As a player, I have found the "deliberate accidental and intentional not the same" thread fascinating. I'm still not sure how to differentiate 'deliberate' vs. 'intentional' - I've always used the terms interchangably. My usual role is as the sweeper, so handling offenses are of special interest to me - given that my handling offense will often result in a PK against my team! I have a couple examples from actual play that happened to me that I'm curious about. Both of these involved potential handling calls in the penalty box, and I want to make sure I understand the referee's point of view. Both of these examples are from adult rec leagues, with experienced players. 1. An attacker about 25-30 yards from goal has the ball, and a defender is about 10-15 yards from him, inside the penalty box, between the attacker and the goal. The attacker is clearly perparing to shoot. The defender stands perfectly still, arms at his sides. The attacker shoots, and the defender makes no move to protect himself. The ball strikes the defender's hand and drops to the ground, and the defender plays the ball clear. The shot was not particularly hard, and the defender could have moved his hand out of the way. The goalkeeper was in position behind the defender, and would have made the save had the shot missed the defender. Your call? 2. A defender inside his own penalty box attempts to clear a bouncing ball. He extends his left hand for balance, and attempts to volley the ball with his right foot at roughly waist level. He badly miskicks the ball, and drives the ball into his extended left hand (rather than up the field). The ball drops to the ground, and the defender proceeds to clear the ball. The defender did not have time to move his hand out of the way of the ball. There were attacking players in the vincinity, but none were close enough to make any play on the ball. Your call? Thanks in advance for any thoughts! Kryten
The key here is that the defender "could have moved his hand out of the way." It is a conscious decision by the part of the defender to leave his hand there, and thus it is a deliberate action. Subsquently if he handles the ball through this deliberate action, it is a foul. In this case the restart is a penalty kick, but most likely not misconduct. Given this scenario, the action takes nothing away from the game and thus I would deem it a trifling offense. However, if an attacker was attempting to make a play on the ball I would award the PK. It's generally accepted that playing the ball into one's own arm is a handling offense. For all the referee knows the handling of the ball was completely deliberate, just staged by the player to look accidental so as not to be called.
Re: Re: More Handling Examples Kryten, I think it is great as a player you are expressing ideas and thoughts on the refereeing site. As a non colleague you are still in partership with the game and the officials who hopefully try to let you enjoy it.. You are astute, the word deliberately and intentionaly are used interchangably to quantify a difference between accidental and on purpose as an opinion or evaluation of the actions. Statesman logic in the afore mentioned thread is essential for players to understand so when they know they did not mean to HANDLE they could still be quilty of the foul. In your first senario it would appear that a simple side step to get into the line of flight would solve the handling. We could see it as trival if we felt it was misjudged say via wind sheer as you say there was no movement to play the ball with the body and the arms were certainly not flailing about. However, there is room to see a PK as you make the point it was unneccessary for the player to allow the ball to impact the arm. It most likely is a YHTBT situation but a PK is certainly probable. The need to caution is doubtful and no reason to see red. In the second situation there is an attempt to clear the ball but with no control. Much like a deflection on a passback off the foot we would not award an INDFK and here it would be harsh to award a DFK thus PK for such an event in MY opinion. Generally when a player moves into the ball seeking to control it, a misjudgement does not save him or her from the deliberateness of the act but how deliberate were the arms placed to play the ball? As an opinion we can reflect on the actions of the kick as accidental and the arm motion was instinctive to retain balance not play the ball. I think Statesman's concept as trivial but willing to make it a PK if there is an attacker present is not one I could easily justify in my opinion although I understand its precept.. The advantage is not a consideration but whether there was indeed a penal foul. Again it may well be down to YHTBT. You can tell that even when we are mostly in agreement we still are not always going to see things exactly as another. Those grey areas are part of the match conditions which each game is played under. THe one thing about Statesman and myself if we decide to call something or not it will be the same for both teams.
I'm not a referee but the cases presented are simple. Case 1 is a PK. Case 2 is a no call. In case 1 the defender could have moved his hand but chose not to. Case closed. In case 2, the contact was not deliberate and should not be penalized, although it is quite likely that it would be penalized, for the simple reason that referees are not mind-readers.
Had #2 yesterday I had situation #2 in a U-15 top division game yesterday. Defender in PA took a swipe at a spinning ball and it bounced into her arm, which was up at shoulder level for balance. The ball dropped near her feet, and she knocked it away (still not a good clear, but at least away from the top of the goal area.) I immediately yelled "play". The attacking team's coach accepted the inadvertant part of my decision, but complained that the defender got advantage from the handling. My feeling was that once I decided that the handling was inadvertant, it made no difference where the ball went. One problem we have is that referees have very different standards for calling handling. It is such an easy call to make, and very difficult to sell non-calls. I think it is called too often, in cases where the player had no chance to get their hand or arm out of the way. I may err in the other direction, but I have seen too many games decided on PKs where I thought that the defenders had no chance to avoid the ball.
#1) In my opinion, if the defenders arms are at his/her side and not making him wider, then I'm not going to call handling if the ball pegs them in the arm. But if they are even an inch or two wider, then I'd agree with the apparent consensus that if the defender had time to move his/her arm, it would be considered handling and thus a PK. #2) I disagree with Statesman here which doesn't happen very often. The defender shanked the ball into his/her arm. He/she could have just as easily shanked it into goal. It's not handling unless I see movement of the arm - perhaps to play it down or something like that. Kryten, echoing Stateman's remarks, welcome to the board. It's great to see players really wanting to learn the nuances of the game.