So, in the 6th minute, there's a passback violation called against LA that occurs on the goal line, inside the goal area. Dan Gargan barely taps the ball to keep it from going out for a corner and keeper Penedo picks it up. Chapman rules it a passback and awards IFK. However, the IFK is given at the side of the goal area. Shouldn't it be at the top of the goal area? Law 13 says: Here's where the infraction occurred: Shouldn't the IFK be taken from somewhere right in front of where Opare is standing? Here's where the IFK was taken from:
It appears to me that he done goofed. In a way I wouldn't expect a professional referee to do... EDIT: Also, just noticed that the wall is set up 6 yards away. What the ********? This would be major points off an 8 to 7 upgrade assessment, let alone in a professional game. Is there something I'm missing here?
I posted in the MLS thread. Note also where he set the wall. They are standing where he put the magic spray, and Keane (#7) was allowed to remain where he was, roughly 6 yards from the ball. Looks to have been bungled on multiple levels....
Video of the backpass but not the IDK: http://matchcenter.mlssoccer.com/matchcenter/2014-05-21-la-galaxy-vs-fc-dallas/details/video/16647
I think the call itself is a good one - the defender had to play the ball to prevent a corner so this was not trifling. Everything after that is fubar.
Can't wait to see PRO explain this misapplication of the LOTG. This is definitely worthy of a little vacation time!
So obvious a brain fart that it hardly warrants a P of the W . . . woudl definitely have been covered in the old WiR . . . I miss the WiR . . .
Defender kicks the ball and GK picks it up. How is that a misapplication of the law? It's not a mere deflection. He doesn't play it with a part of his body other than his foot.
It's not the call that is the problem - it is the placement of the ball and the wall during the taking of the IDK
This is a big issue; though I've not seen the actual kick, apparently the change in angle turned the IDFK into a bit of farce. This ref should be removed for a big error.
All IFK's that close are a bit of a farce, but yues, it made it a worse farce . . . it is a huge error on something that rarely comes up . . . it does not surprise me that one ref (even a very experienced knowledgeable one) could have a brain freeze on this -- but all 4?!?!? Granted it occurs in the "referee's corner" but there is a reason they have headsets and all three of R's teammates should have been able to see that something was wrong. I don't think a single error is grounds for a referee being "removed" -- but I would be shocked if the referee team doesn't miss a week or some such.
This is bad because this isn't a simple judgement error, or a referee that just made a mistake in what he saw. This is a ref who saw the play correctly, made the right call, and then completely misapplied the laws. A referee at this level should be studying the laws of the game religiously, and an error like this should never occur.
The ball placement makes sense to me in 1 way - it's more like the placement would have been if the restart could have been within the 6. The foul was committed very close to the goal line and the restart is also very close to the goal line. The correct ball placement (on the 6) improves the situation for the attacking team. The placement was wrong per the rules, as many of you have pointed out, and the ref shouldn't have put it there, but that may be what he was thinking.
He's still completely wrong, and there is no excuse for that at this level...nor about the next 5 levels beneath this. I think the majority of grade 8 referees could right away point out that this was wrong. The only defense I can think of for the ball being placed where it was is if the referee somehow just saw where the goalie touched it wrong, and thought that the goalie touched it outside of the 6 yard box, where the kick was taken. But there is absolutely no excuse for placing the wall in the manner that he did, and it amazes me how he didn't realize just how wrong it looked.
I think the crux of the problem was Chapman failing to note the location of the infraction and thinking the GK picked the ball up outside the goal area. This still wouldn't explain the wall placement, but it would explain why none of the other crew corrected him, they were too far away to overrule him on the placement decision.
I wonder if that's what occurred and think that's giving him a lot of benefit of the doubt. It would explain the placement, but the GK was more than a full yard inside the area so I'm not convinced that he thought the GK was outside the goal area when he picked up the ball. Has anything been said at this point to offer this as an explanation? Personally, I think it's more likely that he knew to move the ball out, and intuition kicked in to move it to the closest location outside the area, which actually makes some sense in a case like this if you think about where the GK picked up the ball. Of course, that doesn't make it any less wrong, but if you've never encountered it before and recall only that you have to move outside the area, would you you move it 1 yard to the side or 6 yards to the top? I can at least follow the logic of choosing the shortest distance option. As for the wall placement, I've no explanation. And, there is no hiding what he erroneously thought when he marked it with the magic paint. Of course, it equally amazing that no player complained (and presumably no one on the bench either).... Pretty startling, actually.
Actually, the fact that the players/coaches had no idea what the Law said for this situation is probably the least shocking part of the story.
Well, I was wondering why no player complained, but then I thought, who does this really benefit? Is it better to have a free kick from the side, or straight on? It may actually be easier to score from a side angle like that, because if you can get the ball to anyone in front of the goal, they have the entire net to shoot at. When teams try to shoot it straight in after a touch, the wall almost always blocks it if you've got 7 guys lined up on the goal line. You could argue that the wall being close hurts the attackers, but personally in that situation I think it's possible I'd rather have the wall there than lined up on the goal line. So it's a little unclear about which team would have a problem with the placement.
I ran into an NR earlier this year who didn't know this (the part about the IFK going to the point parallel at the top of the goal area). So one person not knowing this is, while disappointing, not entirely surprising to me. Perhaps a by-product of the NR written exam being at home, in front of your computer, with any resource you want? We make sure we hit a passing score (or really dig in and make sure we get 97-98), but how much are NRs actually learning/retaining on the real nuances of the Laws? Anyway, that's not why I'm posting. The reason I'm writing is because let's say 2 of the other crew members chime in with a "that's wrong." Or, "hey, we think that's wrong." Or even "what are you doing?" Given the chaos that surrounds any attacking IFK in the penalty area, would Chapman listen to them? He should, obviously. But in the heat of the moment, if he thinks he's right and he's the one with the whistle, how forceful can the rest of the crew be to try to get him to change things? This is really bad, but it's not the dreaded two yellows without a red. An AR isn't running on the field to re-spot the kick or move the wall. The assessment and debrief, I'm sure, will go through each position, asking what they saw and what they did. There may be repercussions if no one saw anything wrong. But the brunt of this should and will fall on Chapman.
To MassRef's point, I was on a game w a referee who made this exact mistake. The AR's let him know, and he held onto his decision. The closest AR then came onto the field, and physically stood in front of the ball until the Ref moved the ball where it should be. It felt like a forever showdown at the time, but after the game talking to the assessor and a few players, they didn’t even realize that there was a disagreement. This kind of restart normally is associated with a long delay, and so players took it in stride. The mistake here wasn’t just the placement of the ball, but also the placement of the wall. That makes me think it wasn’t as simple as he got the spot wrong, but that he just didn’t know how to restart on this kind of foul.