Penalty........or not? [R] Jordan v Thailand

Looked like a push in the back to me, but looked like it happened outside of the penalty area

 

It looks like the initial push was outside of the portion of the pitch that shall not be referred to as a box but the contact continued into the space that can be awkwardly refered to as a rectagular prism.

 

That view, it definitely looks a foul, but the angle is far from ideal and the lack of replays doesn't help.

 

If it's a foul, it's a penalty, but as has been mentioned, the camera angle, etc., isn't the best.

 

It's hard for me to tell from the video if there was a push or a trip or no foul but the referee was close enough. The push if it existed appeared to be outside of the penalty prism. But...did anyone look at what happened at around the 1:11 mark? An attacker is clearly pulled down not only well inside the penalty prism but by the last defender but the keeper. The 4D's are all there and not only does this appear to be an obvious foul but also DOGSO. The referee apparently was calling nothing that day

 

foul... free kick just outside the box

 

I agree that the foul started outside the PA. From the footage I can see, I can't tell if it's a push or a hold, but it definitely appears to be a foul, and not simulation. I'm not going to get into the DOGSO argument. Although I understand the reasoning behind awarding a penalty for a foul that begins outside the PA and continues inside, I don't like what it has done to the game. I have seen a number of players, from the weekend warrior games that I work all the way up to the pro's who will work hard to play through a foul if the chance to get a good shot off only to go down as if shot as soon as they reach the PA. It seems to me to be a warped extension of the use of advantage. If you are fouled at midfield, and then continue for 2-3 yards only to lose the advantage of playing on, the original foul is called and the FK taken from the spot of the ORIGINAL foul, where it began. The exception to this is a foul that occurs outside the PA but continues in. It's the only time, at least as far as I can come up with off the top of my head, where the FK is awarded based on where the foul ends up. I think it is causing players to stay up for the sole purpose of earning a PK, when the foul obviously started 3 yards outside the area. Just my 2 cents, and I know that it is incorrect acording to the current teachings, but something that I was thinkning about when this issue came up before.

If it were me, I would award a FK outside the PA, and if questioned, state that I recognized the foul there, and waited for the advantage to develop. I understand that the player ended up on the ground inside the PA, but I awarded the FK for the original foul, OUTSIDE the PA.

 

I think you are missapplying the concept of a foul continuing in to the box; it does not matter where the attacker ends up, but where the foul stops. If, say, the attacker is pushed and falls in to the box, it is a DFK, not a PK. If the attacker is being held and the defender lets go of him before the box, but he decides to fall inside of the box, that is simulation and not advantage. If the defender grabs a hold and keeps holding, the foul is where the holding ends - whether this brings the kick from a player's own penalty area to midfield or from midfield in to the opponent's penalty area.

 

I must be missing something here because I could tell if it was a push or a trip. There's no isolated view or replay. The picture quality is poor and there are several players in the foreground.

 

I don't think I'm misapplying the concept of a foul continuing into the BOX, I'm saying that I disagree with the concept completely. I don't care if the attacker is held on a 50 yard run. Once I see the foul, if I think advantage can be applied, I will allow play to continue, but if I call the original foul, the FK should be taked from the spot of the original foul. The foul has occurred when the referee decides that the foul has occurred, not when he blows his whistle, just like the ball is out of play when the referee has decided it is, not when he blows the whistle. I have decided that the foul occurred, and I'm allowing play to continue solely for the purpose of waiting to see if advantage applies. If it doesn't apply, then I call the original foul. That foul occurred when I decided it occurred, and WHERE play was when I decided it occurred. This whole "continues into the PA" thing seems ludicrous to me, as it is the only time that you award a free kick based on where the the play was when you blew the whistle, and not where the play was when you decided that the foul was commited.

 

No, I still respectfully think you don't get it. The only reason a foul continues in to the PA is because the player is still being fouled there. If you like, you can think of it as a brand new foul, but the fact is that player WAS strong enough to play through the initial contact and chose to do so; he has gained an advantage by doing so, but the defender does not respect this and chooses to continue fouling him. If the defender did not hold his jersey all the way in to the box, he would have been free in on goal; thus, he deserves the PK. And for the record, I do apply this concept on all parts of the field, and it does not have to do with where play is when I blow my whistle. If I thought advantage might materialize and it didn't, the foul is where it initially happened. The concept of a foul continuing is basically because the defender is committing one long foul, which can be thought of as multiple fouls if it makes it easier to rationalize.

 

I see your point. I'm happy that we can keep this as a respectful "agree to disagree" thing. I understand why the advice is written as it is, and we are supposed to call it that way. I just think it's bogus. I can at least say that I would take it on a case by case basis. If an attacker is being held and making an honest attempt to continue to the goal and just gets massacred, I can buy buy the argument of awarding a PK, I just don't agree with it. If the attacker keeps going and as soon as he enters the PA hits the deck, then I think it's at least a gray area. He WAS fouled, so even though the attacker obviously made a meal out of the contact, a foul still occurred, so you shouldn't book him for simulation. We are required to call the first foul, so the foul on the attacker happened before the simulation would have, therefore you have to award the FK outside the PA. Like I said, I understand the thinking behind the continuation of a foul, I just don't agree with it.

I don't buy the argument of this one long foul being considered multiple fouls for the sake of rationalization. The contact is either a foul or it is not. Theres nothing in between. If we apply advantage, we have still recognized that the initial foul was commited, but we are allowing play to continue for the sake of playing the advantage for the offended team. We are playing the advantage based on the original foul from the original place. Even IF the attacker was strong enough to play through the initial contact, that contact WAS still a foul, and I don't think that being fouled again constitutes an advantage from the previous foul. In this clip, the attacker never gained an advantage after the initial foul (I also don't think that earning a PK later is an advantage under the advantage clause; if you're an attacker it's a good thing, but not an "advantage"). This is not a case of a player being fouled at midfield and playing through, to be fouled 35 yards out and playing through, and being fouled a third time in the PA and not being able to play through. In that case the advantage would be the continued development of the attack. That doesn't happen here. The initial contact stopped the attacking opportunity, and IMO there was no advantage after that initial contact. Even if, for the sake of argument, we do consider the multiple foul issue, I thought when there are multiple fouls in sucession, we punish the first foul (i.e. a player who gains an advantage from being in an offside position then handles the ball, even though the handling is a more severe offense, since the offside position was determined when the ball was played by a teammate, it happened before the handling, so we penalize the offside). We only punish the more severe foul if more than one are commited simultaneously (off the top of my head, I can't come up with an example). In this case, using multiple instances of holding in succession would require us to punish the first hold, and thus generate a free kick outside the PA, at the sight of the first hold.

 

Official USSF position:

Interestingly enough, I cannot find the position paper referenced above on the US Soccer website.

 

Firstly, to be clear, I don't think this is a case of continuation; I view this clip as a foul outside of the box, with the attacker falling in, which is definitely not a PK.

To answer the idea that we always punish the first foul, that is not always accurate. If we are rationalizing by assuming multiple fouls, we can say the first ones were deemed to be advantage, and it was only on the final moment, the contact the attacker could not play through, that was an actual foul, as it was the only one advantage did not materialize from. This is different from the idea of an IDK for offside v DFK for handling because in that case there is no advantage to the defense on the initial offsides, so we must call that first offense. I hope that makes sense.

Now, you are right that an attacker who plays through contact all the way in to the box then falls immediately in the box, even if there was still contact, probably does not deserve a PK, but this is not necessarily because of a continuation issue - rather, by deciding he will no longer play through contact in the box, he is taking a trifling foul and making it necessary to stop play. How you choose to handle this is up to you: it can be a foul outside the box if you think that was really a foul simulation if you think the contact was not enough to make him fall and he merely chose to, dissent if you think he fell to signify he though you should have called the foul a long time ago, or a play-on if you see nothing of interest here. At least, those are my thoughts on that concept.