The fitness level is not the same for the players in the lower tiers. Fatigue clearly was a major factor especially with the increased speed of the game at which the teams in the upper divisions play. If both these teams get the promotions they are in good contention for, they will not survive long in the next highest division. Especially Sheffield Utd. PH
Decisions mentioned from Sheffield United vs. Wrexham last night: https://files.catbox.moe/xnsjt6.mp4 https://files.catbox.moe/7sn1ml.mp4 https://files.catbox.moe/jhpezj.mp4
I honestly do not understand how that is missed. He is in perfect position and looking directly at the play. Ok, at :24, what exactly is Mullin wearing under his kit? Is he Annie Savoy's project for this season?
I genuinely forget, but you don't officiate, right? Or don't any longer? I ask because I look at that play and don't understand how anyone thinks he has a chance in getting that right without guessing (or that he's in perfect position--more on that below). By the time the shot hits the arm, the referee is looking through the back of the shooter AND another defender who has come across to challenge the shooter. I'm sure the video could be slowed down to demonstrate it's possible he had an angle the handball contact for a nanosecond before it was completely obscured, but we're talking about a shot at 70mph+, I'd imagine, with three relevant moving bodies (two of which are moving to obscure his view of the incident). Then you layer in the question of whether or not the arm is tucked tight to the body or raised. All of this has to be adjudicated perfectly in... less than a tenth of a second? And the consequence of an affirmative decision is that the game is, essentially, over. No, I don't think there's a top referee in the world who--with that view and that positioning--would make that call unless they were willing to use context clues to sort of guess on it. He's also not in perfect position. Note that he comes to a complete stop and goes stationary a couple moments before the ball is struck. Top level instructors and experienced referees will tell you that you should keep moving your feet there so that you're continuously exposing yourself to more angles as the play evolves. It's hard--I'm guilty of not doing it myself--because you don't want to drift into a passing lane or a location where a rebound might come to, but if he is still moving ever so slightly to his right as that shot gets taken then he's not looking through the back of players and he has an infinitely better chance of getting this right.
Webb gives it away that basically you won't see any involvement via VAR that we see in MLS or the rest of Europe and you can tell that's orders from above. I think you will see more involvement for SFP and obvious violent conduct. I don't think the Casemiro red card occurs before Webb gets there. Are we gonna suddenly see a bunch of penalty kicks for handling or careless trips? No.
This is where the English instruction of "only give what you see" backfires. We are taught that we have sometimes have to be detectives out there. We are taught to use context clues to make decisions. Elite referees sometimes just have to smell the situation and make a decision that they don't clearly see. He may not have seen the ball actually hit the hand, but he did see the defender lunge like that. He did see the attackers and everyone else's reaction. Your gut should say penalty.
Yes, but... I think that philosophy can still work in an amateur match these days. Once someone sees the video, presuming it's good enough, everyone is long gone and the stakes are much lower. If he does what you're suggesting in this match and video immediately shows the ball is off the face or the outer shoulder and that it wasn't really a penalty... well, his progression up the ladder might be over. Or at least stalled for a year or two. We are talking about a career-defining call if it's wrong. This is back to the error of commission versus omission issue. For a variety of reasons, it's easier and better to be wrong by omission than commission. Missed handball? Happens all the time, plus they are all, to some extent (somewhere with somebody!) debatable. Calling a phantom handball? Unforgiveable. This is also where the lack of VAR makes the calculus different. Does a referee do what you suggest in a VAR game knowing he can fix things? Maybe. Or at the very least, he can immediately tell players he missed the contact and VAR WILL fix things if he got it wrong. Here? Without VAR and given the moment and the stakes, I totally get why a referee isn't going to call what he couldn't see.
I guess you can't say he had a great game if he misses the PK shout. But, I am with MassRef, he is blocked and apparently doesn't want to be a detective. Understandable miss (to me).
Maybe you guys are correct. I understand not being a detective. I know angles can be weird, but it looks like he is looking right at it.
Angles aren't weird if you choose an applicable one. Any shot from that, well, angle, is going to make it look like the referee is looking at it. You've chosen a camera angle that shows the two relative points without possibly demonstrating what, if anything, is in the path from point A to B. Look at the attached, from 0:22 of the video you commented on.
Did the USA broadcast ever show the lines for Leeds' opening goal today? I think this is the first time that, to the naked eye, I'm pretty convinced something was offside but am apparently wrong. Usually it's in the other direction. But in this case, the cut of the grass makes it look like Bamford is closer to the goal line than any other opponent and I'm trying to reason how, I guess, Martinez's shoulder(?) is closer to goal?
They *never* showed it. I had a question in one of the lead up passes that there might have been offside, but without lines it was too close for me to say. Also, in the 47+ Martinez appears to possibly kick-out at an opponent on the ground putting his studs into the opponent's face. VAR looked at it and I guess thought it wasn't excessive nor brutal, but it sure had a whiff of that.
The thigh on thigh there is pretty consequential. The thing lost in all this is that if it was outside the area, there was a case for DOGSO red. So it was reviewable to that extent. Of course, in England, that's not happening. Regardless, unless Hooper thinks it's a total dive he should be blowing the whistle there and giving the free kick and yellow at minimum. And, if he thinks it's a total dive, then the opposite. This is defensive "VAR will bail me out" at its finest... except, of course, VAR won't bail him out. There's some debate in all three major incidents but I would say what Lisandro Martinez is able to get away with in this game is staggering. In La Liga, we'd be talking more likely than not pen+yellow, VC red and DOGSO red for three separate incidents. In England, he wasn't penalized for any of the alleged fouls.
Right. It's that first pass into Bamford. The immediate replay slowed it down and paused on it. Makes me think they knew to check it. I mean, they had to check it. So it had to be onside (right?). But very weird not to show the result on something that close. It absolutely looked offside to me.
I thought about this, but my feeling is that what we see given and not given in England, I thought the contact was "not enough"... In other leagues, my read on it would be different.
I found this very interesting, despite being in the middle of the pack in the Championship for touches in the box and fouls against, Bristol City has not been awarded a penalty in 65 games: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/10/sports/soccer/bristol-city-penalty-kicks.html
WHU-CHE 88’ Limited replays but certainly looked like a penalty for CHE; the arm wasn’t supporting him on the ground when he blocked the ball.
I have a question about this. I agree that the referee is likely unsighted in this play. (This is back to the wrexham game) But even if he wasn’t, isn’t he lingering on the kicker and the defender who is closing on him for a fraction of a second to make sure there isn’t a foul after the shot is away? That’s what i usually do, which means i wouldn’t have even been looking at the block. Or should the referee ball watch in this case?
This is what you get with rigid instruction. Referee reluctant to call it because it’s the arm on the ground and then VAR won’t send it down for that reason. But yeah, he basically just made a deliberate save with his hand. All those PowerPoint slides apparently make people forget the deliberate part and other relevant considerations. Also, the Ghost of Faghani lingers.
You’ve got to have eyes on both. This is where peripheral vision is key. But the priority is the shot on goal. If there’s a late foul, that’s easier to sense than trying to sense a handball. Also I’d stress that movement is key here. His getting stuck in one place is a big part of the problem here. Maybe the fundamental one.