WoSoRef / Handballs

Discussion in 'NWSL' started by kolabear, May 5, 2023.

  1. Yoshou

    Yoshou Fan of the CCL Champ

    May 12, 2009
    Seattle
    Club:
    Seattle Sounders
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    :) exactly. Exactly.
     
  2. kolabear

    kolabear Member+

    Nov 10, 2006
    los angeles
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    #52 kolabear, May 13, 2024
    Last edited: May 13, 2024
    Interesting point about the process behind the decision, but it's unclear where this information comes from — there isn't audio of the conversation with the VAR booth during the broadcast is there? Now it's entirely possible someone in the Ref Forum has inside information (it was MidwestRef in this case, not MassRef, by the way, not that it matters much) but they should say so rather than let the rest of us wonder if or how we missed something on the broadcast.

    We will hear the audio in this case on the next VAR Week in Review, so that will be cleared up.

    But the question left unanswered is the one you raised — if the officials saw the deflection, would that change their decision from PK to no-PK?

    Again, I can't quote directly because I'm Persona Non Grata in the Ref Forum, but here's the link to the conversation where our fellow WoSo fans @L'orange and @fire123 were also wondering: https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/2...ee-discussion-rs.2129669/page-6#post-42212246

    ***
    God's Bloody Wounds. I let this go the first time but since you had to bring it up again, you know better than to write sophomoric crap like this. It was a 1-0 game around the 75th minute when the PK was called. Huge difference between chasing a one-goal deficit vs a two-goal deficit, especially at that point in the match.
     
  3. cpthomas

    cpthomas BigSoccer Supporter

    Portland Thorns
    United States
    Jan 10, 2008
    Portland, Oregon
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    The question I have is this: If there was a clear and obvious error, why did the ref's review take so long? It seemed to take 3 or 4 minutes, maybe longer given the 13 minutes of added time at the end. Perhaps it took time to get the best video up, but given how quickly it was on the large video screen at Providence Park, I doubt that was the case. It seems to me that if a VAR takes more than a minute or two, there cannot be a clear and obvious error.

    The more VARs I see, the more it appears to me the standard they are using is, "Was the on-field call correct?" rather than "Was the on-field call a clear and obvious error?"
     
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  4. Yoshou

    Yoshou Fan of the CCL Champ

    May 12, 2009
    Seattle
    Club:
    Seattle Sounders
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    How long the referee spends under the hood is not a valid determination of whether it is a clear and obvious error. We also won't know what the referee was looking at while under the hood until the VAR audio comes out.
     
  5. kolabear

    kolabear Member+

    Nov 10, 2006
    los angeles
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    In its VAR Week in Review, PRO (Professional Referees Organization) stated that the PK against Sofia Huerta should not have been called and VAR erred in sending it down to the field for review. The referee, Abdou Ndiaye, asked about a deflection but the VAR, Adorae Monroy, didn't see it or identify the camera angle where it was most clearly shown.

    The play and VAR review process is at 6'31 of the video.

    One other VAR review is worth noting though it doesn't involve a handball — the VAR penalty called against Washington Spirit against Racing Louisville. PRO again felt the PK should not have been called and the VAR erred in sending it down for a review. The VAR was again Adorae Monroy.

    It's at 2'22 of the video. I don't understand why PRO objects to this PK. The cynical push began outside the 18-yard box, but as I suspected at the time, there might've been a trip at the end of it inside the penalty area — in fact, this is what the VAR saw and why she recommended a PK.

    PRO said it wasn't "clear and obvious" enough, which I don't fully understand but I don't feel that strongly about either way and without VAR I would've been OK with a call either way. But since you have VAR, well, it's a trip. It's clear enough to me and it comes at the tail end of a cynical push on the attacker, so I lean in favor of wanting to have the PK called.
     
  6. kolabear

    kolabear Member+

    Nov 10, 2006
    los angeles
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    #56 kolabear, Jun 22, 2024
    Last edited: Jun 22, 2024
    PRO's Video in Review reviews a potential handball in Washington/ San Diego that the VAR sent down to the field , recommending a PK The CR, Ekaterina Koroleva rejected the recommendation and ruled No Penalty. PRO supported her decision

    It's a deflection off Abby Dahlkemper and onto the arm of hal Hershfelt. I think I said early in this thread that deflections are an area where I'm incapable of forming any general guidelines or conclusions — other than that Nobody Knows what a Handball is.

    I don't have strong feelings either way, in line with what I said about deflections, but I also think this shows the 2nd point, that No One Knows what a Handball is — although they pretend to and the arguments of those who pretend to are incoherent. The arm is over her shoulder yet supposedly it doesn't form an unnatural barrier — even though we supposedly can't read minds.

    I don't expect defenders to hop around with their arms behind their backs when they're tracking down a ball that goes over their head. On the other hand, why wouldn't defenders choose to put their arms over their shoulders when the ball goes over their heads and behind them knowing that they won't be punished for it? Why not increase your changes of blocking a ball played back towards the front of goal when you can say, "Oops — it was an accident!"

    • Angel City's MA Vignola was called for a penalty when a shot ran up her body onto her arm (I'll ftry to find that one)
    • In Premier League (during the '22/'23 season), there was a rather notorious example where a defender flew by a ball which just cleared his head, but then hit his hand off a deflection coming back the other way
    • In the Ref Forum, the argument has sometimes run that if you have your hand over your shoulders, you take your chances
    MA Vignola handball in Angel CIty / Washington at 7'10 of the highlights

     
  7. kolabear

    kolabear Member+

    Nov 10, 2006
    los angeles
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Another notable handball decision resulted in a PK called against Tarciane in the 53rd minute of Houston vs Angel City a couple weeks ago / 2'03 of highlights video


    Tarciane was called for the PK by referee Jeremy Scheer even though she put her arms and hands behind her back.

    I don't like it, though I might be open to persuasion that defenders can be guilty of handballs when they jut their elbows out by holding their hands closer to the middle of their back than keeping it low on the back. It opens up a very subjective decision as to how far out is too far out for the elbows

    What I find extremely unhelpful is the view of many, both fans and referees, that defenders shouldn't feel like they have to put their hands behind their backs, that it's OK to leave them in a "natural" position, somewhere sort of down near their sides

    That's how we get calls like the one in the highly controversial Europa Finals match last year between AS Roma and Sevilla. It looks worse even at normal speed in a longer sequence, because the Sevilla defender runs up a few steps before squaring up to block. We're used to most women starting to put their arms behind their backs while running up to the spot where they square up, but the Sevilla defender waits until the Roma player starts kicking the ball.
    https://www.reddit.com/r/ASRoma/comments/13x19ry/how/

    After all, I think it was @CoachJon who said earlier in the thread, there's nothing more unnatural than running around with your hands behind your back. Using this logic, this is how we get a PK against Tarciane but not against Sevilla in the 2023 Europa Final.

    ***
    Just a reminder how extremely controversial that game was, it was the one where Jose Mourinho, Roma's coach, threw an absolute fit, confronting the referee (the Premier League's Anthony Taylor) in the parking lot, which led to threats against Taylor and his family who accompanied him on the trip.

    Naturally, the official highlights video doesn't bother to show the play which is why we have to scour the internet for short clips.

    Mourinho's reaction was, of course, despicable even though I agree with him on this particular call. The highlights should still include it.
     
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  8. kolabear

    kolabear Member+

    Nov 10, 2006
    los angeles
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    That should be a handball in Germany / Spain in the men's quarterfinals of the Euros.
    This is why we talk intelligently about things like this here in the WoSo Forum, whether it's a men's game or a women's

    1809291630538813581 is not a valid tweet id
     
  9. kolabear

    kolabear Member+

    Nov 10, 2006
    los angeles
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    #59 kolabear, Jul 6, 2024
    Last edited: Jul 6, 2024
    The value of a thread like this is that by arranging the discussion by theme — rather than by calendar date, as in what-happened-today-that-we-want-to-kvetch-about-? — is that we can provide context to today's controversies.

    I was just referring to Sevilla/Roma which is a quite similar incident ->
    We can add another high-profile incident from last year's Champions League match between Chelsea and Borussia Dortmund. At 6'09 of the highlight video (with VAR footage included)


    ***

    "Nobody knows what a handball is" (But this should be a handball.)

    Many people, many fans, many experts, have rushed to defend the call (no handball, no penalty). I'm sure many here in WoSo will see no penalty as well. Feel free to chime in. You have lots of company and I'll find some quotes from people who take your side including former referee Christina Unkel.

    In addition to the obvious points (which I will re-summarize subsequently) I'd like to note the following

    • If this was a women's game, there would be a lot of people blaming women. They'd say women referees are a joke. They'd say women's soccer is a joke. The single biggest difference in refereeing between the men and women's game is that when bad or controversial calls happen, people blame the women
    • "If it's a foul at midfield, it's a foul in the penalty area" Do people really believe this would go uncalled at midfield? If it resulted in change of possession and started a counterattack and the counterattacking team wound up scoring, do we really believe that VAR would allow the goal to stand, or would VAR call for a review because of an infraction in the "APP" (Attacking Phase of Play or Attacking Phase of Possession)?!
    • Nobody knows what a handball is
    • This is, again, a debate between the Romantics of the Sport vs the Philistines
     
  10. kolabear

    kolabear Member+

    Nov 10, 2006
    los angeles
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    #60 kolabear, Aug 22, 2024
    Last edited: Aug 22, 2024
    In the International subforum, there was some discussion of handball incidents at the Olympics.
    One of the biggest handball calls was the penalty called against Brazil in their group stage match against Japan. What's interesting is that this call came so close on the heels of the very contentious, highly publicized decision to not give a penalty against Spain at the men's Euros in their quarterfinal match which saw them knock the hosts, Germany, out of the tournament.

    PK called against Brazil (Rafaelle) in 1st half stoppage time at 1'28 of the highlights video


    Unfortunately, the handball incident in France / Colombia isn't on any highlights video I've seen, but the match is still available on replay on the NBC Olympics website. It's on a corner kick in the first half at 16'20 of the match. (Worth checking out just for the look Tori Penso gives someone, probably for trying to restart play while VAR is reviewing for a potential penalty!!)

    And here (again) is the Cucurella "handball" / "save" from the Men's Euros quarterfinal between Germany and Spain, an example I gave at the start of the Olympics of the super-controversial calls in the men's game, which if they happened in the women's game often lead to accusations that women referees are incompetent. From Anthoy DiCicco's tweet ("son of legendary coach Tony DiCicco")
    1809291630538813581 is not a valid tweet id


    I believe this is (or should be) properly a PK but there is an obvious consistency problem. I was surprised that the call stood with two UEFA referees — Rebecca Welch (CR) and David Coote the VAR; both England and Coote, of course, being a Premier League ref — so soon after the highly publicized decision in the Men's Euros. In Spain / Germany, some of the defense around Cucurella's "save" was that
    • His arm was "behind" his body. Not of course in the way we mean when we typically say a defender puts his or her arms behind their body, but "behind" as in behind the plane of their body
    • He was "moving his arms toward his body". Lesson to cheatin' defenders: Keep your arms higher before the shot, then lower them to block the ball so people can argue you were "moving your arms towards your body"

    I would say he's moving his arms towards the ball, which is a handball offense by the letter of the law, but people seem to be interpreting the law to mean you're not supposed to move your arm in the direction from which the ball came, that is, the direction of the shooter. As if every baseball players normally catches a ball by moving their glove towards the batter. Horse-pucky.

    It's a shambles.
     
  11. kolabear

    kolabear Member+

    Nov 10, 2006
    los angeles
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    #61 kolabear, Aug 26, 2024
    Last edited: Aug 26, 2024
    Handball in Proud Boys vs Galatasaray men's Champions League qualifier at 10'24 of the highlights video


    It's a deflection which comes off the defender's foot. After VAR recommended an of-field review, a PK was given and a yellow card (which was a 2nd yellow card).

    I think I said early on in the thread that I don't know how deflections should be dealt with, although this certainly seems to fit the old concept of ball-to-hand rather than hand-to-ball.

    The point I like to emphasize is that even if we can't decide what to do about deflections, we can still do something about handballs like Cucurella's in the men's Euros quarterfinal match Spain vs Germany. People can and do disagree, but the reasons for hemming and hawing when it comes to deflections don't exist for the Cucurella handball and, in my opinion, it should be a PK just as it was against Brazil's Rafaelle against Japan in the Olympics. Confusion or uncertainty on some types of handballs doesn't mean we have to be paralyzed when it comes to all of them

    There's a bit of discussion, by the way, on the handball in Proud Boys / Galatasaray in the Ref Forum, for example —
    https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/u...ons-2024-2025-rs.2132014/page-2#post-42475691
     
  12. kolabear

    kolabear Member+

    Nov 10, 2006
    los angeles
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Handball decision in MLS match between New England Revolution and St Louis City (Sept 7, 2024). The decision, which the center ref stuck to even after an on-field review, was no-handball, which was very consequential — not only did it mean no penalty for New England, but I believe when play continued it resulted in the tying goal for St Louis



    It's a deflection. And the defender's arm seems to be in a natural position while trying to head the ball.

    I know I can be an annoying Know-It-All, but I try to compensate for that by saying "I don't know" a lot

    I don't know.

    And even though I've heavily criticized the Natural-Arm Doctrine, I've never said it has absolutely no place in our considerations as to what should be penalized as a handball offense and what shouldn't.

    In a discussion in the Ref Forum last year (before I was banned), I brought up an old ESPN "This is SportsCenter" ad featuring Alex Morgan, Hope Solo, the late Stuart Scott, and a Miami Dolphin

    The Dolphin is the only one with their arms/fins in a natural position — is that what we're saying here?!!!

    ***
    I brought up the SportsCenter clip in relation to the Champions League semifinal leg between Arsenal and Wolfsburg. The VAR called down to the field to recommend a handball and PK on Lotte Wubben-Moy when a Wolfsburg player crashed into her, knocking her arm into the ball as Wubben-Moy was trying to head it in the 2nd minute of the match.

    At 35'07 of the video

    VAR review beginning at 36'59 of the video

    No PK was called because of an offside detected in the build-up. I had held out hope that the referee, Lina Lehtovaara, rejected the VAR's recommendation of a PK for handball but the moderator gave a good explanation of the mechanics and procedure of the on-field review to show that apparently was not the case. (If she had rejected it, then the restart would've taken place at the point where play was stopped)

    But the underlying point, of course, was that this seemed like a highly questionable incident to call a handball, an opinionwhich the moderator smugly and contemptuously dismissed as "dumbfounding"

    .
     
  13. kolabear

    kolabear Member+

    Nov 10, 2006
    los angeles
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    #63 kolabear, Sep 23, 2024
    Last edited: Sep 23, 2024
    Zounds...!



    Also, an ESPN article https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/41398652/euro-2024-review-says-germany-deserved-penalty-spain

    ADD —
    This is why threads like this can be useful. There's a good place for news like this rather than find some 3-month old thread in the men's forum. And there's logical context for it.
     
  14. blissett

    blissett Member+

    Aug 20, 2011
    Italy
    Club:
    --other--
    Nat'l Team:
    --other--
    So what? Did they know that since the beginning but they couldn't tell until the game was well filed in the books for good and no-one could do anything about it anymore?

    Had they admitted the mistake right away, could Germany have asked to repeat the game?
     
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  15. kolabear

    kolabear Member+

    Nov 10, 2006
    los angeles
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    #65 kolabear, Sep 24, 2024
    Last edited: Sep 24, 2024
    It's worse than that

    Nobody knows what a handball is... but the people who are supposed to know know it less than everyone else

    It also makes referees look like idiots, like they don't know what they're doing. And who's to blame for that? Rebels and heretics like me? Or all the PooBahs in Power and their mouthpieces who poo-pooed the complaints about this call... only to suddenly, three months, look like certified blockheads?

    ***

    In retrospect, maybe this admission of error helps explain Rebecca Welch's handball call in Japan/ Brazil during the Olympics. It came up in the International Forum and I meant to add it as an example here in this thread, because the handball by Rafaelle looks very similar to Cucurella's in the men's Euros and it seemed a pleasant surprise to see Welch give the PK so soon after the Cucurella handball was waved off.

    At 1'28 of the highlights



    ***
    It isn't about Germany or Spain and nothing is going to change the results of the game or the Euros (which Spain won by the way)

    It's about how players are supposed to play when the referees are conducting some kind of Kafkaesque Trial where the referees are a hidden horde engaged in an abstruse debate over the alleged crimes of the players, the defendants, in an obscure, impenetrable court.

    ***
    Someone here twisted my words a few months ago in one of these WoSo Ref threads. I'm not the one saying calls should be different in "big games". I'm the one saying that everyone else will start thinking that calls should be different because of a big game. And here we are.

    ***
    I don't know how long I'll be allowed to keep Yelling at Big Soccer Clouds, but I'll try to stick around long enough to make WoSo Ref threads an ongoing tradition. Because there's a place, a need for thoughtful fans to discuss refereeing and the Referee Forum, though a valuable resource, has its limits and this — the no-handball call in Germany/Spain — proves it.

    Too often the Referee Forum, despite it's exalted and privileged place on BigSoccer, is just a place for some people (including some moderators) to hear themselves talk. At least in this case, there was (back in July) some discussion and dissent but the moderators there said (in their dismissive and supercilious way) it was a "highly debatable call" in order to cut off the debate. (It's highly debatable so why waste our time debating it?)

    ***
    ADD:
    The single biggest difference in refereeing between the men and women's game is that when there's a bad or controversial call in a women's game, people blame the women. They blame women referees. Or they blame the women's league. Or they blame women's sport. They call women's sport a joke

    Kafka _ Trial _ Schocken cover art.jpg
     
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