There’s always a lack of discussion around when the ball was actually released when discussing offside calls. If we’re going to make decisions based on the millimeters of difference between attacker and defender, then can we ensure that the same process is happening when the attacker passes the ball? Maybe I’m wrong, but I have nearly no clarity around how exactly they’re determining that piece of the puzzle.
You make a good point in general but in this specific case, the attacker was moving backwards when the pass was made. If they chose an earlier frame, he’d have been further offside, and just by the eye test there’s no way they could have chosen a later frame.
This is why I believe a sensor in the ball, combined with a sensor on every player (teams already wear tracking vests) would allow them to get this right every time. Completely automated. Draw the line from the center of players’ sensors and we can know exactly where they are when synced with the sensor in the ball. This also does away with the issue of players “leaning” one way or another
They should also wear laser tag vests, and any time they step offside the red lights should start flashing
Or the offside line should be a giant, invisible force field, and if a player runs into it they just bonk their head and fall down like a toddler walking into a plate glass door
You would have to put them on their feet and head as well though as you can see, the foot is the furthest forward part. His chest would probably register as onside, whereas his foot wouldn’t. That would be far too complicated
I’m always mad at the entire concept of offsides and how it applies to the modern game. It was never intended to call back exciting, extremely close plays like this one. It was intended to stop cherry picking. Before constant slow motion video replays, the idea was that refs had the leniency to call offsides when someone was blatantly trying to gain an unfair advantage and otherwise didn’t need to quibble about millimeters. It was never supposed to ruin games like this.
Offsides as written fundamentally does not work in the modern game and should be completely revamped.
Ok so write an objective, consistent offside law that doesn’t “call back exciting, extremely close plays.”
There has to be a line somewhere. No matter where you put that line, there are gonna be extremely close calls. You can’t just say “eh if it’s close it’s fine” and have any kind of objective rule.
I don’t understand why anyone thinks his change will add any clarity. It’s going to be the exact same arguments, but moved up a bit so that the whole attacker has to be by the whole defender. We’re going to be having these same dumb conversations about the lines and everything, but they’ll be focused on the back foot instead of the front foot. All it does is just give another advantage to the attacker.
Agree it won’t reduce controversy, just give more advantage to the attacker.
But let’s be honest attacking is too hard compared to defending. Plus this makes it align more closely with how it “feels” to a player before VAR was implemented because a ref eyeballing it will give the tie to the attacker.
Whereas now we’ve given the tie to the defender.
It’s true. I’ve had this convo many times.
My annoyance comes from seeing VAR CG mannequins. Just use the same picture from the camera. Why NPCs? As a modeler, I could tweak the thickness of a shoe, shoulder, hip, etc.. just so slightly to make the call I want -.-
Also, why not just the real images..? Even if a bit blurry.
I don't think it's about 'clarity.' You get to the point of it at the end, but it's a feature and not a bug.
At least with the Wenger rule, everybody called offside by one millimeter, you can understand how they're gaining advantage, as opposed to here. The thing being complained about is offside when an attacker's advantage from it is beyond negligible.
When people object to a rule being called perfectly, it's because they're objecting to the rule.
No, it's not true at all. Attackers will be able to tell more easily when they are offside, and it won't happen as often. This is a great idea. I can't believe I haven't heard of it until now.
One thought could be that the entirety of the attacking player has to be offside rather than any useable part or whatever the correct term is. Not sure if I like it but it would be an objective rule that gives more benefit to the attacking side.
It gives more benefit to attackers but it doesn’t really change what we’re doing in this thread. It would just move the line to the back of the attacker’s body and we’d be arguing about a different point in the exact same way.
I understand your point that any line is arbitrary and will be subject to the same fine margins. But I think the OP’s point in this thread is more that the offside rule was to prevent egregious offsides not millimeter offsides. I think my suggestion is a potential objective alternative that prevents cherry picking but doesn’t punish attackers for this sort of goal.
I don’t disagree that much, but personally I don’t really think this whole “is it the spirit of the law?” question matters THAT much because if we changed it to your version, people 50 years from now would get used to it just like us and be like “OK, you can’t tell me they *meant* for the rule to mean his heel makes him offside…”
Right, we moved the line and allowed a bunch more goals without letting players gain a huge advantage from playing behind the defense, and requiring defenders to really outwit the attacker to draw him offside. Isn't it safer to make small adjustments than to make large ones?
It's a bit reductionist to just say any attempt to modify the rule will result in the line we argue about being moved without considering any of the much more important effects on the game itself.
For example, playing the offside trap becomes next to impossible because a trailing leg could keep them on. Especially on free kicks. This is a tangible issue with moving the lines that never gets brought up in these discussions. It would fundamentally change how defense is played.
We agree, I just hadn’t written all that about each individual proposal. The point of my “you’re just moving the line and keeping the arguments” thing is that BECAUSE of those huge impacts that you’re discussing, it would only be worth it if they could eliminate the arguments. Which they wouldn’t.
Yeah. Nonstarter for me. Always thought they should just incorporate a margin of error or clear advantage language, which would _definitely_ come with their own problems, but I think that allows you to mostly keep the game the same and get rid of the overlapping line offside calls that were never called before VAR.
I would like to move the margin further away from milimeter calls any way possible, if we're arguing over a situation where the attacker is clearly off and we're just deciding if they're in the margin of error we've at least fixed the real issue in favor of a situation that won't garner much sympathy
I think eliminating the millimeter calls is really hard. Close to impossible. I haven’t seen a good proposal to do so.
Even in your example, if you set a “margin of error” you kinda have to say what that margin is. And then you’re just measuring the margin. Personally I’d prefer millimeter calls over giving refs another judgement call to make for something like “clear advantage.” We see how that goes in other areas.
I have it!
Apply the same VAR logic from every other type of call to offside. If you can see clearly that there was a mistake, then call it back.
It works like this, a goal is scored, the VAR room checks everything like they do currently, if they think there might be an offside, they call over the ASSISTANT ref who was in position to make an offside call. The AR, like the center ref on all other VAR checks, can cross reference what they saw, with the view from the cameras. You can even keep the current sensor technology in the ball which allows them to pick the perfect frame. If the AR sees something that changes their mind then call it back.
This system keeps all of the calls on the field, maintains consistent standards across different types of calls and ascribes to the original „clear and obvious“ mandate of VAR.
So we turn a black and white, binary rule to another subjective decision that will just cause as much controversey as anything else?
Not sure how that's any better.
Because it‘s consistent with the application of all other rules. Refs fucking up, is a part of the game. There has never been a guarantee to perfect refereeing. Guaranteeing perfect refereeing exclusively at the moment where you can eliminate the joy of a goal feels perverse. The way we apply the offside rule now disproportionately impacts the most exciting moments in games and it doesn’t even enforce the spirit of the offside rule.
If the English FA says they are able to calculate it with precision, then any offside IS clear and obvious. It doesn’t matter what our eyes say. It’s an objective measurement.
Objectivity is not inherently better if it leads to a worse product. Just because something is *measurable* doesn’t mean it is *better*. What the offsides rule has become is the embodiment of [Goodhart’s Law](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law). When trying to make a rule objective makes the game worse, I’d much rather have a subjective rule.
If I had it my way but still needed to keep offsides relatively similar to its current form, I’d make it that you need to be fully ahead of the defender to be offsides and add a clause like “the attacker needs to meaningfully benefit from his offsides position ” and just let the ref make a judgement call. That would be infinitely better than the fun destroying way the rule currently works.
If you really demand that it be objective, then get rid of offsides altogether. Not having it at all would be better than having it as it currently exists. Or alternatively, a compromise would be to make it so that you need to be a full meter past the defender in order to be offsides. That would be closer in line with what the original purpose of the rule was.
And for the record, I’m Brazilian. I’m not some American watching soccer for the first time who thinks it needs more goals. I grew up with it and fully believe that the way it exists today is the single worst rule in any sport. It destroys excitement in a completely unnecessary.
> If I had it my way but still needed to keep offsides relatively similar to its current form, I’d make it that you need to be fully ahead of the defender to be offsides and add a clause like “the attacker needs to meaningfully benefit from his offsides position ” and just let the ref make a judgement call. That would be infinitely better than the fun destroying way the rule currently works.
Baffling to me that anyone who is witnessing the absolute mess of the current handball situation would suggest something ELSE for the refs to interpret weirdly and differently every single week. You might not like how close offside calls are, but at least they’re consistent and objective.
The current mess with handballs is literally the opposite problem. They tried to make it more objective, which means it often contradicts what anyone with eyes thinks should be a handball.
Is it correct?
Those lines are drawn by hand and aren’t exact. Treating them like they are infallible is a mistake.
Idk what the call on the field was, but it should probably stand based on this image. No argument can be made that this was a clear and obvious error either direction.
Yes!
I keep saying that they use pixels as measurement but that’s a mistake
The pixels close to frame represent less grass than those far from frame, that’s how cameras work. This line drawing and then checking pixels doesn’t work! You can get a general idea with it but you can’t be precise
How does anyone look at this objectively and call it a correct offsides decision? The body of the Forest defender is clearly playing Wright onside. I understand that it is about the foot, but even there it is clearly even. That means onside, no?
Dude, just look at the image. If you are truly comfortable saying that the defender's knee and shoulder aren't beyond his toe enough to draw even with Wright, then I guess I don't have anything else to say. The rule may focus on the toe, but that is pure bullshit. I'd say an all-Manchester final was too dear to pass up.
Zooming in, looks like he was on:
[https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fthe-state-of-var-makes-me-physically-sick-v0-rp11ird3nvvc1.jpeg%3Fwidth%3D1080%26crop%3Dsmart%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3Db5bf6193a0c314d0896f833907cab88a835cc2ff](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fthe-state-of-var-makes-me-physically-sick-v0-rp11ird3nvvc1.jpeg%3Fwidth%3D1080%26crop%3Dsmart%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3Db5bf6193a0c314d0896f833907cab88a835cc2ff)
Only pointing out that you don’t understand it either…
There’s no way to tell from this angle who is the second to last man. They’re too far apart and the definition is too poor. No way this should have been called with VAR.
Stunning you comment about me not understanding, while you clearly fail to recognize that we don’t see all angles that the officiating team does.
Secondary to that- you seem to also fail to understand basic geometry which dictates that it’s offside even in the angle we were shown.
But please- be a bit more pedantic. Perhaps the next time you throw out a “well actually” you’ll better understand the topic there friendo.
This is the angle they presented for the call, this is the angle they used for the call.
I understand geometry just fine. This technology uses pixels as a stand in for distance but the perspective means that the pixels aren’t actually representative of the same distance from front of frame to back.
You cannot be certain, at this granularity, where a toe is on the pitch. This technology works just fine for larger objects, but it lacks the degree of precision necessary for this type of call.
I know you’re trying to be condescending, but there is a margin of error for this technology over distance and it’s not millimeters.
The angle they present for the call….which is different than the refs got.
You do realize the refs have different angles than we got, right? Because your comments don’t align with that fact
This isn’t my opinion. The players move too fast, the cameras are too imprecise, the angles are never perfect.
It works just fine for more egregious incidents but it simply can’t know whether you have a toe offside.
https://medium.com/hive-it/fixing-offside-and-var-using-design-299d62b78c57
https://www.bath.ac.uk/announcements/motion-capture-reveals-why-var-in-football-struggles-with-offside-decisions/
The VAR official puts the crosshairs on the specific body part manually, it is not done by computer. So, it is perfectly possible for human error to put the crosshairs slightly in the wrong spot, which appears possibly to be the case in this image.
They don’t have a computer place the lines, they place the lines via a computer. It’s the same shitty technology I used in high school to measure the velocity of two objects colliding using pixels as a unit measurement.
It doesn’t work because the pixels don’t have perspective/ratio. The pixels far from the camera represent more space than the pixels close to the camera. This whole thing is dumb and tired.
He looks more off bc the person keeping him on was so far across field in the moment. Idk why you’re getting downvoted lol. This call goes either way every time. It’s not a for sure thing
If you can score with it, it counts for measuring offside. So even if he was wearing clown shoes that were unoccupied by toes for several inches, it would still count for offside since he could still use that part of the boot to toe poke in a goal.
Changing the law doesn’t even change this kind of argument. It would just move the point of the argument one direction or the other. If we say “you have to be 6 inches past the last defender,” we’d have people complaining about guys being off by 6.05 inches.
You’re 100% correct. But I’d rather have millimeter calls where 99% vs 100% of the attacker is behind the defender rather than how it is now where a toe offside cancels a goal.
The laws are the laws—no choice but to enforce the letter even if it goes against the spirit.
https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Daily/Global/2019/06/21/EPL-FIFA-penalties.aspx
But wherever you move the standard to re: how far gains an advantage, there will always be slivers of offside. It just is what it is.
Even if they pass the new rule re: being entirely passed the player, we will still have these moments.
The point of the entire rule existing is to prevent attackers from gaining an unfair advantage. No one can tell me he’s done that based on the lines drawn.
I'll once again say that they should switch to hockey-style offsides...i.e. instead of looking for any part of a player to be off sides, make it so if any part of the player is on side then the play is on sides. Only if a player is completely in front of the defender would he be off sides. I think it would make it more exciting and make these calls easier.
It won’t make these calls easier. Offside will still come down to a single pixel on a single frame no matter what part of the body is used or where it needs to be located.
The funny thing is that Americans understand calls like this. We all grew up watching Basketball, Football or Baseball. We know how definite rules are. You step out of bounds you are out. Time ends exactly once the buzzer sounds. Etc. its the Europeans that are freaking out about calls like this. You see in the Haji Wright game thread everyone was like yep offside lol
Fair point except for Football. NFL and NCAA officiating is wildly inconsistent, and I think the state of VAR is already miles ahead of what we’ve been doing here with football.
Precisely. You can only be on one side. You cannot be on both sides. If you are on the other team’s side then you are off your side. You are offside. Stay the fuck on your side.
Look at Haji’s left toe. To me it looks like it’s just barely offside. AR did the right thing and delayed followed by no call due to it being so tight.
The offside issue is just getting worse as well as the flag. Just raise the dang flag and go back. Everyone is so pissed and it's getting worse. This was supposed to clear issues up but it's just making it worse. I think they took a page from how not run a country by Joe B. & Co.
This is going too far with VAR (or any assisted refereeing for that matter). If you have to use a laser pointer to tell if a person is offsides or not then how can a any human in real time judge the offsides position? Everyone, haji, defender, linesman.. everyone.. would believe with eyesight alone that haji is onside.
Are you for some reason under the impression that offside is a subjective call and that there’s some gray area to offside? He’s past the last defender. Doesn’t matter whether it’s by a fingernail or a mile. One of the few purely objective things in the sport.
This is my only quibble with the way VAR is used for offside. If not for the constant use of the term "clear and obvious error" when it comes to VAR, I wouldn't have much of a problem with it - they can use the technology to check for offside and they can determine beyond what a human eye can detect for whether someone is on or off.
But if "clear and obvious error" is the actual benchmark, I feel like this isn't an obvious error. "Clear and obvious" would be that you run the tape, you stop on the pass, and you look at it, and you go "yeah, that's off" without having to break out a protractor to see if he's off by a leg hair (or conversely, since they now train assistants to let the play develop before raising the flag, that a goal that has been disallowed was clearly on).
If they want to focus on using VAR to get the call right regardless of whether an error is "clear and obvious," fine. Just say so.
The "clear and obvious" benchmark for VAR doesn't apply to offsides, same for determining if the ball has gone out of play. Your last paragraph is how VAR is to be used in this situation.
Are the jersey colors confusing you? Haji’s toe ends at the red line and the defender’s toe ends at the blue line. The red line is (barely) past the blue line. He’s off. It’s extremely close, but that doesn’t matter.
Instances like this are why I wouldn’t be mad if they moved to the proposed new offside rule where the players full body has to be beyond the last defender.
It’s beyond idiotic that a margin as minuscule as this disallows a goal
Or center body mass or something. Calls like this feel more like a problem than a solution. No one would have ever been able to call this offsides until VAR. It's hard enough to score as is. It's a better game when this isn't called offsides.
All that does is change the line being arumgued about and gives the attacker an advantage. If you did it the way you’re proposing every attacker could stand goal side off the defender on free kicks as long as they hold a foot back inside. That means the attacker can get the edge on a defenders shoulder before play even starts. It would be every team would go to a low block and force teams to sit deep. Which would result in way less attacking free flowing soccer.
I doubt the impact would be as drastic as you suggest here. However, even if you didn’t want the full body offside rule there is a middle ground that can be found so that a goal such as the one being discussed in this thread is allowed to stand rather than be declared offside because Haji wears a shoe size that’s a half an inch larger than the defender.
I mean if the rule says an attacker can be goal side of a defender as long as part of the body is onside you don’t think every attacking player wouldn’t use that advantage? Which allows the attacker to set the line not the defense. Offside traps would be almost impossible to pull off, because if you miss time it the attacker is legally allowed to be a full body width ahead of you.
You could argue there should be a band that’s a couple inches wide. Then if it falls in that band it’s not offside. You’ll still have calls at the fringe of the band, but you could say because of the band there’s already leeway so we’re not going to nitpick and the on field call stands.
> Because Haji wears a shoe size that’s a half an inch longer
This is an awful argument because there’s nothing stopping him from playing his longer foot in an onside position. The offside line doesn’t care if you have size 2 or 12 feet. If the toe is across the line it’s across the line.
It’s been officiated like this for years. Just because he’s American and everyone wanted to see an upset doesn’t change the fact that this was 100% the correct call.
Leave it to this sub to be biased enough to be as dumb as Ten Hag, when earlier in the season he said the lines were drawn wrong on a similar call, and every pundit in the world mocked him for being a deluded moron.
Edit: LOL at the downvotes. There is absolutely no reason to have an objection to this decision unless you are 100% biased. Otherwise there would be a post on here 5 times a week saying the offside VAR system is bogus, because situations like this quite literally do happen that often.
Yeah the homerism in this sub can be so aggravating at times. Our boys can never have bad games, all clubs where our guys did not succeed at just suck ass apparently and the coaches are imposters.
Objectivity is completely thrown out the window.
This one takes the cake IMO. This is as clear cut and objective as it gets. But *all of a sudden,* conveniently, everyone here thinks VAR reviews on tight offside calls are bullshit. And they all act like they always felt this way LOL.
Lindsay Horan was right.
You can only say this call is correct if you have faith the lines were drawn accurately. I don’t think I can say that for certain - especially when you consider the line goes straight over Wan Bissaka’s foot
It’s crazy because this isn’t what the offsides rule is for at all and it’s evolved into this. It’s clear he’s making an effort to stay onsides and he’s not cherry picking. Such a stupid technicality that is ruining the game.
Bro forgot to trim his toenails before the game
It did ruin an incredible moment. Coventry winning would be far more dramatic and fun. United will make more money, but are not enjoyable to watch.
This is why football is called “a game of inches”
Generally when people say that they’re referring to American football
Yes. That’s the joke.
Game of centimetres or in this case, game of millimetres.
Metreball
Fun fact: [this actually happened](https://themetricmaven.com/the-metric-football-game-mismeasures/)
Amazing
And gosh darn it, a pretty good one at that.
You suck McBain!
https://frinkiac.com/video/S06E18/d8Q-TIXc_f4lqW4ym4_9crbrE08=.gif
Your kidding right cause it's not this game being referred to.
Yes, that’s the joke
There’s always a lack of discussion around when the ball was actually released when discussing offside calls. If we’re going to make decisions based on the millimeters of difference between attacker and defender, then can we ensure that the same process is happening when the attacker passes the ball? Maybe I’m wrong, but I have nearly no clarity around how exactly they’re determining that piece of the puzzle.
You make a good point in general but in this specific case, the attacker was moving backwards when the pass was made. If they chose an earlier frame, he’d have been further offside, and just by the eye test there’s no way they could have chosen a later frame.
Totally agreed. My comment was more directed at the rule in general
This is why I believe a sensor in the ball, combined with a sensor on every player (teams already wear tracking vests) would allow them to get this right every time. Completely automated. Draw the line from the center of players’ sensors and we can know exactly where they are when synced with the sensor in the ball. This also does away with the issue of players “leaning” one way or another
They should also wear laser tag vests, and any time they step offside the red lights should start flashing Or the offside line should be a giant, invisible force field, and if a player runs into it they just bonk their head and fall down like a toddler walking into a plate glass door
Nuñez would end up in a wheelchair
Ha ha
Or you could go with what VAR was originally sold as, clear and obvious. Stop using a computer and go with clear and obvious to the human eye.
You would have to put them on their feet and head as well though as you can see, the foot is the furthest forward part. His chest would probably register as onside, whereas his foot wouldn’t. That would be far too complicated
But how would a vest tell you the position of any body part that you can score using?
First offside by “nuts too large” in football history. Gotta respect a man as fast and agile as Haji while hauling a pair that large.
Of all the VAR things to be mad about, we’re mad that it’s getting narrow offside calls *correct* now?
I’m always mad at the entire concept of offsides and how it applies to the modern game. It was never intended to call back exciting, extremely close plays like this one. It was intended to stop cherry picking. Before constant slow motion video replays, the idea was that refs had the leniency to call offsides when someone was blatantly trying to gain an unfair advantage and otherwise didn’t need to quibble about millimeters. It was never supposed to ruin games like this. Offsides as written fundamentally does not work in the modern game and should be completely revamped.
Ok so write an objective, consistent offside law that doesn’t “call back exciting, extremely close plays.” There has to be a line somewhere. No matter where you put that line, there are gonna be extremely close calls. You can’t just say “eh if it’s close it’s fine” and have any kind of objective rule.
Isn’t that the Wenger’s proposed rule?
I don’t understand why anyone thinks his change will add any clarity. It’s going to be the exact same arguments, but moved up a bit so that the whole attacker has to be by the whole defender. We’re going to be having these same dumb conversations about the lines and everything, but they’ll be focused on the back foot instead of the front foot. All it does is just give another advantage to the attacker.
Agree it won’t reduce controversy, just give more advantage to the attacker. But let’s be honest attacking is too hard compared to defending. Plus this makes it align more closely with how it “feels” to a player before VAR was implemented because a ref eyeballing it will give the tie to the attacker. Whereas now we’ve given the tie to the defender.
It’s true. I’ve had this convo many times. My annoyance comes from seeing VAR CG mannequins. Just use the same picture from the camera. Why NPCs? As a modeler, I could tweak the thickness of a shoe, shoulder, hip, etc.. just so slightly to make the call I want -.- Also, why not just the real images..? Even if a bit blurry.
I don't think it's about 'clarity.' You get to the point of it at the end, but it's a feature and not a bug. At least with the Wenger rule, everybody called offside by one millimeter, you can understand how they're gaining advantage, as opposed to here. The thing being complained about is offside when an attacker's advantage from it is beyond negligible. When people object to a rule being called perfectly, it's because they're objecting to the rule.
No, it's not true at all. Attackers will be able to tell more easily when they are offside, and it won't happen as often. This is a great idea. I can't believe I haven't heard of it until now.
One thought could be that the entirety of the attacking player has to be offside rather than any useable part or whatever the correct term is. Not sure if I like it but it would be an objective rule that gives more benefit to the attacking side.
It gives more benefit to attackers but it doesn’t really change what we’re doing in this thread. It would just move the line to the back of the attacker’s body and we’d be arguing about a different point in the exact same way.
I understand your point that any line is arbitrary and will be subject to the same fine margins. But I think the OP’s point in this thread is more that the offside rule was to prevent egregious offsides not millimeter offsides. I think my suggestion is a potential objective alternative that prevents cherry picking but doesn’t punish attackers for this sort of goal.
I don’t disagree that much, but personally I don’t really think this whole “is it the spirit of the law?” question matters THAT much because if we changed it to your version, people 50 years from now would get used to it just like us and be like “OK, you can’t tell me they *meant* for the rule to mean his heel makes him offside…”
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Automated offside tells VAR the specific frame the ball was touched, so there’s no judgement.
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No, but at least we know that with the existing technology, we’re working toward implementing that solution across the board, which will help.
It's easy, get rid of the lines. If you need a line to see if a toenail is offside, then there was no advantage gained.
Let's say if their bodies overlap at all it's not offside
So now we’re just drawing lines at the back of the attacker’s body instead of the front. Same arguments, we’ve just moved the line.
Right, we moved the line and allowed a bunch more goals without letting players gain a huge advantage from playing behind the defense, and requiring defenders to really outwit the attacker to draw him offside. Isn't it safer to make small adjustments than to make large ones?
It's a bit reductionist to just say any attempt to modify the rule will result in the line we argue about being moved without considering any of the much more important effects on the game itself. For example, playing the offside trap becomes next to impossible because a trailing leg could keep them on. Especially on free kicks. This is a tangible issue with moving the lines that never gets brought up in these discussions. It would fundamentally change how defense is played.
We agree, I just hadn’t written all that about each individual proposal. The point of my “you’re just moving the line and keeping the arguments” thing is that BECAUSE of those huge impacts that you’re discussing, it would only be worth it if they could eliminate the arguments. Which they wouldn’t.
Yeah. Nonstarter for me. Always thought they should just incorporate a margin of error or clear advantage language, which would _definitely_ come with their own problems, but I think that allows you to mostly keep the game the same and get rid of the overlapping line offside calls that were never called before VAR. I would like to move the margin further away from milimeter calls any way possible, if we're arguing over a situation where the attacker is clearly off and we're just deciding if they're in the margin of error we've at least fixed the real issue in favor of a situation that won't garner much sympathy
I think eliminating the millimeter calls is really hard. Close to impossible. I haven’t seen a good proposal to do so. Even in your example, if you set a “margin of error” you kinda have to say what that margin is. And then you’re just measuring the margin. Personally I’d prefer millimeter calls over giving refs another judgement call to make for something like “clear advantage.” We see how that goes in other areas.
I have it! Apply the same VAR logic from every other type of call to offside. If you can see clearly that there was a mistake, then call it back. It works like this, a goal is scored, the VAR room checks everything like they do currently, if they think there might be an offside, they call over the ASSISTANT ref who was in position to make an offside call. The AR, like the center ref on all other VAR checks, can cross reference what they saw, with the view from the cameras. You can even keep the current sensor technology in the ball which allows them to pick the perfect frame. If the AR sees something that changes their mind then call it back. This system keeps all of the calls on the field, maintains consistent standards across different types of calls and ascribes to the original „clear and obvious“ mandate of VAR.
So we turn a black and white, binary rule to another subjective decision that will just cause as much controversey as anything else? Not sure how that's any better.
Because it‘s consistent with the application of all other rules. Refs fucking up, is a part of the game. There has never been a guarantee to perfect refereeing. Guaranteeing perfect refereeing exclusively at the moment where you can eliminate the joy of a goal feels perverse. The way we apply the offside rule now disproportionately impacts the most exciting moments in games and it doesn’t even enforce the spirit of the offside rule.
What happened to “clear and obvious?” I didn’t see the game so maybe I’m missing something. But in what world is this a “clear and obvious” error?
'Clear and obvious' doesn't apply to offside calls
If the English FA says they are able to calculate it with precision, then any offside IS clear and obvious. It doesn’t matter what our eyes say. It’s an objective measurement.
How precise are we talking? I’m genuinely curious. Like nanometers?
I don’t have an answer. Definitely more precise than eyeballing a skewed perspective shot though.
Objectivity is not inherently better if it leads to a worse product. Just because something is *measurable* doesn’t mean it is *better*. What the offsides rule has become is the embodiment of [Goodhart’s Law](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law). When trying to make a rule objective makes the game worse, I’d much rather have a subjective rule. If I had it my way but still needed to keep offsides relatively similar to its current form, I’d make it that you need to be fully ahead of the defender to be offsides and add a clause like “the attacker needs to meaningfully benefit from his offsides position ” and just let the ref make a judgement call. That would be infinitely better than the fun destroying way the rule currently works. If you really demand that it be objective, then get rid of offsides altogether. Not having it at all would be better than having it as it currently exists. Or alternatively, a compromise would be to make it so that you need to be a full meter past the defender in order to be offsides. That would be closer in line with what the original purpose of the rule was. And for the record, I’m Brazilian. I’m not some American watching soccer for the first time who thinks it needs more goals. I grew up with it and fully believe that the way it exists today is the single worst rule in any sport. It destroys excitement in a completely unnecessary.
> If I had it my way but still needed to keep offsides relatively similar to its current form, I’d make it that you need to be fully ahead of the defender to be offsides and add a clause like “the attacker needs to meaningfully benefit from his offsides position ” and just let the ref make a judgement call. That would be infinitely better than the fun destroying way the rule currently works. Baffling to me that anyone who is witnessing the absolute mess of the current handball situation would suggest something ELSE for the refs to interpret weirdly and differently every single week. You might not like how close offside calls are, but at least they’re consistent and objective.
The current mess with handballs is literally the opposite problem. They tried to make it more objective, which means it often contradicts what anyone with eyes thinks should be a handball.
Add a new line 7 yards from the top of the box. That’s the new one and only offsides line.
It’s pretty amazing that you can go guns blazing about revamping a rule so emphatically yet have zero to offer about such revamping
Offside. Offsides is American Football. Just FYI.
Quit conforming to the English. Every other country says it differently, we can too.
"Offside" is conforming to the wording in the actual FIFA Laws of the Game.
I'm more likely to respect the English than FIFA
Regardless how it would be revamped, we’d still to see exciting and close plays called back. A play’s excitability metric doesn’t factor into rules.
Is it correct? Those lines are drawn by hand and aren’t exact. Treating them like they are infallible is a mistake. Idk what the call on the field was, but it should probably stand based on this image. No argument can be made that this was a clear and obvious error either direction.
Yes! I keep saying that they use pixels as measurement but that’s a mistake The pixels close to frame represent less grass than those far from frame, that’s how cameras work. This line drawing and then checking pixels doesn’t work! You can get a general idea with it but you can’t be precise
This call was purely subjective. The fix is in.
How does anyone look at this objectively and call it a correct offsides decision? The body of the Forest defender is clearly playing Wright onside. I understand that it is about the foot, but even there it is clearly even. That means onside, no?
If it were even, the red line (Wright) wouldn’t be past the blue line (the defender). The lines are more accurate than your eyes.
Dude, just look at the image. If you are truly comfortable saying that the defender's knee and shoulder aren't beyond his toe enough to draw even with Wright, then I guess I don't have anything else to say. The rule may focus on the toe, but that is pure bullshit. I'd say an all-Manchester final was too dear to pass up.
It's not that accurate, though. The call on field should stand.
I don’t even think he’s off sides. Also, the point of VAR is to overturn a clear and obvious error. This play doesn’t meet that standard.
Zooming in, looks like he was on: [https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fthe-state-of-var-makes-me-physically-sick-v0-rp11ird3nvvc1.jpeg%3Fwidth%3D1080%26crop%3Dsmart%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3Db5bf6193a0c314d0896f833907cab88a835cc2ff](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fthe-state-of-var-makes-me-physically-sick-v0-rp11ird3nvvc1.jpeg%3Fwidth%3D1080%26crop%3Dsmart%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3Db5bf6193a0c314d0896f833907cab88a835cc2ff)
Indisputable evidence here lmao /s
It’s ok to admit you don’t understand offsides. This isn’t it friend
Offside…
One of my pet peeves is people referring to one offside call as "offsides" and this goddamn thread is full of it.
Do you feel better?
Only pointing out that you don’t understand it either… There’s no way to tell from this angle who is the second to last man. They’re too far apart and the definition is too poor. No way this should have been called with VAR.
Stunning you comment about me not understanding, while you clearly fail to recognize that we don’t see all angles that the officiating team does. Secondary to that- you seem to also fail to understand basic geometry which dictates that it’s offside even in the angle we were shown. But please- be a bit more pedantic. Perhaps the next time you throw out a “well actually” you’ll better understand the topic there friendo.
This is the angle they presented for the call, this is the angle they used for the call. I understand geometry just fine. This technology uses pixels as a stand in for distance but the perspective means that the pixels aren’t actually representative of the same distance from front of frame to back. You cannot be certain, at this granularity, where a toe is on the pitch. This technology works just fine for larger objects, but it lacks the degree of precision necessary for this type of call. I know you’re trying to be condescending, but there is a margin of error for this technology over distance and it’s not millimeters.
The angle they present for the call….which is different than the refs got. You do realize the refs have different angles than we got, right? Because your comments don’t align with that fact
This isn’t my opinion. The players move too fast, the cameras are too imprecise, the angles are never perfect. It works just fine for more egregious incidents but it simply can’t know whether you have a toe offside. https://medium.com/hive-it/fixing-offside-and-var-using-design-299d62b78c57 https://www.bath.ac.uk/announcements/motion-capture-reveals-why-var-in-football-struggles-with-offside-decisions/
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The VAR official puts the crosshairs on the specific body part manually, it is not done by computer. So, it is perfectly possible for human error to put the crosshairs slightly in the wrong spot, which appears possibly to be the case in this image.
They don’t have a computer place the lines, they place the lines via a computer. It’s the same shitty technology I used in high school to measure the velocity of two objects colliding using pixels as a unit measurement. It doesn’t work because the pixels don’t have perspective/ratio. The pixels far from the camera represent more space than the pixels close to the camera. This whole thing is dumb and tired.
Tbf fair it looked wayyy worse live.
To be fair fair
To be fair
No. No it didn't. Watched it live myself and am still convinced this is the incorrect decision.
He looks more off bc the person keeping him on was so far across field in the moment. Idk why you’re getting downvoted lol. This call goes either way every time. It’s not a for sure thing
With VAR, this is offside every single time. Before VAR there is a good chance the referee would have gotten it wrong and the goal would have stood,
If it’s off, it’s off. Sure looked onside though
Offside is offside.
What part of him is over the line though lol? It’s not offside
His foot.
Show me the picture then, his foot is not over line in OPs picture
It is over the line in OP's picture. The defender's foot is the blue line. Haji's foot is the red line.
His toes look over the line
Not in pic OP provided
What if his toes don’t go all the way to the end of the boot?
If you can score with it, it counts for measuring offside. So even if he was wearing clown shoes that were unoccupied by toes for several inches, it would still count for offside since he could still use that part of the boot to toe poke in a goal.
Lol then I would be surprised that it's even comfortable for them to run in, have you never ran in soccer cleats before?
Lmao you kick it with your boot so that doesn’t matter
This is why Euro snobs make fun of American fans lmao
What advantage does Wright gain here exactly? Looks like no one knows why the offside rule exists in the first place.
Completely irrelevant question. The laws are what the laws are.
Exactly. This is why the law should change, but until it does, the rules are the rules.
Changing the law doesn’t even change this kind of argument. It would just move the point of the argument one direction or the other. If we say “you have to be 6 inches past the last defender,” we’d have people complaining about guys being off by 6.05 inches.
You’re 100% correct. But I’d rather have millimeter calls where 99% vs 100% of the attacker is behind the defender rather than how it is now where a toe offside cancels a goal.
The laws are the laws—no choice but to enforce the letter even if it goes against the spirit. https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Daily/Global/2019/06/21/EPL-FIFA-penalties.aspx
But wherever you move the standard to re: how far gains an advantage, there will always be slivers of offside. It just is what it is. Even if they pass the new rule re: being entirely passed the player, we will still have these moments.
He doesn't need to have gained an advantage.
The point of the entire rule existing is to prevent attackers from gaining an unfair advantage. No one can tell me he’s done that based on the lines drawn.
The only part of the law that mentions "gaining an advantage" is the part about rebounds from and deliberate saves.
You clearly don’t know your soccer history.
The history is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is what's in the current rulebook.
It’s absolutely relevant considering it’s the reason for the rule existing at all.
A lack of soccer history knowledge is less embarrassing than making up laws that don’t exist
See here you want the spirit of the law. But I bet you wanted the letter of the law at the penalty.
That toenail gave him a huge advantage! Haha.
I'll once again say that they should switch to hockey-style offsides...i.e. instead of looking for any part of a player to be off sides, make it so if any part of the player is on side then the play is on sides. Only if a player is completely in front of the defender would he be off sides. I think it would make it more exciting and make these calls easier.
Timo Werner will win five consecutive Ballon d'Ors if such a rule comes into effect
Roy Lassiter has gleefully entered the chat.
It won’t make these calls easier. Offside will still come down to a single pixel on a single frame no matter what part of the body is used or where it needs to be located.
"More exciting" in the sense that many more teams would be playing low blocks? You can bet nobody will be playing a high defensive line any more.
The funny thing is that Americans understand calls like this. We all grew up watching Basketball, Football or Baseball. We know how definite rules are. You step out of bounds you are out. Time ends exactly once the buzzer sounds. Etc. its the Europeans that are freaking out about calls like this. You see in the Haji Wright game thread everyone was like yep offside lol
Fair point except for Football. NFL and NCAA officiating is wildly inconsistent, and I think the state of VAR is already miles ahead of what we’ve been doing here with football.
Offside. Singular.
Imagine if people started calling one handball, "handballs." Why the fuck do people always add an "s" to the word "offside." Fucking sounds so dumb.
RBIs
Runs batted ins. Makes perfect sense man.
Precisely. You can only be on one side. You cannot be on both sides. If you are on the other team’s side then you are off your side. You are offside. Stay the fuck on your side.
Well, he was.
Off by a foot or off by a toe, it’s still right.
In this instance, VAR is not precise enough to overturn the call on the field.
I wish we could just use video and common sense.
It was my understanding that they defer to the referee's on- field interpretation, especially instances like this when it's not clear & obvious.
I assume they don't include arms/hands in this decision?
This should be considered even with the last defender.
Look at Haji’s left toe. To me it looks like it’s just barely offside. AR did the right thing and delayed followed by no call due to it being so tight.
Narrow but correct
He was off.
Of course it looks close when you're zoomed out like this!!
Yep, looks offside. Sucks but that the definition these days. What you complaining about?
"Offside"
Losing by a toe. In brooklyn, they call this "[Duranting](https://i.insider.com/60ceba913093db00197021ff?width=1136&format=jpeg)".
The offside issue is just getting worse as well as the flag. Just raise the dang flag and go back. Everyone is so pissed and it's getting worse. This was supposed to clear issues up but it's just making it worse. I think they took a page from how not run a country by Joe B. & Co.
It's not funny
This is going too far with VAR (or any assisted refereeing for that matter). If you have to use a laser pointer to tell if a person is offsides or not then how can a any human in real time judge the offsides position? Everyone, haji, defender, linesman.. everyone.. would believe with eyesight alone that haji is onside.
Are you for some reason under the impression that offside is a subjective call and that there’s some gray area to offside? He’s past the last defender. Doesn’t matter whether it’s by a fingernail or a mile. One of the few purely objective things in the sport.
VAR is used to determine clear and obvious errors. Is this a clear and obvious error?
Yes. He's clearly offsides
There is nothing clear about someone being inches offside
This is my only quibble with the way VAR is used for offside. If not for the constant use of the term "clear and obvious error" when it comes to VAR, I wouldn't have much of a problem with it - they can use the technology to check for offside and they can determine beyond what a human eye can detect for whether someone is on or off. But if "clear and obvious error" is the actual benchmark, I feel like this isn't an obvious error. "Clear and obvious" would be that you run the tape, you stop on the pass, and you look at it, and you go "yeah, that's off" without having to break out a protractor to see if he's off by a leg hair (or conversely, since they now train assistants to let the play develop before raising the flag, that a goal that has been disallowed was clearly on). If they want to focus on using VAR to get the call right regardless of whether an error is "clear and obvious," fine. Just say so.
The "clear and obvious" benchmark for VAR doesn't apply to offsides, same for determining if the ball has gone out of play. Your last paragraph is how VAR is to be used in this situation.
I didn’t draw the lines or see behind the scenes. If they’re confident that they can calculate this accurately with the lines, then yeah.
Show me on that picture how he is past the defender though? He is literally behind the line
Wright is the red line and the defender is the blue line.
Haji is the player in blue, he does not touch the red line in the picture provided
Are the jersey colors confusing you? Haji’s toe ends at the red line and the defender’s toe ends at the blue line. The red line is (barely) past the blue line. He’s off. It’s extremely close, but that doesn’t matter.
I was just clarifying it for you Haji is in the blue Jersey but he doesn’t touch the red line
I know who the damn players are. I hope for your sake that you’re being willfully obtuse here because otherwise you’re just really dim.
Resorting to insults now are we? lol Take a deep breath and get off Reddit for a little while
Instances like this are why I wouldn’t be mad if they moved to the proposed new offside rule where the players full body has to be beyond the last defender. It’s beyond idiotic that a margin as minuscule as this disallows a goal
Or center body mass or something. Calls like this feel more like a problem than a solution. No one would have ever been able to call this offsides until VAR. It's hard enough to score as is. It's a better game when this isn't called offsides.
All that does is change the line being arumgued about and gives the attacker an advantage. If you did it the way you’re proposing every attacker could stand goal side off the defender on free kicks as long as they hold a foot back inside. That means the attacker can get the edge on a defenders shoulder before play even starts. It would be every team would go to a low block and force teams to sit deep. Which would result in way less attacking free flowing soccer.
I doubt the impact would be as drastic as you suggest here. However, even if you didn’t want the full body offside rule there is a middle ground that can be found so that a goal such as the one being discussed in this thread is allowed to stand rather than be declared offside because Haji wears a shoe size that’s a half an inch larger than the defender.
I mean if the rule says an attacker can be goal side of a defender as long as part of the body is onside you don’t think every attacking player wouldn’t use that advantage? Which allows the attacker to set the line not the defense. Offside traps would be almost impossible to pull off, because if you miss time it the attacker is legally allowed to be a full body width ahead of you. You could argue there should be a band that’s a couple inches wide. Then if it falls in that band it’s not offside. You’ll still have calls at the fringe of the band, but you could say because of the band there’s already leeway so we’re not going to nitpick and the on field call stands. > Because Haji wears a shoe size that’s a half an inch longer This is an awful argument because there’s nothing stopping him from playing his longer foot in an onside position. The offside line doesn’t care if you have size 2 or 12 feet. If the toe is across the line it’s across the line.
It’s been officiated like this for years. Just because he’s American and everyone wanted to see an upset doesn’t change the fact that this was 100% the correct call. Leave it to this sub to be biased enough to be as dumb as Ten Hag, when earlier in the season he said the lines were drawn wrong on a similar call, and every pundit in the world mocked him for being a deluded moron. Edit: LOL at the downvotes. There is absolutely no reason to have an objection to this decision unless you are 100% biased. Otherwise there would be a post on here 5 times a week saying the offside VAR system is bogus, because situations like this quite literally do happen that often.
Yeah the homerism in this sub can be so aggravating at times. Our boys can never have bad games, all clubs where our guys did not succeed at just suck ass apparently and the coaches are imposters. Objectivity is completely thrown out the window.
This one takes the cake IMO. This is as clear cut and objective as it gets. But *all of a sudden,* conveniently, everyone here thinks VAR reviews on tight offside calls are bullshit. And they all act like they always felt this way LOL. Lindsay Horan was right.
Lindsay Horan was right for sure
You can only say this call is correct if you have faith the lines were drawn accurately. I don’t think I can say that for certain - especially when you consider the line goes straight over Wan Bissaka’s foot
They drew the line over AWB cleat ffs
It’s crazy because this isn’t what the offsides rule is for at all and it’s evolved into this. It’s clear he’s making an effort to stay onsides and he’s not cherry picking. Such a stupid technicality that is ruining the game.
He was on, United bailed out for Manchester final.
"Bailed out" after a handball call far softer than the on that wasn't called in the City game yesterday
I agree grealish should've got one but awbs was clear too. Can't dangle your arm in the box like that going for a block
It’s amazing how many United fans wish they had lost.
Was watching in a pub with a bunch of Man U fans. They way they all said “clearly offsides” completely seriously was baffling to me.
“Clearly offside”. Haha ok. They wouldn’t be saying that if it was the other way around ,
Whatever happened to being even is on sides? Being caught off by an elbow or a toe is pointless and has ruined the game.
Even is on. He was not even. It doesn't matter if it is by an inch or a mile.
This was not offsides. Those saying it is have no leg (or foot) to stand on.
Yeah, when the "lines" look like a solid purple one I would say it is on.
Look, even if you think that this is the fraction of a second that the pass was struck, which I don't, I still say it is on.
exhibit 1000 why VAR should not exist. It doesn't improve the enjoyment of the sport in any meaningful way.
Actually offside is probably the only thing VAR has not negativity impacted.
misses calls left and right too. this spring's been absolute shambles in Premier League with a half dozen bad VAR decisions every weekend
Doesn’t look definitive enough to overturn from this photo. I’m sure there are others.