hi guys, noob to the refs forum here. watching the carling cup today i thought that play should have been stopped either for offsides or interference on theo walcott's first goal.... right? http://bit.ly/cHqNkz (the sequence begins at the :40 mark) in case the video gets pulled, here's what happens.... -bendtner is offsides by a healthy 20 yards and retreating back towards midfield -the ball is played long to a flying theo walcott, who is onsides and has 2 defenders pursuing him -bendtner raises his hands to acknowledge to everybody that he is offsides and will not take part in the play and he continues to trot towards midfield -while retreating back towards midfield, bendtner 'unintentionally' runs into the newcastle defender who likely has the best shot of catching up to walcott and knocks him down -walcott scores, no offsides/foul given note: the commentator kept discussing the "new offsides rule" that fifa has instated. what's so "new" about it? thanks!
In my view offside. He's interfering with the defender...and even though Walcott goes through fine at the time you don't know if he might stumble might try to go around the keeper and that defender gets back to cover the line. Bendtner could have just stopped and stood perfectly still but no he decided to run back and it looks to me like he ran purposefully into the path of that defender. Now who should call it? It's obvious he's offside so I believe that the CR should have this one. Nothing would be worse than the CR finding nothing wrong with that play and looking back at the AR with his flag over his head. Basically your crew loses all respect in that one play, your day is done.
walcott carries the ball past bendtner, before bendtner makes contact with the defense, so offside is reset. bendtner definitely fouls the defender, tactical imo, so caution.
One argument I think one can make was he was not "offside" when he interferred (assuming he initiated the contact and not the defender). i.e if Walcott had played him the ball at the time of the contact, he would have been onside. And yes, I am an Arsenal fan. But just trying to think what might have been going through the ref's mind not to call it.
check the timing of the touches on the ball again. When W first touches the ball, B is still OSP. The contact occurs before the second touch, so there was no reset until after the contact. I agree with Yogi: OS. Could also be a foul. (I don't see this as a tactical foul or otherwise caution-worthy. See I&G: "commits a foul for the tactical purpose of interfering with or breaking up a promising attack")
That reasoning doesn't work. He can only be relieved of OSP by another touch of the ball while he is no longer in OSP. Since there was not a touch, the fact that he would have no longer been OSP if there was a touch is irrelevant. As to what was going through R mind: First, R is probably not looking for OS in the first instance. Second, I'm guessing he was following the ball and the other defender and did not register OS and either did not see the foul or thought it was trifling. The AR was presumably at a sprint with the ball and missed the off ball contact. I agree watching the video it should have been called, but I can see how it could be missed in real time due to where CR and AR might have been focused. (Anyone think this is something 4th should have brought to attention of CR?)
you're right, bendtner is the attacker, not the defender, so no yellow! but, his foul is for the sake of a numerical advantage and the delaying of the defender to the play, which still seems unsportsmanlike.