The Video Assistant Referee (VAR) technology did not prevent catastrophic offside errors, which prompted former Netherlands national team scorer Marco van Basten to demand the cancellation of offside last March, saying that the game would be better without him.
The Portuguese star, Cristiano Ronaldo, was the last victim of the offside, when he scored the winning goal for his team, Juventus, against his opponent, Udinese, in the 94th minute. The goal, after using the VAR technique for offside, ended the match in a 2-2 draw. Was it really offside?
And the pictures with the video clip clearly answer this question, as it is required to calculate the offside - according to Article 11 of the Football Law (Offside) - that the offside player at the moment of touching the ball to pass it to him "from his teammate" is closer to the goal line than the last second or second defender defenders, provided that he participates in active or active play.
The player who receives the ball directly - even if he is clearly offside - from a goal kick, throw-in or corner kick is excluded from falling offside.
Is it a valid goal or offside?
pic.twitter.com/znZ0HqyIwj
- Juventus page (@yousifhraim) August 22, 2021
The offside article defined active or active play in 3 points:
1- Interfering with play by playing or touching the ball.
2- Interfering with the opponent by preventing him from playing the ball by competing with him or withholding it from him, or taking any clear action that affects the defender’s ability to play the ball.
3- Taking advantage of his offside position by getting an opportunity, such as playing the rebound ball from the post, the crossbar, the goalkeeper or the opponents.
The previous conditions do not apply to Ronaldo because he was simply not infiltrated at the moment of passing the ball from his teammate, as he was covered by the left leg of the Udinese defender who was standing alone, knowing that the hands and arms of the players - including goalkeepers - are not taken into account when calculating the offside, and the arm extends to the part The lower armpit, and this clarification for those who say that Ronaldo's hand is ahead of defenders.
You don't have the
dignity to
criticize Ronaldo
and then slap you "even if it is an unjust infiltration"
from his attack alone, but he decided the match for you.
🖤💪🏽
pic.twitter.com/ehXtfguxRb
— ﮼Nawaf |
(@C__Rr__7) August 22, 2021
The referees were late in raising the offside flag
There is a question that may come to mind about the reasons for the delay of the assistant referees to indicate offside in some clear cases, and the answer is that they have instructions to delay raising the offside flags if an opportunity to score goals is expected, even in the event of an offside suspicion.
Then, as soon as a goal is scored or the opportunity is missed, the flag is raised to prevent the attack from affecting if the mouse discovers that the offside is not present.
The offside caused widespread controversy in most of the major European leagues, including the English Premier League, and the managing director of the body responsible for match officials in the Premier League, Mike Riley, commented on the offside, saying, “We have effectively restored the advantage of suspicion to the attacking player .. So in the event of a close offside, we continue The same procedures we followed last year with the (VAR) technique, and we put the line of defense and then the line of attack."
He added, "We are setting clearer broadcast lines, and these are not details, because if we had implemented these measures last season, we would have recalculated 20 goals that were excluded."
He further noted that "the images shared with TV viewers will change. In recent seasons, live images were shown, while the judges were studying whether the attacking player was offside. Now, only the final images will be shown and not the lines, as was the case." It has to be in (Euro 2020)."
Perhaps haste and lack of focus is one of the most important reasons for offside errors, whether at the level of stadium referees or the mouse technique, who failed to put an end to offside errors despite the presence of replays from different angles and even high techniques that show offside or not, and this is often due to the miscalculation of some referees.
Suspicion is in favor of the attacker
The absence of the rule of doubt in favor of the striker - which prevailed even 10 years ago and was restored by the Premier League - is one of the reasons for the infiltration disasters as well, and if this rule is applied to Ronaldo's canceled goal, it will also be counted assuming that he was an infiltrator.
The International Football Association Board (IFAB), which is responsible for enacting or amending the football law, is trying to solve the problem of wrongful infiltrations by various means, so that the French Arsene Wenger, the development official at the International Football Association (FIFA), said that he would be ready to use an automated system to detect Offside in the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
The council said last March that it was continuing to review the rules on offside, and that it planned to test a new semi-automated system to detect offside in order to reduce waiting during matches when resorting to the video assistant referee.
While Wenger said he favors the use of an automated system that directly informs an assistant referee when an offside has occurred.
The British newspaper, The Times, quoted Wenger as saying, "I think the automated system will be ready before 2022... I fully support the use of the automated system in intrusion detection, which means that the signal reaches directly to the assistant referee."