The Third Yellow Returns: Bou's Offside vs NYC, Handballs, and Stutter Steps
Your patience has been rewarded.
I want everyone to know that I do truly appreciate everyone’s patience regarding this matter. I can honestly say that I was legitimately shocked at developments that occurred last night in which TBM received a bona fide statement from PRO themselves.
No really, I was shocked by this. Because after New England Revolution head coach Bruce Arena stated a week ago that PRO had told him their stance on the Bou offside call…I was expecting a statement or some kind of review about the play from PRO. Not because the call was wrong, but because there was an important process that played out behind the scenes as there is every week. PRO sitting down and discussing the week’s events and doing their best to get everyone on the same page of consistency on the field, which is not an easy task I assure you.
My angst is not with the call on the field at this point, it’s a weird crossing of the proverbial offside law streams that I don’t think it was ever intended for but more on that in a bit. I am disppointed that it took this long for PRO to address this. The actual on field judgment call by Ismail Elfath at this point is what it is, I called the play a “generous” interpretation of the obstructed vision clause of the rule after the game and PRO has concurred that the “preferred outcome” of the play should be a goal.
Something I generally knew a week and a half ago and Arena was last week, but it is nice to finally have it in writing.
As for the play itself, a lot of you told on yourselves last week about knowing how this rule works when analyzing this play endlessly on social media. You must calm yourselves and think rationally to understand why the original call was made, then you can come to reasonable and astute conclusions. Like the Revs were meh and deserved to draw NYC two weekends ago.
The reason I kept constantly asking for patience is that I kind of already knew the conclusion of this when the Revs-NYC game ended. The call on the field is subjectively fine, VAR can’t overturn it as it’s not an obvious error, and PRO probably would prefer that it be ruled a goal.
The logic and facts on the field are fairly solid here, so really quick here are the basics:
Gustavo Bou is in an offside position when the ball is played by Borrero.
Bou’s passive offside position becomes potentially active when the ball is deflected because its change of direction could make him involved in the play/in line to obstruct the goalkeeper’s vision.
Bou’s offside position is not reset by the deflection, this is not a deliberate action by an opponent. The goalkeeper’s ability to see the initial cross is also irrelevant as Bou can still gain an advantage from being offside with the ball’s changing direction.
Elfath concludes an offside infraction occurred because Bou’s position impacted the goalkeeper’s vision and/or ability to play the ball.
All of these things are facts, Andrew Wiebe highlighted the law in quesiton here and you all still wanted to argue (and some still are, knock that off you lot) with him and a FIFA level referee in Christina Unkel about the play being subjective or not. The question should not be when or where Gustavo Bou was in an offside position - he absolutely was - but instead determine if his position beneath the flight of the deflection outweights all the other circumstances of his position regarding the law.
A reminder that the offside law exists to protect the defense and it is the responsibility of the attacking team to remain in a valid onside position. As always, any interpretation the sport has had over the years regarding attacking players gaining an advantage from anything other than a deliberate back pass in my opinion goes against the spirit of this law.
I would absolutely prefer an offside law with staggeringly strict interpretations to include Bou’s position against NYC so that even the slightest hint of impacting/obstructing the play is ruled as offside. However, the law does not objectively state that the attacking team can not score a goal with a player in a passive offside position though I certainly would not be against such a rule to really stick home the whole attackers stay onside thing.
It is therefore up to the subjective conclusions of the referee crew to determine whether or not obstruction or interference offenses occur within the offside law on top of the actual bread and butter offside play. There are no absolutes when it comes to these interpretations, it’s a combination of guts and logic - is it more likely than not the offside player gained an advantage or obstructed in a given situation?
This is where Bou’s actions fail to meet the more than likely than not standard if you will since offside infractions are not absolute things. Bou is too far away from goal to directly obstruct the goalkeeper, he makes no action at or towards the ball to directly involve himself in the play, and he was not challenging the defender from an offside position to cause an offside infraction. All of these factors should be enough to outweigh a player standing underneath a looping deflection in an passive position. But it is wrong to expect such a overwhelming consistency on this play prior to such analysis because I can’t remember a play like it.
Elfath’s judgment that Bou’s positioning within the flight of the ball had obstructed the keeper’s vision a perfectly logical one. The onfield call he made is not wrong, and as PRO mentioned in their statement, VAR would not intervene to reverse that call based on the evidence. Likewise, if the goal had been awarded, there isn’t enough to overturn it to offside. Having the ruling on the field stand in this case is a perfectly acceptable outcome even if that is to the chagrin of New Englanders.
In hindsight and reflection however, PRO’s assessment that the preferred on field call should be a goal is the more logical conclusion. It is slightly possible but unlikely that Bou’s prescene had any effect on the outcome of the play in this situation.
However, the referee crew identifying a potential obstruction offside call in the split-second nature of this play is really darn impressive even if they should have ignored it at the end of the day. That’s the level a lot of these crews are on and I don’t think they get enough credit for identifying some of the things they do in real time even if the conclusions are less than desirable for PRO.
The call on the field is not wrong, and perhaps that’s why a statement from PRO is so important and needed to be made sooner. This is not about correcting an obvious wrong, no such thing occurred, but it is about identifying an inconsistency, especially on a potential scoring play. This is nothing more than a classic Law 18 corrolary here, in which a technical hangup gets in the way of better common sense.
Sometimes bad luck is simply that, bad luck - and it doesn’t need to be explained or adjudicated as anything else.
Overall, soccer fans, players, coaches, and referees learn when we see weird stuff on the field. This absolutely classifies as weird and soccer’s laws are written with significant gray areas that at times it is hard to impossible to adjudicate weird so we fall back on logic instead of common sense or common sense instead of logic. Sometimes both of those conflict with how the rules are written and how plays are ruled, but we can not write the rules for every possibility on the soccer field. There will always have to be a level of subjectiveness and the goal is through general knowledge and training, that subjectiveness will be as consistent as possible.
Two more side notes from the past couple of weeks…
HANDBALLS AND VAR
So, this clip is highlighted for the VAR review of the Montreal handball on Bobby Wood’s shot last week, but in the first Instant Replay clip above, you can also track back to a Sounder’s non-PK call involving Nouhou.
First, I don’t know why Tori Penso was asked to review her handball as it looks very obvious at first and second glance. Defender Gabriele Corbo has his arm low and not tucked in and Wood’s shot clearly strikes it. VAR thinks that maybe the arm is in a natural enough position and Penso disagrees and in my opinion rightly so.
The confirming angle is not great from behind the goal, but it does clearly show the arm away from the body being struck by the shot. If the side angles are what VAR was likely using to determine that maybe the arm was in a natural position, I would assume the referee has a much better vantage point than that on the field, hence why the review is redundant and needless. The ensuing yellow card is as unfortunate as it is academic because it’s not Corbo’s fault he has been hung out to dry after a Montreal turned it over on the top of their box.
There are others handballs that have been and will be highlighted by PRO in their weekly VAR segment which is a very good read on how VAR is used effectively or ineffectively every week. I would expect this review to be considered an unncessary intervention and I don’t remember how long this review took but PRO has been harping on VAR only intervening to correct obvious errors and completing reviews in a timely manner and this intervention appears to run afoul of both standards.
One handball I was surprised to see not reviewed was the Nouhou play from April 1st where he sticks his chicken wing elbow out to block an inbound cross. Wiebe and Unkel say there is a grey area here in the top replay segment and I just flat out disagree with that.
Yes, Nouhou’s arms are clearly behind his back but he has made his shiloutte obviously bigger and I’ve been teaching U10 players to keep their chicken wings at home for years. I assume that interpretation has not changed at the pro level despite numerous changes to the law and the proper position for your arms and elbows is to be tucked in. The positioning that should be taught is not to keep your hands high on your back like Nouhou did, but to have them at or below the waist so as to make an obvious showing to the referee that you are deliberately making yourself smaller and as such in a nautral defensive position.
FORGIVE ME CAPI
For I have sinned… this is a stutter step penalty kick, these should be outlawed no matter how many times it is pointed out correctly that this beautiful paneka is perfectly fine, I loathe them.
If we are to hold goalkeepers to the impossible VAR standard of waiting to move off their line until the penalty is kicked, then I see no reason why we can’t hold penalty takers to one action towards the ball. A side step or hitch at the top of the run I can compromise with, but once you’re going to the ball, that’s it, you’re going. It should also be perfectly acceptable for the GK to move while the penalty taker effectively reaches the ball and/or is being struck but I digress.
My disdain for the stutter step knows no bounds and one day my quest to convert Christina Unkel and everyone else on the side of honor and righteousnes will be complete.
Jake,
Nice piece. I couldn't agree with you more on the stutter step PK (jorginho is the worst and gets praised for being a great PK taker when he does that hop crap). If you can't score a PK without it then you don't deserve the goal.
Can I ask something that I struggle with?
What is the purpose of PRO commenting at all (on any decision). They have a vested interest in aligning with their referees. Even in cases if an egregious error was identified, what would the outcome be, they aren't going to take away or add points and change the result.
I guess you can argue transparency as well as reinforcing confidence in the referee community and the astute fan will see that. The casual fan will retain the belief they were cheated and simply say PRO are just covering their ass. Coaches like arena will say they are cheated either way
I am of the opinion they should just review these and use them for internal evaluation of the suitability of individuals to referee at the highest level but do that behind closed doors. Let their actions do the talking
What do you think?