Just a couple of thoughts as the season is ramping up.
A) Under the new IFAB/FIFA rules, the restart for an offside violation is where the player in an offside position becomes involved in play. Previously the restart was where the second to last defender who creates the “offside zone” was when the ball was played forward. This means the restart could be on the offender’s defensive half if he was coming back from an offside position to retrieve the ball. It also means the restart could be forty yards behind the second to last defender.
Red is up 1-0 on Green with 10 minutes left. Red #12 is in an offside position about 15 yards behind the second to last defender. Red #15 in the midfield receives the ball and sends it to the deep corner where the Green keeper is moving to retrieve and rebuild an attack. Red #12 due to his headstart gets there first and touches the ball a yard from the sideline and two yards from the end line. An offside violation is called and play is restarted 118 yards from goal.
What should you be aware of?
a-1) This happens three times in the next four minutes. Anything different? Different Red players each time, anything different?
B) U-13 girls state cup level in-season game. White is up 2-0 against Bumblebee. There are fifteen minutes left. The White coach has been subbing three at a time every five minutes for the entire game. He switches to subbing two at a time every three minutes. Also the White players are not hustling to retrieve out of bounds balls. They are moving at an intermediate jogging pace. Do we need to do anything (yet)? If not, when ?
C) College men’s game, Blue receives a nice pass after making a horizontal run behind the defenders. Yellow center back crushes him with a reckless tackle just outside of the box. The Yellow player was the last defender with no help able to rotate over in the next three steps. The ball was in playing distance and Blue was heading directly to net. Blue is injured. The referee looks over and sees his assistant referee with his flag up indicating offside on Blue. What should the ref do with Yellow?
D) At the end of a college game, the referee is talking with the trainer for the visiting team. She indicates that the visiting team came in conjunction with the football team, both cross country teams and both soccer teams. They would be driving back that night to campus five hours away. Before they would get on the road, they were all going to an all you can eat buffet near the interstate. Who wins? Does the buffet run out of food or customers first?
The first time I’ve got nothing beyond an offside. I don’t know what I have if this happens three or four times in a few minutes. It sure as shit smells like cynical time wasting and rules lawyering to me. We normally treat time wasting and cynical rules lawyering as things we want out of the game. The typical response is either a yellow for persistent infringement, a yellow for unsporting behavior as the strategy brings the game into disrepute and/or a very public declaration that we control the clock and will be adding time.
This scenario came up in conversation during a ride home from a game this week and none of us were quite sure how we would deal with it.
Scenario B is straightforward. White has no obligation to play at the pace or style that satisfies Bumblebee’s desires. They do have an obligation to not time waste. As long as the players are at least jogging if not outright sprinting to get the ball, I’m okay with that. I might start adding time due to substitution frequency if the coach had not established a pattern of frequent subs during the course of the game. I don’t have a good case for time wasting yet. It is something to be aware of in the last five minutes.
Scenario C is tough. The play was stopped for a challenge that was reckless and decidedly unfair. The referee looked over and saw offside being called. He is in a pickle. The defender needs to be carded for the reckless challenge. But the referee can no longer think red card for denying an obvious goal scoring opportunity (DOGSO) is out of consideration. All the normal criteria for DOGSO had been met. Everyone expects a red. The referee goes yellow as the attacker should not have been there due to being offside but he has a right to expect his ankles and knees to be protected. Blue’s bench goes apeshit. They’re down their player due to injury and Yellow is still playing with eleven.
Scenario D: I bet on the buffet running out of food. There were 150+ student athletes who had competed that day set loose on a medium size buffet. This could be a biblical swarm of locusts. The only thing giving me a touch of uncertainty in favor of the buffet was that the swim team was left home.
DLew On Roids
For Scenario A, as soon as the referee recognizes a pattern, s/he can give a yellow for persistent infractions. S/he can also send the Red coach off the touchline for coordinating persistent infractions, and include it in a report for potential sanctions (equivalent to a red card suspension). S/he could also award free kicks from where the Red players are starting their runs to the ball, justifying it as where they are getting involved with play. However, that’s dicier from a rules perspective. A final sanction could be to add the wasted time on to stoppage time, depending on the league.
As an aside, my personal rule is that if the time-wasting scenario is so egregious that I haven’t seen it in a CONCACAF WCQ match, it’s unlikely to come up in real life.
DLew On Roids
For Scenario C, although it’s not a DOGSO red (nice incorporation of the new DOGSO rule into the scenario, btw), if it’s anything like an “orange card” foul between reckless and violent conduct, I think the referee should show red. In the best-case scenario, the defender didn’t see the flag and crushed the opponent to keep him from goal when (presumably) a tactical foul could have done the same thing.
Richard Mayhew
@DLew On Roids: agreed that persistent infringement is justified but this is an odd scenario. None of the refs in the card have seen this yet but it is a good corner case
Richard Mayhew
@DLew On Roids: the foul in and of itself was an easy yellow. I was AR1 from 70 yards away and I never thought red for SFP or VC. Dogso was on my mind but nothing else. It was a reckless challenge
germy
Open thread? What’s good for the goose is good for the
Amir Khalid
C: If the foul is a clear yellow card to the ref, then that’s what the Team Yellow defender gets for the crunchy tackle. Then the ref could then award Team Yellow an indirect free kick for Team Blue’s offside.
Barney
For A, would it waste any more time than just hoofing the ball as far as you can for a goal kick? Probably less, since they wouldn’t have to retrieve the ball. It seems an unlikely repeat tactic, to me.
In B, that’s a minimum of 12 times they’ve substituted in the first 75 minutes, so 36 substitutions. What do they think they’re playing? Basketball? American football? I didn’t know there was any form of soccer that would allow that many substitutions. For a competitive game, those are remarkably lax rules. Soccer is meant to be about lasting the full game, not popping off for a quick breather when you feel like it.
smintheus
How is the first scenario much different from a team clearing balls out of bounds as far up the field as possible?
Victor Matheson
On way to distant D1 college. Good questions for ride.
A – have actually seen this in college matches. I would say that itootr the defender became involved in the play at the moment he started moving at the ball with no chance of any other teammates getting there first. We make this determination all of the time to prevent collisions with the gk. Thus, play is stopped quickly and restart is much further upfield eliminating any advantage from this stupid tactic.
B – players are always within the law imo (no imho as I am a referee) if they are jogging. They are not obligated to sprint just because another team is losing. You can add time as necessary for substitutions.
C – yellow card and ifk coming out for defense. Sucks but nothing else you can do within the LOTG unless you think that tackle was RC worthy on its own no matter where on the field it occurs.
D – a class of mine in college once drank a bar out of beer. Proud moment…
Wyrm1
I feel like you can’t do that much about A. I agree with a couple of the posters that the only difference is that their is an offside player playing it. I’d be pretty firm about carding the player for time wasting if he were kicking the ball away, but other than that I don’t see a whole lot that can be done.
B: Unlimited subs are stupid, but if those are the rules, the coach is entitled to sub, so no problem there. As for the throw-ins, as long as the white players aren’t clearly walking/stalling I think that this is also not an issue (frustrating as it is)
C: Yellow for reckless. It kind of stinks that your player got hurt, but if the referee sees a reckless tackle then I don’t know what else you can do. DOGSO isn’t an issue. I don’t really understand Blue going crazy. I get that it is frustrating when a player gets hurt on a hard foul, but that happens in soccer all the time.
D: Buffet is doomed. My wife and I had this exact same conversation yesterday and agreed that a medium buffet could probably handle a football team, but the extra athletes will probably crush it.
Victor Matheson
@Barney: most youth and amateur leagues in the US allow unlimited substitutions. No 13-year old wants to join a team where the rules are that you might not play at all or only get 10 minutes at the end of the game. Fortunately, most youth and amateur coaches don’t wreck the game by taking this allowance to its extreme. Obviously some do.
Tim C.
Here’s another scenario:
It’s Youth soccer, four and five year olds running around randomly some of them actually kicking the ball in the general direction of one of the goals. One five year old grabs the Jersey of his friend, (on the same team) and they begin laughing and wrestling. Does this deserve a Yellow card or perhaps witholding the post-game Capri Sun?
Richard Mayhew
@Tim C.: do not take away the snack. High fives for all involved
Richard Mayhew
@Barney: u13 girls on a 90 degree 90% humidity day with a full bench and unlimited subs. If I was a parent of a player I want lots of subs to avoid hear stress injuries
Mart
@Tim C.: Coaching coed youths with a neighbor and his 6 or 7 year old daughter is in the goal. She makes a save and a boy who is sweet on her asks her to hand him the ball. She obliges and the other team is awarded a handball penalty kick. I started to lose it. The neighbor coach reminded me when we started we said they are seven, no hollering, and I shut up. I did have to go to their house and apologize to the girl. She was not amused and no Capri Suns were offered.