as wide as @socal lurker advertised in his initial post. It's narrowly about a situation where an attacker in an OSP is chasing a ball and will certainly challenge an opponent for the ball, but that challenge is likely to occur after the defender has established control and possession. Now, said instruction might not jive with everyone's interpretation of guidance and instruction for offside generally, which I see is what @socal lurker just posted about above. And a debate could certainly be had about that. Remember that this site--which to my knowledge is publicly available (obviously) but not advertised--is designed for PRO ARs and not for wider instruction like the PotW might be. The point here is that at the professional level a player in a clearly offside position should not be able to capitalize on that position by immediately challenging an opponent after he gains possession. How you write that out and instruct that to the masses (or if it even needs to happen), I don't know.
The issue is the statement to raise the flag as soon as the attacker makes a clear move to the ball. That hasn't been our instruction for quite some time. It sounds very much like the antiquated way offside was called in the past. I know that PRO caters to a higher class of referee in general but the issue that we have alluded to here is how the message is going to get filtered down. Many who want to old way back are going to take this video and write up as justification to start popping the flag as soon as an attacker moves regardless of distance. The fact that the attacker has significant space between himself and the ball in this play doesn't help either. Maybe they don't mean what they wrote but it certainly seems like they have set a standard which doesn't mesh with the more modern teaching for offside in recent years.
But it's very specific to this situation and not a blanket instruction. PRO's instructions don't need to be filtered down, because they are PRO's instructions, for PRO officials (in this case ARs). PRO doesn't just "cater to a higher class of referee in general"--it employs referees at the professional level, full stop. This is the PRO AR manager telling his employees how this should be called in PRO-appointed matches. Kudos to @socal lurker for even knowing about or finding this site, but the simple fact is there aren't "many" who will see this. The site is designed for PRO ARs exclusively. Read the language--it's written to be read by PRO officials and the home page explicitly states it is for PRO ARs. The majority of the content on the site is password-protected. There is a public section, which this link was on, as a decision was made to make some content available to the public (and, by "public," I think it's understood to mean aspiring PRO ARs). This isn't designed as a PR exercise like the actual PRO website. I think he absolutely meant what he wrote and, yes, the standard may not mesh with how things are taught. That's how they want it done in the professional level, and they have good reason for it. I wouldn't get too worked up over this or anything else you see on this site. If you look at this site to get a window into how PRO ARs are instructed, it can be both fascinating and--if you're in a position to climb the ladder--helpful if/when you arrive at a certain level. But it's nothing more than that and if you look at this as a source of instruction for all levels, you're bound to get frustrated.
No. Do what gets instructed through official FIFA and USSF channels. PRO is an entity designed for the professional game in North America. This happens in every sport. Little League umpires don't take all their cues from the MLB. Most confusion (fans and referees) stems from people not knowing the Laws and the updated instructions. If you're one of the ones who does (and you got to assume most interested enough to partake here do), you're in a distinct minority. If you're a referee who stays up to-date on all USSF/FIFA instructions and PRO instructions, you're either a PRO official or in the tiny minority of that already distinct minority. A website dedicated to streamlining instructions to PRO ARs (which has been up for at least 2 years now, but hadn't even been cited here before this thread) isn't what breeds confusion in our game.
I'm not so sure. I feel like with soccer more than most other sports the youth players and fans learn the majority of how they think things should be done by watching pro games. Maybe it's me but it seems like other sports there is a bigger understanding to not compare what you do when you are a kid to what is being done at the top level. I see a lot more imitation in youth soccer than other sports.
Even if that's true--and it very well might be--competent referees around the world at all levels have bigger fish to fry. Without television replay, the vast majority of players, coaches and fans (read: parents) think ARs are always wrong when they keep the flag down regarding OSP on close decisions and that has a lot to do with the fact that so many incompetent or poorly trained ARs often do put their flag up when players are actually onside. The inconsistency week-to-week and match-to-match in any given competition (short of the professional level) on judgment is 1000x more confusing and more consequential than whether you and the guy who did last week's game raise their flags at slightly different points (or at all) in the video clip that started this thread. Shorter advice: fight the battles that matter.
I agree with this.* Its not the site that is breeding confusion, so much as the constant tweaks to Law 11 that tend to make judgments more complicated but are not always well explained, at least not to the masses, leading to differing instruction and guidance from ostensible experts. When I discovered the PRO AR review, I was kinda excited to find a place that might help put together some of the messy parts of modern OS interpretations. Unlike most youth sports, we do play with the same Laws in most respects, and Law 11 isn't modified (the only exception to that being the build out line). ______ * Though I believe it is the second time the site has been referenced--I believe (but am not positive and did not go back to check) that there was a discussion relating to deflection versus play in a prior Review.
True, confusion also comes from us with inconsistent application from ref to ref/week to week/match to match so the "people not knowing the Laws and updated instructions" are not just fans and players but us. Also what they (we) see on TV differs from what they think they see in person, coupled with our inconsistency (or our properly applying the laws to that level) and confusion propagates.
I think the confusion comes from the position that typically has more black and white (AR) now explicitly comes with some gray area. You have to look for more context clues now. In the cited clip, when the ball is played, the PIOP is 15+ yards away from the ball. By the time the defender gathers it, the PIOP is now less than 5 yards away. He's clearly gained an advantage by pursuing the ball from his offside position. The defender also clearly has fewer options now that he has an attacker that close. Another great context clue is that the defender turns his head off the ball and checks where the defender is 3 times during his run. He feels the pressure from the defender. I'm not advocating that we add to the LOTG "If the defender checks where the PIOP is, the PIOP shall be penalized", but it's a good clue. If the PIOP had taken two steps, looked over his shoulder to check the AR flag, sees that it hasn't been raised, and then decides to continue running, that's another clear decision to pursue the ball from his offside position. None of those pieces should be written in the laws, but those kind of gray area context clues have to be considered now examining when to penalize. This deserves reiterating. The biggest disparity I can think of is what is considered a "deliberate play by the defender" in the MLS definitely should not be the exact same at the U12 level. Great examples of what to do at higher levels, but shows that different levels require different perspectives.
Gaining an advantage by being in an offside position has a specific meaning in the laws of the game, and it's definitely not what you've just listed. As others have said, if Pro wants to have this called offside they certainly can do that, but the guidance given to referees by USSF does not support it.
"Once this attacker has made a clear move to chase the ball and defender is the right moment to raise the flag." Yes!
We had a similar incident occur in the 10/22 match between the Earthquakes and Minnesota at minute 78 (I think). Apologies that I don't have a copy of the video clip. The defender made an "uncontested" header towards his keeper and the ball was intercepted by the attacking player in an original offside position who then scored a goal. The goal was disallowed. I am thinking it was a good goal because the attacking player never "challenged" the defender for the ball based on the training that I have received over the past 2-3 years on the new interpretation and application of offside, specifically interfering with a defender. However, in light of the above discussion I can see why the AR must have flagged it when the attacking player started to run towards where the ball was going to land even though he never got closer than 5 yards away to the defender. I find this difference in interpretation by PRO and what we are taught at the "lower" levels distressing. Will PRO's definition be disseminated to the rest of us? When? If not, why not? Personally I am fine with the PRO interpretation - it seems unfair for a defender to be penalized for taking an action that might result in the attacking player being rewarded (if he misplays the ball), when if he had taken no action offside would have been called. However I don't like a different standard being applied at club levels versus by PRO. Can anyone point me to the website for the original videos that were used to retrain us on the "new" offside interpretations two or three years ago?
I tried quickly to find a video and couldn’t. I would have to see it to know for sure, but from the description it seems it shouldn't have been offside if the defender made an uncontested intentional touch backwards towards his keeper. That would reset the offside decision and make it a moot point if the attacker’s movement was to challenge for the ball or not.