Don't Fight The Laws #8: Unbelievable, the way it happens

Welcome to this week's edition of Don't Fight The Laws, in which I combine my years of being a referee with my years of being a smartass to provide my answers to your questions about the Laws of the Game, controversial decisions and other odds and ends relating to referees and what they do.

Got a question? Send it over to canadiansoccerguys@gmail.com. But for this week, we have the following...

Saha's goal for Everton against Arsenal. Offside or not? -- Various people

It was as offside as Atiba Hutchinson's goal against the U.S. in the 2007 Gold Cup semi-finals was. Which is to say, it wasn't.

[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]

Don't be swayed by how earnestly various commentators on the game implore you to believe their version of events. Because unlike fouls (which can be subjective), personal opinion doesn't enter into a decision like offside, any more than it enters into the discussion of whether a ball is in or out of play. All that matters is what the Laws of the Game say.

And the Laws say... well, fuck. They're classically, frustratingly ambiguous here... and open to subjective interpretation. God damn it.

Louis Saha was certainly in an offside position at the moment teammate Seamus Coleman played the ball, and certainly gained an advantage from being in that position. But Arsenal defender Laurent Koscielny deliberately played the ball in between those two events occurring. Not well, mind you, but he did, negating Saha's original offside positioning.

People are confused because Koscielny's touch was an acrobatically shitty failed clearance. But what if he'd, instead, gotten a firm head to Coleman's attempted cross and -- thinking he was nearer to goal than he was -- attempted a pass back to his keeper? We couldn't possibly consider Saha offside in those circumstances, could we?

Now, in the case of Hutch in '07, the point is rendered moot -- sorry, Ives, but it's true -- by the fact that the Canuck striker is onside at the moment of the original pass. Whether or not Onyewu's touch is intentional, the call is absolute horseshit.

But back to the present day (that is, yesterday). Nowhere in the Laws is there any mention of "resetting" offside or any such thing. The closest we get to this situation being addressed is the explanation that if a pass "rebounds" off of a defending player, to an attacking player that's in an offside position, they are, indeed, offside.

But the word "rebound" implies an accidental deflection or bounce. The touches by Koscielny and Onyewu certainly don't meet that description.

The wording of Law 11 itself is also idiotically vague: A player is offside if they're in an offside position "at the moment the ball touches or is played by one of his team". Taken to the absolute, ridiculous extreme, this could be interpreted to mean that if Coleman's ball had been intercepted by Koscielny, then passed around five times by the Arsenal defence, then intercepted by Saha, he would be considered offside, since he was in an offside position at the moment the ball was last touched by a teammate.

So, anyway, the point is... in this case, the referees from the Everton-Arsenal match don't have any bulletproof backing from the Laws of the Game, but they have "common sense" (whatever that's worth) on their side, and the knowledge that nothing in the Laws of the Game renders their call indisputably incorrect.

As for Archundia and crew back in '07... yeah, we still got jobbed.

I saw a lot of people wondering about Michael Dawson's sending off on Sunday. What do you think? -- Sairax

Dawson, for those who missed it (myself included), got the ol' heave-ho in Tottenham's 4-0 meltdown against Fulham in the FA Cup:

That seems like an exceptionally harsh sending-off, all things considered. But that call -- like every other in soccer, or any other sport -- didn't exist in a vaccum. A few minutes earlier, Dawson's teammate, Alan Hutton, had also given away a penalty for the following challenge:

Hutton's challenge on Clint Dempsey seemed, to me, infinitely more cynical than Dawson's shirt-tug on Moussa Dembele. In fact, when I first watched the highlight pack, I assumed Hutton's challenge was the one that had earned a red card, and figured "well sure, that's about as clear-cut a professional foul as you're going to see."

But Hutton wasn't sent off. He wasn't even cautioned. And that may have doomed Dawson to an early shower.

See, it doesn't matter that I thought, upon replay, that Hutton may have deserved a red. Referee Phil Dowd obviously didn't... or at least, he didn't at the moment the foul occurred, and for 60 seconds afterward. But perhaps, once play continued, doubt crept into his mind. Perhaps he figured that Hutton should have been sent off, and that Tottenham should have been down to 10 men at that point.

Luckily, the opportunity for atonement presented itself mere minutes later, in Dawson's challenge on Dembele. Now, don't misunderstand me: Dawson's sending-off was completely justifiable under the Laws of the Game, as he denied an opponent an obvious goal-scoring opportunity by committing an offence punishable by a direct free kick. But Hutton had certainly done the same minutes earlier, without entering the book. "Make-up call", anyone?

I can't read Dowd's mind -- nor would I want to, really. But I can't shake the suspicion that Dawson ended up being punished for a foul committed by his teammate. And considering the transgressions routinely committed by some of my teammates here at CSN, I'm really, really worried about a precedent like that being set.

On a kick-off, is there a rule which limits the number of offensive players in the centre circle? -- Coach

Nope. The circle only exists to keep opponents away. The kicking team's players can all pile on to within two feet of the ball, if they'd like -- though that'd be a fairly imprudent strategy.

They'd be well-served to read How to Use a Kick-off Technique to Start a Soccer Game, featuring 13 can't-miss tips such as "always keep the other team guessing" and "steal the ball after a long kick".

Though, Coach, I'm guessing you don't need the advice since, as you pointed out "I was the only coach in my 6 year old son's league to teach proper kick-offs, for some reason other coaches get their players to just kick the ball to our team."

Well done. Seriously.

Where does the line lay between a card and a ref letting it go when a player berates them? Often I'll see players screaming obscenities at a ref and he won't bat an eye. Other times, just a few words seem to justify a card.

Are there some set of secret words that we should never say? Aside from riffing on his wife or girlfriend??? -- Some Unidentified Person

Well, this is one of those places where "the Laws as written" and "the Laws as enforced" are as dichotomously divided as Diego Maradona and the late Jack LaLanne. While the Laws mandate that a player be given a yellow for "showing dissent by word or action", and given a red for "foul, abusive or insulting language or gestures", well, we still end up with shit like this...

Now, if you watch that video through to the end, you see that Kevin Nolan eventually gets what's coming to him (i.e. a red card). But certainly you've seen plenty of instances where refs just stand silently as two, three or 15 players crowd around them hurling invective.

I don't think there's a "safety" word that instantly sets off a referee, and lets them know it's time to pull out a card. Sometimes it's a player's tone, sometimes it's the situation, sometimes it's the player's antics (or lack thereof) up to that point in the game, sometimes it's just a matter of one player (out of a yelling bunch) being punished in order to set an example.

One time, after I'd disallowed a goal, I had the non-scorer pretty vehemently disagree with my decision. I looked at him and said, "It's over. Just keep playing the game." I turned away from him, ready to restart play. But he continued with the yapping, at which point, the yellow came out. Rather than cooling him down, it enraged him further. Some sarcastic clapping and a quite loud rejoinder of "Nice! How about another one, for fuck's sakes?" So, mere seconds after putting the yellow back in my pocket, I retrieved it yet again, followed by the red.

Yes, I gave the same guy two yellows, within 15 seconds, during a stoppage in play. Not my finest moment wearing the badge, but it was an appropriate course of action at the time, I thought.

My point is, you can never really be sure what's going to be the breaking point for any individual ref. Playing the wife/girlfriend card is probably a safe bet (as is openly questioning the referee's bloodline and/or the marital status of his/her parents).

What do my new friends at eHow have to say about it? "Once again, players will respect a referee who is willing to explain the thought-process behind his decisions. Do not, however, be drawn into an argument. The referee's decision is final. If any trouble does occur, politely remind players that you are able to show them the red card while they are still on the field of play or its surroundings."

So, yeah, don't show any dissent... or you may find yourself on the receiving end of a polite reminder!

That's it for this week. Send me an email at canadiansoccerguys@gmail.com, and your query may turn up in the next edition of Don't Fight The Laws.

Sign In

Don't Fight The Laws #8: Unbelievable, the way it happens

Categories

Articles

Forums

All Activity