I happened to see the ending of an exciting Bundesliga II game Monday night but it raised up a couple of questions for me.
Fouls in the Penalty Box: I’d been suffering under the misconception that ALL fouls committed in the penalty box led to a penalty kick. I’ve now seen a couple of different times where this was not the case. Monday night’s example was for a high kick (it was a close call, the announcer was wondering if the kick was high or the head was low), but eventually they gave the attacking team an indirect free kick from about 5-6 meters out. What other fouls by the defending team do not result in a penalty kick for the attacking team?
Passive offside rule: I think this one probably causes a lot of confusion still. In my day, you were offside or you weren’t. BTW, many Americans call this offsides and I’m beginning to think it’s not wrong for Americans. Just like we say “he was in the hospital” and others say “he was in hospital”. Just a dialectic difference. But I digress.
So on one play an attacking player was in an offside position at the time the ball was crossed. The ball passed over the head of the attacking player, not by much, who continued his run and clearly would have headed the ball if he could have got up to it. Instead the pass fell to the feet of another attacking player who then scored. My previous understanding was that if a player did not actively take himself out of the play, such as moving away from the goal, the result would be an offside call. What constitutes a player involved in the play and a player not involved? How is the defense suppose to sort this out? Linesmen must hate this one.
There are a list of offences that result in the award of a direct free kick, ten in total.
They are listed on page 33 of the Laws of the Game. The page links to a PDF of the actual rules. (It’s the FIFA website, so it should be fairly authoritative).
A direct free kick is taken at the point of the offence, unless the offence occurs in the penalty area, in which case a penalty kick is awarded instead.
If the offence is penalised by the award of an indirect free kick, the free kick is taken from the spot of the offence, whether in the penalty area or not.
I suspect they do.
My active involvement in football was so long ago that I haven’t any experience with the new offside rule in any capacity. There’s a link to a tutorial on the offside rule in the link above, but I haven’t reviewed it. Maybe that will help?
It really is a pain. I think the current interpretation is that if the attacking team gains an advantage by that player being there, then he is offside. So, if a defender was marking the player that went up for the header or if the goalie was distracted by him, then it is offside. A difficult to implement rule to be sure.
So if a player is in an offside position and he does not touch the ball, obstruct an opponent from playing the ball, distract or deceive an opponent who would be involved in the play, or end up getting a rebound or parry, then he is not adjudged to have been offside. This is a VERY different approach to the offside rule than even what existed just ten years ago.
As a referee, if the player in an offside position had actually gone up and attempted to head the ball as it passed over him, I would stop the play for offside even if he didn’t accomplish the goal of touching the ball (unless it was far above his head). But if he lets it go over him and just continues the rush forward, we have to wait and see what happens.
As for the list of indirect free kicks, you can have them for any of the reasons listed in Law XII under the sub-heading of indirect free kicks:
The only other indirect free kick reason is offside, but that obviously cannot happen in your own penalty area.
This last weekend, the keeper for the team I coach was whistled for having released the ball from possession in his hands, then taking it back into possession of his hands. The indirect free kick was from right on the edge of the goal area, and it was comical watching as the attacking team tried to figure out how to score, and our team tried to figure out where to set the wall. Fortunately, our keeper understood that we had no need of trying to prevent a direct blast into the goal…
I don’t think it’s a dialectic difference, such as “in hospital” or “I’m at university” as compared to “I’m in college.” Neither of these are wrong. “Offsides” though is wrong because the word is “offside.” For whatever reason American sports fans have a tendency to add an “s” at the ends of some words that don’t merit them. Being as nitpicky as I am over language, it constantly annoys me no matter what I do to try to ignore it. I’m happy to see that whenever an NFL referee announces an offside infraction, they pronounce it properly even though the announcers go on about how the player was offsides.
Another irritation is the insistence to refer to the championship game of a tournament, one game, as the “finals.” The finals are a number of games played by a number of teams and which can also be called a “tournament.” The very last game of a finals is the “final.” Why is this so hard to understand for some announcers?
Just by co-incidence, I was reading this yesterday. A high foot is “dangerous play” - even though I’ve been to hundreds of football matches I didn’t actually know dangerous play was an indirect free-kick offence - I don’t think I’ve ever seen it given in the box.
Incidentally, I don’t think indirect free-kick offences are called “fouls” - I think fouls are regarded as cheating whereas indirect free-kicks are only given for techincal offences.
Not true. Law XII is titled: Fouls and Misconduct No where any more are the words “foul” and “misconduct” used; they are lumped together as “offences.” However it used to be considered that “fouls” were the things listed in Law XII as being rewarded with free kicks, and “misconduct” was the behavior that got you cautioned or sent off.
“Dangerous play” is rarely called in professional football. It’s much more likely to be whistled in amature play, where the players are less skilled, and they aren’t being paid to take the risk of a studded boot to the chops.
“Cheating” is covered by what used to be called “ungentlemanly conduct” and is now titled “unsporting” conduct. This includes, for example, simulated fouls, for which you can be cautioned, but for which the restart is an indirect free kick.
I would venture to say that the non-officiating public would generally consider a “foul” to be one of the ten direct free kick offences.
Indeed, but the most common way of defending this is still to have a wall, as the offensive team’s tactic will often be to have one player move the ball a few inches for a second player to then hit at goal. The only difference between this and a direct free-kick is then that the defensive wall can rush out after the first touch to block the shot.
I question this statement and the logic behind it - the purpose of the rule is to prevent injuries, which is no less important in the professional game than it is in the amateur one. In fact, my experience is generally the opposite (and I have played amateur football and watched professional football for over 15 years) - challenges that would be called a foul in the Premier League will often go unpunished in a Sunday afternoon park match, because there is a lower expectation of skill level in the player involved.
I’ve been refereeing it for longer than that, and assure you, that when it comes to dangerous play, that particular offence is almost NEVER whistled in a professional game. Direct free kick fouls, yes, but dangerous play, no. And the only reason that you won’t see something called in an amature game is because of the reduced skill level of the referee crew.
And I will say this: there are very few fouls actually whistled in professional football. The iconic pictures we see show this: one guy with his hand on the other’s shirt, while the second lad has his hand full of the first guy’s shorts. Only fouls that actually manage to significantly affect the play will be whistled; in youth soccer and quite a lot of amature soccer, you’ll see fouls called even when the foul hasn’t really affected much of anything. But YMMV.
In a high school match I’ve seen a guy get a yellow card because he was “about to foul.” The player responded with “well I was about to score, so put another goal on the board.”
About dangerous plays, two years ago in the MLS playoffs there was a bicycle kick in the box where the attacking player narrowly missed hitting two defenders in the face. It wasn’t called. Possibly because the players scored and that seems like a soft way to call back a goal.
