Doesn’t matter if she was offsides by ten meters. Later in the play she was behind Sophia Smith when passed to who then flicked it to Rodman.
Not sure this matters since it wasn't a goal anyway, but... It's not whether or not Rapinoe is involved in active play later on. You can be in an offside position, but not committing an offside offense if you're not interfering with play, interfering with an opponent, or gaining an advantage. She was doing none of the above (all of which are narrowly defined in the Laws, and none of them involve dummying a pass later down the field) when she was in an offside position, and she was in an onside position when she becomes involved in active play (dummying the ball, slight touch). Referees (at least I was, at much lower levels without VAR) are instructed to take "camera shots"/freeze frames in their mind with every touch of the ball looking down the offside line, and in their head saying "on" and/or "now off" for each offensive player on that line, with each "freeze frame." But just because at a certain "camera shot" a player is "off," meaning in an offside position, you don't raise the flag until they become involved in play, directly from that camera shot/freeze frame. Previous "camera shots" don't matter. There were multiple "camera shots" in that AR's mind from the time Rapinoe was in an offside position to when she became involved in play, as Smith (who had been offside) carried the ball down the field and finally crossed it (when Rapinoe was onside). I know that's a super long explanation, and may not have made sense. Obviously I was never a referee instructor. But anyway, clearly, it was Smith who was called off as she receives the ball coming from an offside position, narrowly so (and the camera angle is terrible to actually see it...I'm hoping VAR had a better angle to call that from).
How can you say clearly it was Smith who was off side and say the camera angle is terrible to actually see it. (She wasn't), and Pino was. Same deal as my response to Klingo. Pino was offside and directly involved in the play.
Pinoe can be offsides by a hundred meters for all I care. If Sophia receives the ball and dribbles ahead or passed of Pinoe and Pinoe gets involved in the crossing then she wouldn’t be offside whether Sophia Smith was Offside or not in the game.
The analysis by @lil_one is excellent. I’ll just add one note. The meaning of active involvement has evolved a lot over the past decades. What used to be clearly enough for active involvement and an offense is often now clearly not enough. It’s imprecise, but one way to think of it is the bubble of active involvement has shrunk significantly, and if you want to go back to the 80s, I’d say it has shrunk dramatically. IFAB has been steadily trying to limit active involvement to only have an offense when the OSP player has a significant impact on play.
You lost me with this sentence. There was no such thing as "passive" offside in the 80's. If you were off when the ball was kicked, you were off. Period. I played college ball in the 80's, don't tell me about the 80's.
Been away from a key board for a couple weeks... Is it too late to register the VAR call was bullsh*t?
We can debate if Smith was offside or not, but it's "clear" because the call was offside and there was no one else who committed an offside offense. It's debatable because the camera angle on TV was not great, but we did get the lines on the screen that showed that she was offside. I'll also point out that we benefited from a similarly narrow offside call in the 2019 WWC against England; we as viewers just had a better TV angle to see it from in that case. As I said before, Pinoe was not offside because being in an offside position is NOT an offside offense. When Rapinoe was in an offside position, she was not directly involved on that play. That play is now over (you can erase the "freeze frame" of Rapinoe in an offside position from your mind), and she is in an onside position on the ball that she dummied to Rodman (that's another play, i.e. another "freeze frame"). Think about the actual still shot they show on the TV as the "freeze frames" I'm talking about. The one where Smith and Rapinoe are both in an offside position (the one we're actually talking about), Smith becomes involved in active play directly from that "freeze frame" in that she receives the ball. Rapinoe is on the other side of the field and not involved in active play. If there were to be a separate freeze frame of when Rapinoe becomes involved in active play, that would be at the point when Smith crossed it, and Rapinoe was in an onside position then. I don't know how to make it clearer as I feel we're all just repeating ourselves, so I'll leave it there.
First, it's clear she's offside, because you can see she's offside. Regardless of the camera angle, just look at who is closer to the next grass stripe, Pino or a defender. That's why it's "clear." Second, you are wrong. AR's are told to keep the flag down until after the play. If Pino was off, and not passive (she was not passive), then it's an offense. AR has to keep the flag down until the play resolves.
Since this thread is getting worn out, but had some discussion about whether there is something wrong with a short post -- in the context of the current NWSL scandal -- about liking a player’s changed hair style, I have a question for those who thought something was wrong. This is a serious question, and so anyone who takes offense at the question knows where I am coming from, I too had an uh-oh reaction to the post given the context of surrounding events (but also thought no response was necessary). Here is the question: Today, the Houston Dash tweeted a series of pictures of Michelle Alozie with the caption Resident Fashion Icon. Three of the pictures show her playing soccer and one is a head shot. The tweet clearly is emphasizing her fancy hairdo combined with her soccer skills. Is the tweet appropriate? If it is, how does that fit with the critique of the post I have referred to? What are reasonable ground rules you think fans should follow? Should the rules be different for female fans than for male fans? Should the rules be different in relation to different players, depending on the extent to which they present themselves as fashionistas as well as soccer players? I really am trying to think this through and am wondering, so I hope readers will take this in that spirit.
I brought it up in the Referee Forum so there was some discussion of it there as well https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/uswnt-eng-rodman-goal-ruled-offside.2122931/
I FINALLY FOUND some xG analysis for the game (next assignment, find xG for US vs Spain) from Total Football Analysis England xG 2.2 (including the PK) US xG 1.19 (obviously excluding the called-back Rodman goal) So in the run of play (and I prefer xG summaries which separate the PKs), it's clear that the scoring opportunities were quite close between the two teams (especially if we add in the xG on the Rodman "no-goal) which shouldn't be a big surprise since England only outshot the US 12-11 xG is now a standard key stat in the men's game. It really bothers me that in WoSo neither journalists or most of its fans can be bothered to think it important. Total Football Analysis stats by Chris Darwen (xG is on page 2)