I think the play was designed for him to interfere or get a deflection, and he got the deflection. It is a very difficult call but he appeared to turn his body towards the ball and it hit the upper part of his arm. Had he had been looking back at the shot I could then make a case for ball to arm, but the camera from behind the goal clearly shows him angling his body in the direction of the ball. Freekick the other way! R
It looked like he turned his body into the ball, which makes me lean towards deliberate. If that was called we could have gone to extra time, who knows? My favorite comment by Tommy Smyth, "It's not going right for captain fantastic" Crouch should have been put in earlier. I liked Liverpool's goal, it hit 3 heads within 1.5 secs before it went in, Liverpool-Milan-Liverpool.
the ball looked more like it hit his chest than shoulder from the various replay angles. Anyone notice the fans humming the White Stripes, "Seven Nation Army?" The 1st time I heard this was the wk after the Killers rocked Edge Fest at the FC Dallas game. It came from the new Inferno cheerleader, 'Cupcake.' Since then, it's appeared in all of our games-including the televised matches. Last wk I noticed Chitcago Section 8 using the same 7 nation army song on TV. Now I hear Beatles fans faintly doing it at the Champion's League final. What gives? Who started this trend?
I thought one of the the odder things was the lack of extra time. They indicated 3 minutes, then there was a substitution, and the ref ended the game after 2:45 of extra time. Not that it made a big difference, but lots of extra time at the end of a close games is fun!
Plus the ball was right on the edge of Milan's defensive third. I think Rafa Benitez had every right to complain. I know the indicated time is non-binding, but I expected it to go to at least 3:15. Steve Nicol: "Any time the ball hits the arm and goes into the goal, it's a handball". EHHHH!!!! Wrong answer. I don't think herr Fandel had the best view (although in the replay you can clearly see him leaning to get a look), and I don't think Igor on the far side could see it clearly enough to make a call. What about Jamie Carragher's caution? I realize it was probably tactical, but it didn't look terribly bad and there were other defenders there. I think the DFK would have been punishment enough.
Me too!! IIRC, the only other time I remember a ref cutting it short from the announced time was back in the Athens Olympics when one of the teams was up by 3 goals and the losing side wasn't pressuring at all. Given the substitution, I would have figured it to go past the announced three minutes....not 15 seconds shorts. Lots can happen in that time frame.
First, I was watching about 4 minutes behind after falling asleep in the first half. There weren't many chances to make up time, it took til the 84th minute to catch up to live, fast forwarding almost every time the ball was out and when ESPN cut away despite play continuing. The actual stoppage time was probably right, maybe he even had one of those special watches with two timers. That said, with the history, Liverpool attempting another comeback, the way the game was building up at the end, you have to understand why some people are very, very upset the game stopped when it did. Not just Liverpool supporters, but also the neutral watchers just enjoying a great finish. The stadium announcement said the referee has added a minimum of 3 minutes, and that's what the sign board is supposed to be, a minimum. If only 1 or 2 had been flashed, maybe even Liverpool's coach wouldn't have chased after the ref pointing at his watch. But that was a great game, a great moment, and everyone had every reason to expect at least one more chance.
I know, and I completely agree. I knew it was going to be contentious when I saw him putting his whistle into his mouth around the 2:40 mark. I was just saying that if the only problem people are complaining about is when he called the game, instead of missing a possible obvious foul in the area, or an elbow, etc., he probably had a good game.
I thought the whole crew had a pretty good game. I did notice the odd mechanics someone talked about in previous threads that German ARs seem to have. However, I have never been a big "stickler" for all the stupid mechanics that some federations seem to focus on. IMO, no way you call that handling. He was clearly trying to chest it and he had his arm flush against his body. What is the guy supposed to do, cut off his arm in order to play the ball? Steve Nicol is clearly an idiot. Stoppage time was interesting, but whatever. Perhaps there was some miscommunication, who knows. Overall, as Citiref said, if the only thing being nitpicked is the final whistle, it was a good match....and a BORING match as well.
No, he's a former Liverpool player. (No, those are not the same thing, before you Chelsea and ManU fans start up...)
Just a call from the minute 55: pass forward by Milan, Kaka is onside and Inzaghi is offside. Kaka receives the ball and faces the keeper, Inzaghi keeps running forward, even with his teammate and the ball. At this moment, offside is called. Under former criteria, it would be a no-brainer offside call, but given the new interpretation, I'm not sure. I can see the point that the goalkeeper plays differently a 1v1 than a 1v2 situation, so Inzaghi would affect the play, but Inzaghi didn't even touch the ball. What if Kaka had shot on goal straight on? How do you guys see this one?
Thank you! I wasn't going to be the first to say it, because of how the recent thread on Ortega developed, but seriously, I don't know how anyone can advocate a handling call here. When I watched it in real-time, I honestly thought to myself "well, at least no one will be advocating deliberate handling on bigsoccer for this one after the game," and then I see this thread. I just don't get it. His arm can't go away. A free kick was struck, powerfully, into goal-mouth traffic. It might hit something and it might deflect. So it hit his arm, which was by his side. So? The above quote from Ref Flunkie sums things up perfectly. Just to be safe, I want to address what seems to be the sole argument in favor of calling the play deliberate handling, which is that he was turned to look back at the ball. Ask yourself this: when you're making a run at goal and a teammate is launching a free kick from 10-12 yards away at upwards of 70-80 mph in your general direction, would you want your back completely turned? Players look back in those situations to see where the ball is and, hopefully, duck if it's coming at their head or get out of the way/jump over the ball if they have time to react. Honestly, that's what this looked like here. Remember, the initial free kick was very possibly going on goal; Inzhagi--and the rest of us (at least in real-time; we can deduce what would have happened from replays now)--had no idea whether it would have been saved or not. To think that just because he was looking back slightly and the ball deflected of his arm means that he deliberately handled it takes more than a couple conclusions that aren't readily apparent.
Any of you guys have any thoughts regarding Kuyt's goal? I've heard some say that he looked offside.....but the ball appears to glance off Maldini last before Kuyt heads it in. Am I correct in understanding that the flag down was the right call under such circumstances?
There are two big differences between this play and the Ortega play. In this one Inzaghi's arm is next to his body, and the ball was drilled at a much higher speed from close range. In the Ortega goal, the arm was extended, and the ball was lofted from much farther away, giving Ortega time to move his arm to the desired location. Inzaghi had no time to move his arm out of the way.
Writing off the whistle in the mouth, ARs calling goalkicks from the 18, etc as being acceptable in Germany, it was a good game overall. Could have been a couple cautions in the first 20-25, scissors tackle, player on a break checked to the ground, but he got his message across and it didn't happen again. I personally didn't like where his trigger levels were on some of the fouls, but he was consistent and it's not his fault if players, especially Kuyt, preferred to get called and scream rather than stopping. I'm still not willing to concede the timing was nitpicking though. If we were discussing how much should have been added, sure. But the board creates an expectation that there will be at least that much time on. It was also flashed before a sub by the winning team which burned nearly a minute, so does that mean the ref was originally going to stop around 2 minutes or didn't think he should add for the sub?
I would've been very, very happy if the referee HAD interpreted the play in this way. But there's no real ground to complain about the call, Steve Nicol to the contrary.
I had the same thoughts, but didn't take the time to review the play afterwards. The key point is where Kuyt was when the first header by Liverpool was played. The Maldini head does not reset since it was a deflection. At any rate, it was very close.
Funny, I was just thinking of this play because I thought it was offside live and happened to watch on YouTube. It's available here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_d-ix9Uxw1k To start, the glance off Maldini doesn't reset anything. We have to look at where Kuyt was when the ball was initially headed from the corner. If you freeze the replay at around 17 seconds, you see that it's very close. Kuyt looks offside because he's definitely behind his marker. But I think the other Milan player in the goal area probably kept him on. Remember, we deal with the parts of the body closest to goal that could play the ball. So that's Kuyt's right foot/hip vs. the Milan player's back or his trail leg (whichever is further behind, you can't tell). In other words, it's really, really close. From this, admittedly poor replay, I think you have to make the case that they were about even, so the no flag is a good call (but not because of the Maldini deflection).
Gotcha. But that begs the question (at least from someone like me who admittedly is not a ref): what exactly is the rule about the ball being last played off a defender.....?
Offside is penalized based on where the attackers are when last played by a teammate. Each touch by a teammate resets from the previous touch. Deflections by the defense do not reset on/offside status. If the defense controls the ball, then offside status is also reset.
Thought Fandel was very average to be honest. The game itself was very slow (partly because both teams were fairly poor on the night), and dull, and I don't think Fandel helped it by being so panickety, and not really allowing the game to flow. Inconsistent is how I'd describe his performance. It was very hard to know whether or not he was going to give the free kick whenever someone went in with a high foot, as he was allowing ones to go where the foot was higher than ones he'd given. Aerial challenges were generally outlawed. And his cautions were also very inconsistent. Dan Agger should definitely have been cautioned for his highly cynical block on Kaka, which then made any caution afterwards for a tactical or cynical foul inconsistent. He had to be badgered into booking Alonso. Then there was the shambles of stoppage time. You can't blow for full time after 2 minutes 42 seconds of a signalled 3 minute stoppage time that included a 30 second (at least) substitution, when one team has only just scored to make it 2-1 in the final of any competition, let alone the Champions League final, it's ridiculous. There should have been at least another 45 seconds, which given all the momentum for the previous 3 minutes had been Liverpool's after they scored the goal, and had Milan on the backfoot, there could have been a different outcome. Both teams were fairly average, and I have to say Fandel could only match them. As for the ARs, apart from the usual German AR mechanics, which I can't stand, given how much emphasis there is on the technical side of ARing here, I thought they both generally got the main decisions correct, including the Liverpool goal.