There were referees at the Copa??? I do not remember any referee doing anything to either control matches or to enhance player safety. However there were several clowns running around the fields. I kind of expected that the small car we saw just before the start of the first match would reappear later and the whole of the referee crew pile out of it and then at the end of matches it would reappear at the end and they all would squeeze back in and exit. Unfortunately that did not happen and they were not even funny clowns. Although many matches reminded me of the start of "The Last Boy Scout" only missing the live fire weapons.
Hayes went with the personnel she knew best & trusted most. With more time, we will see a larger circle of trust and more tweaks. If Mal is healthy at the WWC, we don't lose in PKs. The D was still fantastic.
Her commentary seemed to me to be less about trusting the reserves and more about trusting herself as to what to ask them to do-- she just didn't have time enough get to know who was best at what, and she expects that will come. Made sense to me. We need to demystify the notion of "trust" in this context. It might make sense about bullpen pitchers, might not, but it really doesn't here. If you don't trust somebody, you should have brought somebody else. If you don't yet know which one is best equipped to mark Marta when she comes in late in her very last game, that's a whole different sense of "trust."
Look what happened to Sweden against the US at the 2019 World Cup. Defender "played to the whistle" and it cost her team. She tried to block it from going to Carli Lloyd, who was offside, but the ball popped over to Tobin Heath who scored off a deflection. At 1'04 of the hghlights Morgan has had a great career with the US but hopefully this will make it easier for us to avoid sticking too long with our heroes. The US probably should've moved on before the World Cup disaster last year but no one had the guts to do it — not VLATKO, not the heads of the Federation, least of all the journalists. There was only a handful of lonely fans *** Wait a second, are you talking to me? I ignored this at first because the accusation of "those of you who purport to have some expertise" is vaguely aimed (and besides it's universally acknowledged by all, including me, that I have no credentials or expertise). Also I agree that by the letter of the law that no-offside/ good goal is the expected decision here. But then you keep on directing your question at someone, some "you" — "The argument you appear to be making..." Are you talking to me?! Because I don't see anyone else here Let me just make a couple points and leave it at that for now It's a feature of intellectual conversation that the conversation often takes place on different levels; descriptive vs normative being one of the most common ones (describing how things are vs saying how things should be) It's really not your place to decide whether the Spirit of the Laws is an appropriate topic or not. I gave examples (in a subsequent post to be sure) how the Spirit of the Laws was discussed even in the Holy Temple of the Referee Forum early last year when discussing an offside decision
That's not the same thing. The meme/cliche refers to defenders who have gotten beat by a pass to a potentially offside player, but instead of racing back to defend in a better position they put their hopes in the offside flag. Tobin Heath's goal was a cross where the defender had no idea where Lloyd was behind her AND was recovered and in position to defend a second potential cross from Tobin Heath who instead scored from a ridiculous angle on a deflection from a different defender. No where *near* the type of play that the cliche saying of "put your hand down and keep playing" refers to.
Of course there are differences between the plays. For all I know one of them took place on a Tuesday. But at least you agree (I take it?) that the US goal against Sweden should've been ruled offside (since you insist on the difference)? So that's progress, I guess. Because it wasn't. After a VAR review, the goal stood. Following exactly the same rules and rule interpretations and thought process that led to the US goal against Brazil also not being ruled offside. Following the same checklist and flow-chart that Comrade @cpthomas elucicated Making the same determination that Lloyd, despite being in an offside position, neither made an "active play" on the ball as defined by the current Laws nor actively interfered with a defender
I feel like you're putting words in my mouth here and I'm not a huge fan of that. No I do not believe the goal should have been ruled offside, and I did not believe it watching the replay after you posted it. Whether or not I believed it back in 2019 I can't remember but that's not relevant. She didn't interfere with the defender. It was absolutely the correct call. The cliche I referenced, "put your hand down and keep playing", has a very specific meaning referencing a very specific circumstance in the run of play. It's not a generalization of all offside plays. You're starting to sound silly and now I'm wondering as I type that if you're testing my sense of humor. Boo to you if so.
I was afraid I wasn't putting words in your mouth. In your favor, yours is the standard, more-or-less-accepted view — that neither the goal last weekend in USA/Brazil or the 2019 goal in USA/ Sweden are offside. However "absolutely the correct call" is debatable because in the Ref Forum there's dissatisfaction with the laws and current interpretation For example Link to the post (again I can't quote directly because I'm persona non grata in the Ref Forum): https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/wwc19-swe-usa-pustovoytova-rus.2104566/#post-37897182 We've had a good discussion about the offside/ no-offside call here. I now have enough interesting examples to take up the issue soon in the NWSL Forum where I've been posting ongoing discussions on certain referee topics.
Interpretation is always going to exist, but you can't change how the rule is written in the book and change your interpretation then. That feels like what you're doing. The part that you're leaving out in the rule book in your interpretation is the *and/or* aspects of how the rule is written. These are not separate points, they are included in the same bullet point. In both the relevant rules, making an active play AND having that active play impact the opponent is what the rules require ... it's not either or. If you make an active play for the ball in an offside position but it doesn't influence the defender, it's not an offside play. That's what Lloyd did, she make an active play on the ball but the defender wasn't influenced by it. That's not an interpretation, that's literally how the rule is written. Wagners interpretation is separating the active play and the influencing the defender. Being in an offside position by itself is not an active play. Maybe you can interpret what defines an active play, maybe you can interpret what defines the influencing of a defender, but ... you can't interpret the flow chart they've very clearly been put into by the rule... both must be true for offside to occur.
I would add that it's the same reason why we see FK's and set pieces with players deliberately standing 5 yards offside. Simply being in an offside position is not enough to trigger offside, even if you think it influences a defender. You have to be doing something else.
That is pretty much the point I have been trying to make. One must read the rule carefully. It is not fair to criticize a ref for applying the rule as written. If someone thinks the outcome is wrong, then their problem must be with the rule and those who adopted it. In that case, it is fair to criticize those who adopted the rule. Some of the criticisms I have read here seem to have missed that distinction, lumping refereeing officials and rules adopters together and subjecting the entire group to criticism because the posters think the outcome is wrong. I think precision in the criticism and aiming it at the proper group would make for a much more useful discussion. Using the Smith goal as an example, I think it is clear the call was proper based on the rule. Thus I think proper criticism would have to be aimed at those who wrote the rule. The question that would be up for discussion, then, would be, "Why did they write the rule that way?" This probably would focus the discussion on whether the offside rule as we used to understand it was resulting in too little scoring, whether there really was too little scoring, and if there was too little, whether this is a good partial remedy for it.
Let's use another example: GOAL USA. ⚽️🇺🇸Trinity Rodman gives the USWNT the lead over Australia! #ParisOlympics pic.twitter.com/j20VmPyrb5— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) July 31, 2024 in the group stage game against Australia, Rodman scores a goal that, watching live, I thought would be considered offside because of Sam Coffey. However, watching the replay I immediately changed my mind and posted on twitter that "it would be incredibly harsh" if they thought she impacted any of the defenders. I *do* think that 1) Coffey was offside and 2) she did make an action, albeit one to get out of the way. However she did NOT appear to influence any of the defenders around her, including the goal keeper. They were all ball watching. I think if the goalie had come out to make a play on the ball, it would have been called off ... but she stayed at home. The defender closest to Coffey and most likely to have been impacted by Coffey's action made her own play on the ball, uninfluenced by Coffey's action or positioning. When discussing offside where you don't touch the ball and you're not being a physical impediment to the opposition, all three of the following things have to be true at the same moment: You have to be offside AND you have to make an action AND that action has to influence a defender. One or two by themselves are not enough, and that is clearly laid out in the framework of the rules. The final comparison is that we get back to Smith on Swanson's goal. Smith is offside, and an argument can be made that she makes an action against the ball by running towards it. However, there is no impact on any of the defenders or on the goalkeeper by Smith running to the ball. They are clearly reacting to her potentially being offside, which, as previously stated, is not sufficient in itself to be considered an "action". No one changed their run to react to Smith's movement towards the ball, thus no impact was made on a defender. TEAM USA STRIKES FIRST—AND IT'S MALLORY SWANSON AGAIN!1-0 IN THE GOLD MEDAL MATCH.#ParisOlympics | 📺 NBC and Peacock pic.twitter.com/rCEQNIbR68— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) August 10, 2024
Thanks for bringing up this goal. This goal is the most defensible of the "not-offside" goals we've discussed here, by "defensible" meaning that it might seem very harsh to disallow the goal in light of the Spirit of the Laws. One of the rationales given for the perplexing nature of the current offside rules is to allow more goals (I can easily think of some better ways to do that beginning with scrapping the "natural arm" doctrine which allows defenders to make "saves" that only goalkeepers should be allowed to make) and it occurred to me that the Rule PooBahs might've had in mind free kicks and corner kicks like this, where you have a bunch of players crowded in the 6-yard box and one attacker suddenly gets "eft behind in an offside position. Yet, at the same time, it's been frequently noted in the Ref Forum that "running at the ball", according to current Party Doctrine, is not considered an action which constitutes making a play on the ball. It's considered no different from lollygagging and loitering about. If the idea was to allow goals like Rodman's, where Coffey is caught in an offside position, then we certainly didn't need a law or interpretation to allow "running at the ball" because Coffey, unlike our other cases, is not running anywhere at anything, certainly not at the ball. It's a shambles. The Rulemasters at FIFA / IFAB / confederations / Governing Bodies have made a mess of it. You talking to me?! Because I don't see anybody else here... Just who do you think I'm talking about when I mention BigWigs and PooBahs? I'm glad we've reached some common ground here though by pretending I'm aiming at individual referees you've certainly done a good job deflecting criticism from the Higher-Ups. But what do I know? I'm just a taxi driver around these parts
Kola sometimes it feels like you like picking fights lol Cpt was responding to my post. While I do think he was indirectly referencing you, I don't think he's inferring that you're trying to be critical of referees or aiming at them... at least not intentionally. When you mix up things in the rule book with interpretation by officials, you unnecessarily drag officials into the conversation about rules and how they're written, and that's unfair to officials. You might have not meant to, but that's the result.
Really? Which of your posts was cpt responding to with this comment? -> And as far as being unfair, you're saying it's unfair to referees to refer to their higher-ups as Higher-Ups, BigWigs, or PooBahs?! *** I'm sorry if I've distracted attention away from some potentially interesting discussions about the tactics and direction of the US under Emma Hayes. The article mentioned by @TimB4Last ("Play this guy! Play that guy!") , for example, seems very interesting — but I don't have a NYTimes subscription since they don't seem particularly serious about the possibility of an authoritarian movement subverting our democracy Offhand, I would agree with those who noticed these key tactical (and/or personnel) points: It's far more dynamic with Swanson/Smith/Rodman instead of Alex Morgan + whoever. It's not like I want to put Morgan down or diminish what she accomplished with the US but we needed a change, certainly if the goal was to start building towards the World Cup in 2027 Went back to the more familiar deployment of Dunn further up the pitch on the left and Fox staying further back on the right (and less of Fox "inverting" in the attack (not everything VLATKO did was a loser) Coffey in the d-mid (Sometimes everything VLATKO did seemed a loser — and he couldn't cut loose from Morgan either)
One of the strange things about this thread is if you go back to original reason for the introduction of "offside:" I was introduced to increase scoring and all the attempts to "fix" it are also aimed at increasing scoring. Teams, a long time ago, played with 7-10 defenders always behind the ball because they did not want to get caught by a long pass to players hanging out close to the opponents goal. Then offside" got modified so there would be more goals and then it was modified, for the same reason again and again and again and again. It seems to me that another solution, maybe something adapted from the hockey offside rule would have more effect as well as simply calling fouls rather that allowing the holding we see so often. I think any rule that requires so much real time evaluation is doomed to failure and no attempt to fix it will succeed unless it reduces the effect of "when the ball is last played" on play in general. FWIW: I like the way offside is written in hockey and I can see something like that fixing most of the problems with todays rule.
To be clear, kolabear, since you asked a good question, I have not been referring specifically to you, Other posters have criticized the no-offside call on the Smith goal. I have been referring to them, too. A total side conversation: Do you remember, decades ago, when I think I transferred to you tickets I had purchased in advance to a College Cup, when the University of Portland did not get there and, I think, UCLA did? I think our connection back then was through BigSoccer. If that was you, I still remember that fondly. In terms of college women's soccer, those were far more "innocent" days than we are seeing today in college sports.
Woohoo! Back on top of the rankings! Sometimes it just takes one person to wield an axe and right the ship. Now our mission is to build up for the WC and instill the FEAR OF GOD in every match between now and then.
I am so happy for the USWNT but I also wonder, if it takes just 1 tourny to get back to the top, it means the top teams are very close to one another. One bad outing could also drop us !
I don't recall that although it's quite possible that you extended the offer. What I do recall is that you extended an invitation in the early years of NWSL if I came up to Portland for a Thorns game. I've never been one to begrudge the Thorns' success partly owing to its wonderful fans like you, even if at times I've leaned in my support to a rival team
With how the Olympics and the WWC are weighted, results in those tournaments, especially the most recent one, definitely matter. Interestingly enough though, the US returned to #1 before the final, and would have remained #1 no matter the results in the final.