ManU v Arsenal 33", Mike Dean forcefully and emphatically applies advantage to Arsenal coming out of their 18 when AR2 signals Giggs offside, and he immediately passes it to the feet of Arsenal for a fast break coming out. Now in the USA we have advice (http://www.askasoccerreferee.com/?p=3227) telling us their is no advantage applied to Law 11. Waiving down the AR only applies to Referee insisting a player was NOT offside. To wit: a) do you follow the advice? b) does BPL or the FA have the same clarifiecation we do? If so, please reference. c) yes, I'm sick in bed, and bored.
I'm with LR, I selected "I disagree" but I still call offside as they direct. Matthew - www.footyref.blogspot.com
I ref in London, England and this is probably one of the calls that I make the most. I always play advantage in this situation as long as it is an advantage to the team with the ball. If a few seconds after, they get into trouble then I'll call the offside but the teams that I referee usually like to play on and get on with it. Of course, sometimes I'm forced into making the offside call if the defending team wants the free-kick and they usually they sub-consciously indicate this by waiting for the whistle to be made. I had a situation a few months ago. The flag went up for offside, the right back had the ball and I was waiting to see if there was an advantage to be played. The right back made a pass to his right midfielder and I shouted and signaled "advantage, play on". The opposing team who are serial moaners were complaining that it was offside and they had "stopped playing, let us know what's going on" but for a split second I was waiting to see if I was going to play on or pull the play back.
although we are advised in the US not to apply advantage to an offside call, we do in fact do just that at times. in situations where the assistant signals offside and by the referee's judgment the ball will reach the goalkeeper without danger, we are told to opt for "flow" and continue play. while in these situations the actual offside infraction is usually not as evident or may have never significantly existed at all, the principle is still the same, and that is to keep the game fluid. i personally wouldn't mind another evolution of the advantage clause that would include its application to Law 11 for those offside offenses that are rendered trivial in the big picture by a credible counter attack for the opposing team.
I think the most common "advantage" on Law 11 is really a determination that the OSP player did not ultimately interfere with play. E.g., if the player was close enough that a flag is warranted, but the GK ends up holding the ball before I whistle, I'll tell players to keep playing as the keeper has the ball; if the OSP player actually touches the ball and there is a flag, I'm not paying attention to anything after that and enforcing the OS.
Suppose a ball is played to an OSP player, who then interferes with play when the ball deflects off his foot to an opponent with space to attack. Will I call offside in this situation? Yes, but only because USSF wants me to call it. Having the option to play advantage in scenarios like this would be fairer and would improve games' flow.
The funny thing is, that if this happens with my back to the AR, he will (according to my pregame instructions) pull down the flag; and play will progress back upfield. So then I just played unconscious advantage. (I wonder what that means.)
put me in the camp that does not play advantage, unless it's the type of condition that resets the offside condition, such as possession by the keeper. my rationale: one of the few rights that the players have is to not be confused by the referee. if the AR has the flag up and play is allowed to continue, when the expectation (correctly so, at least in the US) is for a idfk, then the team who committed the infraction may be disadvantaged slightly by the time it takes them to figure out that the play is not dead. pretty scanty rationale, but it works for me to justify the fact that the USSF does not want advantage used for offside.
This is the way to approach this. By not deciding to penalize for offside, waving down the flag, we are in affect applying advantage. But, what we are really doing is recognizing that there was no reason to whistle for offside, not a total interference with play or an opponent or involvement (that is, not 100% offside). By not whistling we allow play to continue. No signal is out signal. Why need any more? Leave advantage where it belongs for fouls that need some sort of attention but do not need to interrupt the flow of the game.
I don't believe USSF is telling you to make this call at all. Do you remember reading anything like "wait and see?" This is wait and see.
As I understand La Rikardo's scenario, I disagree. USSF saying wait and see is to see if the OSP player gets to the ball. La Rikardo is saying he'd like to not call it even if the OSP player touches the ball, if that ball goes directly to an opponent who easily controls and can attack. I think USSF does expect a flag/whistle on the play LR describes -- but I'm open to clarifcation if I'm missing something from a USSF directive somewhere. With respect to changning it to permit, I'm a bit ambivalent. I'm never going to care if a ref "misses" the OS call in this case, as it just doesn't matter since the D has clear possession. But I do worry about formally putting this in as guidance, as I worry that newer/weaker refs are going to get in trouble with over-applying any exception here when there isn't a true "advantage" -- so I fear the cure may be worse than any disease. (And, yes, I realize there is a little bit of "lowest common denominator" reasoning in my view; I'm not a general fan of that type of reasoning, but here I personally don't see enough to be gained to open up the particular can of worms.)
The "wait and see" approach extends to all of offside not just onside attackers possibly playing the ball. The idea stems from the flow of a game and reading what is actually happening and not just reacting. There will never be a formal statement of instruction for applying advantage I believe. A referee using the advantage signal and announcing advantage is just over doing it. Like I said, no signal is also a signal. Not stopping play is allowing play to continue. Moving your arms in an upswing motion does not make it any more playable than not using the motion. Not whistling sends a stronger message than anything else you could do to show that play is continuing. The idea of reserving the advantage signals to fouls is to show that a foul was recognized, to hopefully prevent retaliation by the team fouled, and to allow flow to a game where the skill of the players involved can actually still play the game with little interference. Are these the only reasons, maybe not, but these are the most important parts to think about. Using advantage in a possible offside penalty is really a waste because it either is or isn't. If play is allowed there is not offside and going back to it as you would under advantage would really make you look silly and would be a very awkward action within the game itself. So, again either you will decide to penalize the offside or "ignore" it by reading the flow of play and not signaling offside.
I guess we see this issue and the guidance from USSF slightly differently. "Wait and see" is referenced only once in the ATR -- in 11.7 with respect to waiting for active inolvement: Active involvement, of course, includes interfering with play, and the ATR is clear (11.5) that touching the ball is interfering with play. So in La Rikardo's scenario, I think "wait and see," as USSF is teaching it, ended once the OSP player interfered with play by touching the ball. (If there's another USSF source that I'm overlooking that has more on this, I'm all ears.) All that said, as I idnicated in the prior post, I don't lose any sleep over an experienced/skilled referee letting play continue when the team that would have the IFK gains clear possession -- I just don't think it falls within "wait and see." (As I ponder this, I wonder if the proper hook is "trfiling," as the technical interfernce with play by touching the ball just didn't matter.)
You have all of the parts right but the ATR is not the only source of instruction nor is it everything for USSF referees to follow. Wait and see is used for foul recognition as well but that isn't within the ATR. Wait and see what develops is what this means. The defending team gaining clear control and moving the ball up field is developing play. Not waiting to allow this to happen is a book response.
OK. I've always thought of the particular phrase "wait and see" as a term of art specific to waiting to see if there is active involvement for OS. I see what you're saying -- thanks for the discussion.
I should like to see the USSF's interpretation on offside evolve to be something more like how it is written: •allows play to continue when the team against which an offense has been committed will benefit from such an advantage and penalizes the original offense if the anticipated advantage does not ensue at that time Although, there could be some debate as to whether offside is an offense against the opposing team or a technical violation of the laws, but I think, in essence they are the same thing. I think the law should be interpreted to say when the ball is in play, the referee may choose to allow play to continue after any offense committed by the opposing team where the non-offending team will benefit. The case of improperly taken restarts is another problem, but in those cases the ball is not in play and could not apply. One example would be If a player kicks the ball into play and then sees he muffed the kick and the opposing team will quickly possess it and break in 1 v keeper on the goal... if the kicker then ran and touched the ball again, according to USSF this would result in the immediate stoppage of play because double touching a free kick is violation of Law 13, not Law 12. But the better choice would be to take a moment to see if the opposing player can win the ball and take it on to goal anyway, and not let the kicking team off the hook for recognizing a loophole in the law.
How timely. I just had something like this in a game Sat. Defender throwing the ball in, in his defensive third. Tries to throw it long, but it slips and comes out pretty short. The other team is trying to pounce for a quick counter, cuz everyone was up field for the throw. He gets to the ball first. I felt I had no choice but to blow the play dead immediately for the "second touch". Had I been thinking about advantage, I definitely would have waited.
Interesting discussion. The USSF ATR says: "The use of advantage as described in Law 5 is strictly limited to infringements of Law 12 -- both the section covering fouls and the later section on misconduct. Other offenses under the Laws of the Game (e. g., violating Law 15 on a throw-in, offside, 'second touch' violations at a restart, etc.) are not subject to the application of advantage." Yet the FIFA LOTG I&G says: "The referee may play advantage whenever an infringement or offence [sic] occurs." The fact that Fifa has misspelled the word "offense" is in itself terrifying, but golly, this might be a case where the official Fifa interpretation and the official USSF interpretation are not entirely in line. Specifically, any restart violation, such as the second touch violation, is an "infringement" and could be tossed under the advantage clause in Law Five under the I&G wording, which is the real standard. Same for offside "offences." Still, my badge says US Soccer on it, so I am only applying advantage to violations of Law 12, not 11 or 13-17.
Well, there it is, the new thing I learned today. And hear I thought their was a sloppy use of spel cheque. Can I caution myself?