Watch the AR. If he knew it was offside, he should have never followed the play. He raised his flag as an afterthought.
Here is a challenge - go to the Vine replay. It pauses a moment before the ball leaves the passer. Try to stop it as fast as you can as soon as action resumes (click your mouse.) Take a look at how far off side the Bosnian is. This is the way the game has always been called and won't change until there is a change in technology. https://vine.co/v/MTUx3MPuvj1
Yeah but the instructional videos that even we lowly toilers in the vineyards watch over and over teach us that this one has to go to the attacker, because the eye/brain will otherwise cause us to get it wrong every time. Gives me a stomachache to watch it and imagine what's in that AR's mind now.
My problem with the call was that he was in line with the play and if he thought Dzeko was offside, then he should have raised his flag. I don't see why he ran with the play and decided to raise the flag when the shot was taken. It was clear that the one player he thought was offside was involved in the play.
Or, he was properly waiting to see if the onside teammate was going to be the one to get the ball....I think he (wrongly) thought it was OS immediately send flagged onceit was clear that was the player who would get the ball. Disagree. This is a call he should get. It's not easy, but this was a cal an AR at that level should usually get right.
The criticism of the AR on that Dzeko goal decision is ridiculous. At the moment the ball is played the upper half of Dzeko's body appears to be closer to the goal than the upper half of the defender's body. An extremely close call even in freeze frame. Let's be real here.
At the recert clinic, the back leg of the defender keeping the player on side was shown several times during the offside portion of the clinic. As for any teammate making a run, it was clear the player in question on the AR's call was out to make the play.
Code1390, I hope you are not judging it when the blue line shows up in the vid, because that is a moment too soon...
I agree with some of the posters on here that this is a bad miss by the AR. It's not even close and if you are an AR at that level you should get this right We see this type of crossing incidents at the pro level time and time again and they are almost timed right 95% of the time and yet the ARs keep flagging 'em off. At the training sessions all the ARs do is work on situations like these on the field sessions and in video sessions and yet they don't give the benefit of the doubt to the attacker.
Overall, O'Leary is a fine referee. I thought his foul recognition was good. I might quibble with his decision to not call a foul on the Nigerian goal, but there is contact by both players, my viewpoint is that the Nigerian gains an advantage by applying leverage and improving his position to the ball by holding ever so briefly. O'Leary generally stayed close to play and he got to the players to break up potential flare ups well. The amount of stoppage time was a problem. There was a stoppage for injury in stoppage time and it seemed that three minutes of stoppage was to short given the amount of time the Nigerians were laying in the field after every foul late in the match. With respect to the offside, at this level you are suppose to get this decision correct. You practice it. You review tapes of different offside scenarios. With practice you can train your eye to discern player position and when the ball is played peripherally.
It appears that you miss two important elements illustrated in one picture, the defender's left foot (legal for playing the ball) is where the line should be (misplaced to torso).
He doesnt follow it all the way through. Once he is assured that Dzeko was going to attempt to make a play on it he stopped and made the call.
Tried it. On my first freeze-frame, the ball was blurred as it came off of the passer's foot. Looked well onside. I then double-clicked as fast as I could, and by that point it looked well offside. Credit to the Nigerian defender for an incredibly quick step-up.
I noticed all game that the NZ ARs both held their flag for a lot longer than most ARs, in a similar way to how we're taught in England. This seemed to be what Rule was doing - presumably waiting to see if the ball would just run through to the keeper. When Dzeko got on the end of it, he (erroneously) put it up for offside. I'll grant you it's a decision a FIFA AR at a WC should be getting right, but the one where the defender steps up and the attacker runs through is, and will always be, the hardest decision for an AR to make. It's fine on a slow motion, or worse a freeze frame, but in full speed within a split second, with the speed of each player moving in opposite directions, you go from the striker being a yard onside to several yards offside.
If by "out to make the play" you mean he was trying to get to the ball, that is wholly irrelevant in modern Law -11 interpretation. At the moment the ball is played, there is a clearly onside player also pursuing. The proper protocol is not to flag if there is any chance an onside attacker could get to the ball. A flag at the moment the ball was passed would not have been proper.
It was clear the ball was to Dzeko and he was pursuing the ball. If in his mind he thought Dzeko was offside, he did not have to wait until he actually touched the ball to raise the flag. The onside player pursuing was too far back. Don't make excuses for a poorly executed call by the AR. If you want to cut him slack for a judgment call, we have all been there. But at this level to make it look indecisive as he did, it is not what is expected. He was not only wrong on his call but how he made it.
I'm not a referee, but I don't think I need to be one to see the foul Nigeria's goal. The Bosnian player's trailing leg was clipped which caused him to trip (after the clip, his legs made contact with each other, which may have made it look like he tripped himself). Not sure how that's not a foul.
That offside call was brutal. Changed the whole outcome of the game (a safe Bosnia leading 1-0 could have played the rest of the match calmly defending). Sorry but this ref is at fault, he could/should have over-ridden his AR. No more games for him.
If you honestly believe that CR's should start overruling AR's on offside decisions of this nature, I don't even know what to tell you.
robbed for the second time in a important match. thank you fifa. thank you ref. thank you for giving us an ref who has absolutely no experience at this level.
Checked it frame by frame. Dzeko was onside, although the above replay does cheat by a few milliseconds and Dzeko was a 'bit less onside'.
Oh good grief. There are people on this board (not many, but some) arguing, even with the benefit of slo-mo replay and computer line-drawing, that the offside call was a good one. On what basis could the CR even have remotely entertained the notion of overruling that call? CRs don't overrule the AR's offside call even in more questionable cases. It has to be something quite obvious for the CR to overrule - a missed touch or additional defender downfield or the like.