What’s Offside?
Yesterday during the Arsenal – Villareal game a couple of us got into a discussion about what exactly constitutes offside, so the timing of Sportsnet Soccer columnist Ben Knight’s article about offside is bang on and gave me some context as to why the offside ruling is so confusing.
In the column, Knight talks about Blackburn losing to Liverpool 1-0 last weekend and whether or not Cisse should have been called offside as he was apparently (I didn’t see the game) offside, but not involved in the play. It was Morientes, who was not offside, who was on the receiving end of Fowlers pass and scored the goal, much to the dismay of Rovers, who are now one step further away from qualifying for Europe.
Fast forward to Arsenal – Villareal yesterday. Same situation, different call. About 10 minutes into the game a pass came through from Pires to Henry. Henry wasn’t offside, shot and scored. Yet the offside call was made and the goal disallowed because another Arsenal player (Ljunberg maybe) was a stride offside, even though they were clearly not involved in the goal.
So, what’s the deal? Are you offside if you are not involved in the play? Clearly some clarification on the rule is needed.
Here’s what FIFA says about offside:
A player in an offside position is only penalised if, at the moment the ball touches or is played by one of his team, he is, in the opinion of the referee, involved in active play by:
- interfering with play or
- interfering with an opponent or
- gaining an advantage by being in that position.
Seems clear enough, right? Cisse didn’t touch the ball, but I’d say he was interfering with play and so he should have been flagged offside.
The problem is when you go on to the next section of the rule:
The definitions of elements of involvement in active play are as follows:
- Interfering with play means playing or touching the ball passed or touched by a team-mate.
- Interfering with an opponent means preventing an opponent from playing or being able to play the ball by clearly obstructing the opponent’s line of vision or movements or making a gesture or movement which, in the opinion of the referee, deceives or distracts an opponent.
- Gaining an advantage by being in that position means playing a ball that rebounds to him off a post or the crossbar having been in an offside position or playing a ball that rebounds to him off an opponent having been in an offside position.
Cisse wasn’t actually doing any of those things. So, by the letter of the law, no offside call. I’m a Liverpool fan, but I still think that’s ridiculous.
I think it does make sense to keep the part of he rule about being “involved in active play” — they just need to tweak the definition of what that actually means.
The Arsenal-Villareal goal was just a bad call by the referee. End of story.