Resetting offside

Had an interesting call to make in an Open Cup game I did about 10 days ago. It was a highly competitive match where yellow was up 1-0 when the play happened.

Blue is pushing for the equalizer, about 12 minutes before the end of the game. Player heading towards goal, about 10 yards away from the top of the 18, threads a chest high pass to a streaking attacker, ball takes a slight deflection off of the chicken wing arm of a defender and to the attacker who scores. As I am about to validate the tying goal, I see my AR with his flag up for offside.

Tough one here, because you have the offside happening after the deflection, so I had to think, was the deflection really deflection as in "no intention whatsoever" or deflection as in making himself bigger or intentionally played.

The three scenarios here are this:

1. If it is just an innocent deflection, no reset of the offside, so no goal and indirect free kick coming out.
2. If it is a "making yourself bigger" but not intentionally playing the ball, then it is handling but no advantage as offside still would count as it was a deflection in terms of intentionally playing the ball but not for resetting offside. So free kick for the attacking team.
3. Intentionally playing the ball interpretation would mean wave down the AR and say that it is a valid goal as the intentionally played handling would reset the offside, no offside, good goal.

It took me a minute by myself to figure all this out, then I went to the AR and we discussed and decided on #2. What I need to determine from those that know more than I do, is whether #2 is even an option here to select. It was a match critical choice, and I almost wish I was being assessed, because I would have loved an answer to this question on the spot.

Still, when I do get a chance to pose this question to someone who knows more, I will post their reply. Until then, let me know what you think would be the correct interpretation. Thanks!

Stats on that Mental Picture

I am going to attach some of the stats that the Garmin device lets me see instead of the running map. It was 90 degrees at kick off and it was certainly a somewhat humid day, so I am sure I burned a lot of calories. But impressive was the amount of info that the Garmin device collects. I am sure others collect similar info, so perhaps it is time to look for one of these now that the cost is down to around $100.

Mental Picture

Let me describe the mental picture that I took the other day at one of my games. It was last week and I had the center of a WPSL match in the area. I am running down the field, slightly to the left and behind an attacker trying to close the gap and score a goal that would put her team back into contention. In front of her was two defenders and then in the background, the scoreboard. It read the score and the time was 87:19. At that moment, after running over 5 miles in the center, on a sweltering day in early July, it hit me.

I made it to where I wanted to be. It was the perfect snapshot. High level match, 75-100 people in the stands, a 4th official on the sidelines, announcers, an international walk out before the game and I was the center for all of that. It was a great feeling.

Did I have the perfect game, no. Not at all. I caught a lot of flak from the home team for a handling call when they had the game in hand that lead to a PK and my lead AR said that she wouldn't have called it. There were other little things that I could have done better. But at that moment, at 87:19, it was perfect.

And we were wearing the new powder blue uniforms that I doubt I will wear often, so that was a plus. Anyway, had a lot of fun and thought that it was a great snapshot. Too bad I could only capture the moment visually and not in a more permanent way as it would be great to frame it for posterity.