UEFA Nations League

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Watch any game of football in the English Premiership for example. You will see strikers, who are offside, chase balls down but because a defender gets there first, the official on the line feels that they can now flag. Why are they doing this if a new phase has begun?

has the forward touched the ball in this scenario?

[multipleman78]

No, the officials rarely apply the rules in play as they do once it goes to VAR. A lines official will flag a striker going near a defender with the ball if he was initially offside. In this case I believe the linesman believed Mbappe to be onside so he never flagged at all.

Going by the law stated last night, a striker has to touch the ball or physically impact the defender to be flagged. This is not how they implement it. They flag for offside all the time without a striker touching it. However, by the standards set last night, an offside striker can cruise along near the ball waiting for a defender to touch it then he can launch into a tackle if he choses.

Dermot Gallagher on Sky said that Mbappe is not close enough to be considered impacting Garcia. What is the distance required to be close enough? Does he have to touch him, be within two yards or is it simply an interpretation?

Just wait and see once the Premiership starts again. Cross comes in, defender flicks it out for a corner but the striker behind him is given offside even although he never touched it. Happens all the time. Why? Because he was offside when the cross came in but they are saying that is wrong, that defenders header is a new phase.

The change in 04 was initially highlighted by players like Van Nistelrooy hanging about waiting for a new phase caused by his winger getting in down the side. I have no problem with this inactive then active kind of rule. My problem is Mbappe has benefitted from being continually active from an offside position.

[Jah Womble]

Arguably it's harder to qualify for the Nations League than the Euros were in 1976 (the last time they also had 4 finalists). Yugoslavia had to get past NI, Sweden, Norway and Wales in 1976; France had Portugal, Croatia and Sweden in 2020 to get to these finals in 2021.

It's effectively replaced the pre-1996 Euros as the tournament where you have no margin for error; one bad performance often puts you out. No back door safety nets like play-offs. No weak groups. Infact it's actually tougher now than Euro 2020 because you start with 16 elite sides, not 24, you have to win your group (no 2nd placed teams going through, or "best 3rd").

The one caveat is "are the players really arsed for this one" but I've seen no evidence of them being less arsed for this than a Euros qualifier, and the players seemed to be trying as hard this week as they were in June and July's Euros.

In that respect it's totally confounded my expectations because my perception in 2019 was that the games were treated as glorified friendlies, especially as they followed the World Cup. This cycle has made it a proper tournament, for whatever reason (four finalists all with big points to prove; some exciting young players coming through and keen to impress?).

The matches we've seen this week have all augured remarkably well for the Nations League as a tournament. Depending on what nonsense is set to befall the World Cup, the tournament will clearly strengthen from the lack of its big brothers' matches having become so condensed around Covid.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

A lines official will flag a striker going near a defender with the ball if he was initially offside. In this case I believe the linesman believed Mbappe to be onside so he never flagged at all.

Now I definitely don't remember that. I do remember Harry Kane getting a penalty against liverpool, from pretty much the same situation as mbappe a couple of years ago. You can see it here. Also note how Salah is behind the last defender when Eric Dier has his brainstorm.

https://www.skysports.com/football/n...ool-pgmol-says

This here is the pgmol explaining why he came to that decision.

For the first man city goal Rodri is 10-15 yards offside, before coming back to dispossess tyrone mings, before giving it to bernardo silva to score This was not give as offside, because like in the previous instance, the defender deliberately playing the ball means that the forward isn't offside. Tyrone Mings didn't know about the law and was pretty pissed off on twitter.

Just wait and see once the Premiership starts again. Cross comes in, defender flicks it out for a corner but the striker behind him is given offside even although he never touched it. Happens all the time. Why? Because he was offside when the cross came in but they are saying that is wrong, that defenders header is a new phase.

See I think the important part there is that the forward has to wind up with the ball, for the offside to be overruled.

https://www.thefa.com/football-rules...w-11---offside

the key bit is this section

A player in an offside position receiving the ball from an opponent who deliberately plays the ball, including by deliberate handball, is not considered to have gained an advantage, unless it was a deliberate save by any opponent.

I mean it specifically makes reference to this sort of situation. I must admit that it caught me off guard.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

BTW can I just add that I love the nations league. There is a lot to be said for a competition where you have to play regularly against teams on a similar level, because in qualifiers, you're either playing teams that are nowhere near as good as you, or teams that are better than you, but rarely teams on a similar level, and it's hard to improve or make progress, because you don't know what to measure yourself against. They're a million times better than friendlies, and while it's not clear just how seriously every team takes it, I think it provides a big opportunity to learn and improve if that's what you're into.

[multipleman78]

They changed the guidance after the Rodri one. That highlighted how ridiculous this kind of rule can get. 20 yards offside and he just kept moving and snuck up on a defender who found that his chest control became a tackle moments later.

This is probably where not touching the ball but impacting the defender came from. It's weird because Mings is clearly not impacted in his decision making, that is why he chests it down, Rodri isn't in his mind. However he is offside and sneaking up from behind. Garcia is aware of Mbappe and is sliding to stop the ball so he is definitely impacted but now they say Mbappe is too far away for that.

If you freeze frame both incidents or slow them down which VAR does, Rodri and Mbappe are roughly the same distance from the defender at the moment the defender touches the ball deliberately.

[multipleman78]

The Kane one is a tough one for my arguement. I don't have an issue with an offside player benefitting from a miskick and Kane doesn't really do much until the miskick. However his presence is what causes the panic. So, I feel I am getting tied up in knots on that one.

I just like the offside player to have to check his run or be inactive until a new phase begins. I don't think a new phase should start with the slightest brush off a sliding defenders stud.

However, the rule says it does so I just need to accept it, no matter how shite I think it is.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

They changed the guidance after the Rodri one. That highlighted how ridiculous this kind of rule can get. 20 yards offside and he just kept moving and snuck up on a defender who found that his chest control became a tackle moments later.

See, I was as surprised by that one as I was by the other night. It kind of feels wrong, but the thing is how does what rodri did differ from that Dion Dublin/Robbie Keane trick of hiding behind the goalkeeper until he drops the ball. It becomes a question of how would you word a law to cover this distinction that didn't boil down to "I thought what robbie keane did was hilarious, but rodri was a sneaky snake."

See the problem with anything to do with the rules around offside, has to do with the binary nature of the offence. Either you are onside or you are offside. And there can't really be room for interpretation. What you get is the rule that you can't be offside if the opponent plays the ball to you, and the phases of play thing gets you the rest of the way.

[elguapo4]

See, I was as surprised by that one as I was by the other night. It kind of feels wrong, but the thing is how does what rodri did differ from that Dion Dublin/Robbie Keane trick of hiding behind the goalkeeper until he drops the ball. It becomes a question of how would you word a law to cover this distinction that didn't boil down to "I thought what robbie keane did was hilarious, but rodri was a sneaky snake."

See the problem with anything to do with the rules around offside, has to do with the binary nature of the offence. Either you are onside or you are offside. And there can't really be room for interpretation. What you get is the rule that you can't be offside if the opponent plays the ball to you, and the phases of play thing gets you the rest of the way.

The main difference that I see is that Keane/ Dublin were on side when the keeper caught the ball, they were never offside. When the ball was played forward by Manchester City, by any definition Rodri was offside, because he started his run towards Mings before the latter touched the ball., therefore attempting to gain an advantage, as the law used to state If we're going to have such tight technical decisions then fine, but it's going to cause more anger amongst players and management.