Gents, have a quick question on an offside restart. Attacking Team A was flagged for offside inside opp. penalty area. On the restart, Team B GK plays a short pass to a teammate inside the penalty area, the ref stopped play and asked the restart to be retaken. When I asked, he said it had to leave the penalty area on the restart. Does the ball/pass need to leave penalty area before game can resume like on a goal kick?
Yes, all free kicks taken inside the penalty area must leave the area before the ball is legally in play.
This is one of the most likely basic laws for even experienced referees not to know; not that they are likely not to know, but, in my experience, of ones they don't know this is right up there at the top.
This past weekend I recognized it as an AR and was trying to decide if it was trifling. Ultimately the other AR raised his flag and we informed the center who apparently didn't recognize the situation despite being a state referee with national ambitions.
I had a situation a few years back on a goal kick, not a free kick, where the target player got the ball on the PA line. He promptly took the ball down the field and scored. Coach was nearly livid - although this is a coach who I had seen many times, and we have a relative respect for each other, so while vehement he was not out of line. My thought was trifling, and I tried to explain it to him. The fact that none of his players could intercept the scorer in 60 or so yards (youth sized field) didn't change his opinion - I had caused his team to give up a goal. After several postings on this and other boards, we finally came to a consensus of sorts, that with lines there is no trifling. A ball is either in or out.
Agreed. Trifling only applies, IIRC, to infringements of the Laws, but situations like this aren't really infringements in my view. Line calls like this are hard-and-fast conditions of whether the ball is in play or not, and certainly at younger levels we shouldn't be winking at allowing play to continue if we're sure the ball was never properly in play.
Agree entirely. I had to call this exact play at our state cup this weekend. As I was blowing the whistle my thought was, could I retire if I got a dollar from every person about to yell at me.
... Agreed as well, BUT -- I'm very glad we no longer have to worry about whether the ball really is in play or not on a kickoff that doesn't go forward.
IIRC most of us agreed that a keeper releasing the ball slightly over the PA line on a punt could be considered trifling and handled with just a verbal warning. But yeah, there's nothing trifling about a ball that goes all the way over a touch line or goal line.
IMO, the keeper issue is apples and oranges. The other line conditions are about whether the ball is in play. The GK over the PA line is about whether a foul has occurred. Like any other foul, trifling can apply (or not apply) depending on facts and circumstances. (And I would not use the word "could" above; I would say should ...)
Actually, all defensive free kicks taken inside the penalty area must leave the area before the ball is legally in play. Offensive free kicks, which would either be an IFK or a PK, do not need to leave the penalty area.
Yes, agreed, the response was just to the phrase "with lines there is no trifling". I know, I'm probably too literal.
The local military base has its own small youth league during the late spring. They play on rather large fields for the ages compared to the league downtown, with larger numbers of players in each age group. With the fields being large, the PA is also quite large. Sometimes it will take two or more GKs to have a ball clear the PA. In these games, if a quick GK is taken and no defenders are around, I will sometimes forgive a defender getting the ball just within the PA to try to get the game moving in this situation.
Is it trifling if the ball only goes slightly out of bounds for a throw-in? Should we just keep playing? What if the player trying to save it is on the team who will get the TI anyway? Boundary lines have distinct edges for a reason. They don't fade from white to green.
As an AR it is my belief I should assist the referee and not insist. Center has a clear line of vision of the play and is not looking for my help. With a foul I would definitely have left the call to him. The question I have to ask myself though, is that a particular battle the one I want to pick if I am the only person to know it on the field when neither team cares to much about the call either way. Additionally if the center doesn't agree with me. I have damaged both of our credibilities in the eyes of the players coaches and fans. The definition of trifling is having little or no consequence. It's very likely that there would not be any real difference in the game if a defensive player plays the pass back to another defender unchallenged who immediately passes the ball up field. *If I did keep the flag down. I would have most definitely have discussed it with the center in a more private area during half time. As an AR are you going to flag for six second violations or the keeper fractionally coming out of the penalty area? How about illegal throw ins on the other side of the field? One thing I do like about headset communications is that as an AR you can assist with otherwise unnatural areas or situations where the first thought is "how did he (or she) miss someting obvious directly in front of them?"
There are plenty of times to Insist. If you have the correct angle on a call that gives you a definitive, 100%, factual answer on a YC/RC tackle, it is your duty to insist and call the Referee over, even if the other color has already been shown. There are other instances, but let's not classify this type of play with the Assist/Insist thought process. You previously said that this was a scenario that the other AR called, despite you recognizing it and wondering what to do. If it's that obvious, then you can't say you're the only one on the field to see it. Likely dozens of people saw it. "If the center doesn't agree with me"? - It's a LOTG issue that he either had a brainfart on, or was looking the other way on. A GK leaving the PA is a different decision. That decision is Handling or not, not whether a restart was properly done. You're also giving a strategic change of possession on the scenarios you discuss. If you think that the GK released the ball out of his/her hands over the PA line, then you owe them the decency of saying something to them instead of playing "gotcha". You can apply the trifling concept to a situation like this - it's a minor, likely accidental foul, in which no one was harmed physically. Conversely, that's a huge FK to give the other team for nothing (Jamaica/US in the Gold Cup, for example). I've had GKs that were touched on the PA line and I've not flagged them. We all have. If there's no one around at all, and the game just needs to get moving, then fine - a friendly verbal warning might suffice. I've done it 10-12 times total in my career...I won't pretend otherwise. It's not right, but I can understand doing it. I will say that if it's a FK inside the PA, the most educational thing you can do is call it - they all know that GKs have to come out of the PA, but few know that FKs actually do. Redoing the FK will let them learn and will save me the headache of them yelling at me that you didn't enforce it last week.
I can only speak to what we teach and are told here so in an assessment match a few weeks ago I flagged for the ball not leaving on IDK from offside - in the debrief the assessor asked about it and I told him the ball did not leave the PA and with no opponent anywhere near I considered not flagging but center could not have seen it IMO so I did flag - he said in no way could that be trifling and had I not flagged I likely would have failed.
I attended an NPSL game a couple of weeks ago where the referee crew allowed a defender to play a GK 1+ yards inside the PA. The AR was essentially even with the play and there were no opponents within ~20 yards, so I assumed that either the he informed the center over the headset or was acting on pregame instructions to not flag it. My left arm twitched a bit though.
In a situation like that, at that level, would making the call come across as pedantic? No question it would be the correct call, I am wondering if it would be right. No opponent, no disadvantage, no cheating, get the game going ref, come on, people paid MONEY to be here so they could see players play, not watch the likes of you nickel-and-dime us into a goal kick clinic, Laws? We don't need to show you no stinkin' Laws!
Actually we kind of do... What's it matter that the fans paid money, this whole movie set production shtick that pro soccer likes to profess is what causes the game to be diluted anyway. Call the match the way it is supposed to be. Especially in a case where the team isn't going to be hindered because they are getting a redo, just make the call.
Is this insisting? Sounds more like providing information you don't think the referee already has. It's up to him if he wants to change the call. Insisting is more like arguing with him about it after you told him what you know, or not dropping the flag if you get waved down, or worst of all disagreeing with him in front of a coach.
110% agree, though I see most don't (oh well). In NCAA football, rules folks have even started codifying situations where we should pass on a flag, even though yeah technically it's a foul. Some of these include: * No illegal wedge on a kickoff if it's a touchback * No holding if the one getting held makes the tackle (assuming the hold doesn't result in more yardage gained) * No holding/DPI if the pass is thrown around the same time to the opposite side of the field * No ineligible man downfield if a screen pass goes over the receiver and ends up landing beyond the neutral zone (and incomplete) My philosophy is we're out there to call advantage/disadvantage when our presence alone isn't enough to keep both teams playing fairly. Defender receives the ball one step inside the box and there's not an opponent in the vicinity, play on (but I'll let him/her know what they did and why I didn't call it that time). No one's out there to see me call this violation (well, maybe the offended coach might, but I can deal with that).