Offside - feet or body?

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dlw10
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Re: Offside - feet or body?

Post by dlw10 »

I mentioned this to my lad who is a ref and he said it was the "any part of the body you can score with" so Smith was clearly offside in that respect. It was though a superb strike and shows he is more than just a good header of a ball - which to be fair BM told us when he was signed.
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SMorientes
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Re: Offside - feet or body?

Post by SMorientes »

dlw10 wrote:I mentioned this to my lad who is a ref and he said it was the "any part of the body you can score with" so Smith was clearly offside in that respect.
I've always understood this to be the case. But it seems ridiculous to me to be frank. If you ask me, if you're going to be so pedantic and specific about which body parts must be where to be offside, then you have to introduce a video referee to appeal to in close calls, just as all other sports have done by now. If you're going to say that your toe being a milimetre infront of the defender's protruding frizzy leg hair, then you have to eliminate the inevitable human error, no way can a linesman* judge that when he's simultaneously trying to watch for the exact moment that the ball leaves the passer's foot.

As mentioned by someone else, the fact that it's taken so long to get anywhere with goal-line technology means it will be 2040 before we have appeals to a video referee or something. In which case, I firmly believe that to call offside, it needs to be much more clear cut, i.e. there is daylight between the attacking player and the defender. Ideally a good yard or so of it as well. Then you should only get offsides that are clearly off and far fewer controversial decisions. At the same time defending would be slightly harder and we'd hopefully see more goals.

If it were up to me I'd scrap the offside rule completely but I haven't found anyone else that feels that way.


*A lineswoman though, that's a different matter. Sian Massey gets every impossibly difficult decision spot on, if only she could officiate on all games.
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Re: Offside - feet or body?

Post by Deleted User 2 »

SMorientes wrote:If you're going to say that your toe being a milimetre infront of the defender's protruding frizzy leg hair, then you have to eliminate the inevitable human error, no way can a linesman* judge that when he's simultaneously trying to watch for the exact moment that the ball leaves the passer's foot.
But nobody ever says that, realistically, do they? :) The rules are there to provide a frame for judging the game, but you will never be able to cover every single possibility and then it's left to common sense to judge things like that.
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SMorientes
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Re: Offside - feet or body?

Post by SMorientes »

Bogdan wrote:
SMorientes wrote:If you're going to say that your toe being a milimetre infront of the defender's protruding frizzy leg hair, then you have to eliminate the inevitable human error, no way can a linesman* judge that when he's simultaneously trying to watch for the exact moment that the ball leaves the passer's foot.
But nobody ever says that, realistically, do they? :) The rules are there to provide a frame for judging the game, but you will never be able to cover every single possibility and then it's left to common sense to judge things like that.
But they do say it, they analyse decisions and say he got this one right because his patella is closer to goal than that defender's gluteus maximus, but he got this other one wrong because the defender's got that body part a centimetre closer to the goal-line this time. In reality, the linesman has made two different decisions based on very similar empirical evidence, which to me is inconsistency and leads to lots of complaining. If you had to be unquestionably offside to be flagged up then it would remove that and open the game up a bit. That would be common sense if you ask me.
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Re: Offside - feet or body?

Post by Deleted User 728 »

Daylight.

Daylight between the body of the attacker and the last defender.

No way is the attacker in the red offside in that pic ..
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Re: Offside - feet or body?

Post by Deleted User 2 »

rigger wrote:No way is the attacker in the red offside in that pic ..
Well, he is, because the position qualifies for offside under the rules of the game.
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SMorientes
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Re: Offside - feet or body?

Post by SMorientes »

Bogdan wrote:
rigger wrote:No way is the attacker in the red offside in that pic ..
Well, he is, because the position qualifies for offside under the rules of the game.
Rules Schmules, this is a forum isn't it? We're not here to discuss rules, we're here to say how things should be!
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Re: Offside - feet or body?

Post by Deleted User 2 »

SMorientes wrote:Rules Schmules
Didn't he use to play for Man U?
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SMorientes
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Re: Offside - feet or body?

Post by SMorientes »

Bogdan wrote:
SMorientes wrote:Rules Schmules
Didn't he use to play for Man U?
Aye, Dutch lad I believe :thumbup:
"Whenever people agree with me, I always feel I must be wrong."
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Re: Offside - feet or body?

Post by Deleted User 2 »

SMorientes wrote:we're here to say how things should be!
Gotcha. I've amended Rigger's post accordingly.
rigger wrote:No way should the rules be established and written in such a way that they consider the attacker in the red offside in that pic ..
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