Brooks, Steffen, others were in a suite, as I walked by I said 'Nice job this weekend' to which Zach replied "Hell yeah" or something like that. Costa Rica tried to play a high line to counter the US speed, but they were completely over-matched.
It was an absolutely perfect evening for soccer… at least on the West side. Once the sun popped out it probably wasn’t on the East side (where I almost always sit).
but an inch is obvious in that context. This is one of the few laws that actually is explicit in what the call is. Creating a grey area because we don't like it as fans only moves the goalposts of where we'll get frustrated. A guy is 6.5 inches off vs a guy is 5.5 inches off. You really want to say those are different?
The grey area already exists, even if you want to pretend it doesn't. VAR, if you want to delve into the physics, has a margin of error by more than 6". You have to take into consideration the frame rate of the camera, correctly selecting the frame from when the ball touches the passer's foot and leaves the passer's foot, and then they have to extrapolate a line across the pitch. Sometimes they'll use the footage of one camera to assess when the ball leaves the foot of the passer and another camera that is looking further down field where the attacking player and last defender are. So, those 2 need to line up. Furthermore, they have to extrapolate another vertical line from the attacking and last-defending player's body parts which are allowed to play the ball. Those cute little lines they draw on the TV have a lots of fuzzy error in them that absolutely limits their accuracy by more than 6". The grey area you mention already exists, but it is not presented to the public as such, and we like to pretend it doesn't exist. VAR can't tell the difference between 5.5" and 6.5". Offsides is to prevent a clear advantage. If it is so close that the linesman doesn't feel confident enough to raise the flag, then I say let it play. If a goal comes from a dubious non-call, then let VAR review and overturn the linesman if the offsides is beyond its intrinsic accuracy-limiting error confidence interval.
those lines are only used in a few leagues for the exact reasons you list. I agree with you that they introduce an element of measurement that isn't available on the field for a referee crew so it seems a bit unfair. I disagree with your bolded statement, though. The law doesn't get subjective and say "clear advantage". In fact, as I mentioned before, it is written in a manner that removes almost all subjective nature from it. A player is in an offside position if: any part of the head, body or feet is in the opponents’ half (excluding the halfway line) and any part of the head, body or feet is nearer to the opponents’ goal line than both the ball and the second-last opponent The hands and arms of all players, including the goalkeepers, are not considered. For the purposes of determining offside, the upper boundary of the arm is in line with the bottom of the armpit. A player is not in an offside position if level with the: second-last opponent or last two opponents
Here's a dumb question: Would it be easier, especially with VAR, to have offsides determined by only using their feet? Then you could just line up their feet with the little lines if its close and be done with it. Yes, you can score with your chest and head and other body parts above the feet but using the feet, or the players head for that matter, would be an improvement over trying to line up armpits etc. Dumb question over.
So uhhh, how about those Jazz? I've been having fun watching the playoffs so far. They're quite the entertaining team.
Holy crap! Watching the Finland Denmark game and Christian Erickson collapsed without contact. Medical doing CPR on the field. Taken away after about 10-15 minutes. Haven’t said anything about his status but it did not look good. Match suspended. Keeping back tears. What a tragedy.
Update: wife checked Twitter and he was responsive leaving the field and awake. wow. Hope he recovers.
Scary stuff. Looks like the players did the right thing by blocking cameras, but not the media by turning their cameras elsewhere.
I was watching it live and it took a minute to grasp the seriousness of it. He went down like he had heat stroke. But on the ground it looked like a seizure. Players from both teams were crowded around him. When a Finnish player left the group crying unconsolably I thought OH S***! When the medical team started CPR I resigned myself to the probability this was one of the saddest moments in soccer history. It was joyous hearing the update that he was conscious and stabilized at the hospital. When he went down the Referee and players from both teams immediately began calling for the medical team. I was impressed with their instant awareness.
The “media” in this case was, probably, UEFA. I think they controlled the feed that ESPN was telecasting.
No, it certainly doesn't. Though, in hindsight (and as a lesson) the feed should have been cut far earlier than it was. People were completely in shock, including the production staff, I'm sure. Going forward, a protocol for things like this would make sense. It doesn't have to be for this extreme of an event. When a player is seriously injured (think broken leg) that warrants medical professionals to rush to the pitch, the rest of us don't need to be voyeurs to the moment. Cut out the feed entirely. Have the "this event is suspendered" banner, and don't force your studio folks to somehow go in front of a camera and explain this. There is a lot to look back on. Nobody, from what I saw, did anything deliberately terrible. However, we should learn from the awful emotions we all felt and realize that our instincts were telling us we had no business watching the trauma unfold. All that said, if the medical staff that treated him isn't award a medal of sorts at the final, there is no justice in this world. Those folks saved a man's life in one of the scariest moments in sporting history. It was truly remarkable, as we learn more about the incident, how swiftly they acted and how calm they were in what felt the most paralyzing moment.
I appreciate the creativity of this approach, but as you said, the sport is played with more of the body than just the foot. One thing that is interesting to note in this, if you want to make an argument, is that the whole body should count, even the arms/fingers. Under the laws of the game, it isn't an automatic infraction if the ball strikes those surfaces. There is context and nuance. But that's digressing into parts of the laws of the game that are extremely difficult to enforce/write. Answering directly: I think this approach is unfair. Defenders, naturally, will be pushing up the field. Attackers down. This means, given how we run, that the feet of a defender will most typically be closer to the attacking goal than an attackers. Thus, you'll see scenarios where the entire body of an attacker, possibly to their ankles, would be in an offside position. However, because their feet aligned with a defenders, they would be ruled in an offside position. Building on that, the implications would be for defenders to "jump" forward in tight spots. You already see defenders having to tuck their arms behind them in fear of the ball striking them and a referee crew who doesn't understand how the human body adjusts for balance will punish them for simply having an arm away from their body. This brings another element of defenders having to play to the grey area of the rule benefiting attackers. Which, I get for the viewers pleasure, but it shouldn't be severe. Otherwise, we'll slowly become arena football.
Jefferson Savarino is listed on the Venezuelan NT roster for Copa America, but wasn’t in the lineup in today’s match against Brazil.
Apparently the Venezuelan team is having Covid-19 issues and wasn’t able to publish a complete list of the roster…