I've looked at that replay more than once, and he looks in an offside position for sure. Are you saying he wasn't actually off? Or are you saying that you have some insight on the re's thoughts?
I think the important thing about refereeing is being consistent. Whether its consistently good or bad. Refereeing its a hard job, and they're not going to get every call, especially linesman. To me, the center referee was good. He missed a few plays, but every referee will. But the linesman at the top of the screen was inconsistent. In the 1st half, he called Uruguay offsides a few times incorrectly, including the pass to Cavani where he was alone towards the net and was a meter or two onsides, and he called him off. If your going to call that offsides, then you gotta call the Dutch player offsides. It WAS a VERY tough call, but just be consistent. That's all I ask for. Im not pissed at the referee as much as some others. Its a human game.
celeste, either you don't have a very good understanding of the world of refereeing or you are letting your devotion to Uruguay get the best of you. ARs don't call one offside and not another because they are being "inconsistent." He simply made a judgment on one play and made a different judgment on another. The fact that they both hurt Uruguay is coincidental. There's no way that AR is thinking, "Boy, I screwed Uruguay in the first half, better make sure I give them one here." ARs don't think that way. This isn't a "maybe-it's-a-trip-maybe-it's-a-clean-tackle" decision in the middle of the field. It's a decision of whether a guy is closer to the goal line than the ball or the 2toL defender. There is no makeup call here. People do not become FIFA ARs by doing "make-up" calls. If he incorrectly flagged a Uruguayan in the first half when he was onside and then missed RVP (for which, most of the referees on this thread feel was such a razor thin call that nobody else has really faulted him), it's an unfortunate pair of mistakes that both hurt Uruguay. Bummer for your team, yes. But as I recall, it seems Uruguay actually qualified for the World Cup on a controversial offside decision. I'll tell you one thing, karma is a real (female dog).
My stance is that when I saw it live I had the distinct impression he was offside. As it turned out I was correct but the replays show his leg/foot were off ... My point was that I don't think that the AR felt he was offside and this whole discussion about passive versus non-passive vis a vis Van Persie is a giant theorhetical discussion. That doesn't mean the discussion isn't important as we've gleamed that there are some serious flaws in the offside laws, because the language is extremely ambiguous and leave way too much responsibility to a referee/AR make an intrepretation in a split second. As we've seen it's been hard enough for the ARs to make correct offisde decisions throughout the torunament, there certainly no need to make them extrapolate intent and the like.
Over on the Post Match thread, footski has posted stills of the goal area as the ball is struck. OK it's pretty small, but it certainly looks like RvP is onside at that moment. The defender stepped up too late.
I looked at replay and I think Van Persie was onside. When you look, you have to go back past the freeze frame with the shaded area the TV replay shows you with van Persie's leg offside, that frame was late, the ball has already left Sneijder's foot by about a foot or two. When I play it back slowly for myself, it looks more onside than off.
When the honest opinions on a crucial point are this much in direct conflict, it is hard to be critical of the the officiating.
I would say it certainly isn't clear if he is onside or off, but I do agree that it is the more relevant time period in question. ]
When offside (law 11) is taught, it's two steps: 1) Determine offside position - this is a fact, he either is or isn't 2) Determine involvement - this is opinion In both cases, what is taught is "give benefit to attacking soccer", so if you are not 100% sure he's off, then he's on. So while we are debating this one (which has had some good points), remember, if at point #1 above, the AR is not 100% sure VP was off, then #2 never happened. We've shown enough information here to, I feel, state two things: 1) There is probbaly doubt in the ARs mind, so keep the flag down, on #1. 2) Even with any form of video review or 5/6 official, there's enough doubt that this goal stays.
Why is it scary? I'm not a referee, so the algorithm I'm about to post is likely to be incomplete and possibly incorrect in places (in both cases, please tell me where!), but given a player P who may be onside or offside: Identify the last touch by a player Q on P's team, or the last pass by a player R on the opposing team, whichever is most recent. Go to 2. If the last pass by a player R on the opposing team is most recent, P is ONSIDE. If the last touch by a player Q on on P's team is most recent, go to 3. If the last touch by a player Q on P's team was closer to the end line than P was at that time (or exactly as close as P was at that time), P is ONSIDE. If the last touch by a player Q on P's team was farther from the end line than P is, go to 4. If there are two players on the opposing team that were closer to the end line than P was (or exactly as close as P was) at the time of that last touch, P is ONSIDE. If there are one or zero such players, go to 5. If the last touch by a player Q on P's team was a goal kick, a throw-in, or a corner kick, P is ONSIDE. Otherwise, P is OFFSIDE. "Determine" certainly seems like a fair verb for a five-step algorithm!
If people have to think through a five-step algorithm every time, no wonder they get it wrong so often. Except for the delayed step two that might happen for whether the ball gets played by an offside position player or not, it's got to be a single step observation or it'll fail. It's why screen captures work to make the case or not--you make the pinpoint in time observation or you don't.