Quote:
Originally Posted by LRZ
Several things come to mind:
(1) As a referee, I would have no idea what D1/GK is thinking or why. The GK's state of mind is irrelevant.
(2) A2 is not offside, A2 is in an offside position, which is not itself a violation.
(3) The only relevant issues are: (a) was A3 onside when the ball was played? and (b) did A2 interfere with the play or an opponent?
As A2 may lawfully be in an offside position, the perception that the GK is focussed on him/her does not create an offside call against A3. The only relevant issue, (3)(b), involves a referee's judgment (and is somewhat a HTBT): did A2 interfere with the GK's ability to play the ball?
A FIFA powerpoint says, in part, that interfering with an opponent "means preventing an opponent from playing or being able to play the ball. For example, by clearly obstructing the GK's line of vision or movement."
You can read it here, slide #17: https://www.fifa.com/mm/document/afd...e_en_47383.pdf The HS rule and application are the same. |
Then it seems like basically the situation I'm describing is similar to that shown on pages 13 and 19 -- player in offside position but not interfering or gaining an advantage. The diagrams don't quite capture the situation in that the goalie would've been close to and very intent on the attacking player as positioned (A2 in my story) before A3 played the ball, but since A2 wasn't blocking GK's sight of the ball, nor obstructing his movement, nor (in the short time since A3 played it) making a move toward the ball, it's a clean play.
It's basically the fact that it's a bang-bang play, such that the player in an offside position could not have tactically benefited in that short a period of time, that saves him. Which is a good thing.
This arises from a discussion at Quora.com wherein someone promoted the idea of altering the laws to exempt a player's offside positioning when the ball was played from within the defending side's penalty area. I'd never thought about that before, so I tried to construct a scenario wherein a team would get seriously hosed by application of the extant offside law where the ball was played within the PA, and I came up with this one. I'd thought that the mere fact of the player's having to be marked by the goalie up until the instant the attacking player's teammate, from nearer their own goal line, played the ball, would be enough to disallow the goal. It seemed to fit the description of "distracting" -- until the fact that any such "distraction" did not coexist with offside position for more than a tiny fraction of a second is considered, which meant that if GK was watching the ball, that player wouldn't be a distraction at all. The referee in the discussion there wouldn't answer regarding the scenario I constructed, i.e. this one.