Having discussed yesterday my thoughts on handling and offside, let's keep the comments coming because until I get a definite answer (and who knows, the next time I work with someone that is a 4 or during another assessment match, I will make sure to ask).
My other uneasiness on law interpretation is the on the concept of playing on and waiting for the advantage to materialize. A couple of years ago, in a competitive U15 or U16 match, I had a situation where one team is attacking and towards the top of the penalty area, a foul occurs but I play on (some of the details are gone so I am making it generic).
Anyway, defender commits a foul that I play on because the ball goes to another attacker who takes one touch and her second touch is somewhat bad and the defender clears it out. Time elapsed was probably about one second to less than two. I blow to come back to the foul and the coach gives me a hard time because they got the advantage, it was taken with the first touch and the second was beyond being "called back".
Same thing in my assessment match that I mentioned a couple of weeks ago and that I promised I would elaborate on one particular issue the next day (and then didn't because life happens).
That scenario is similar. The team that was down towards the end of the first half when a through ball is played to an attacker. The defender, seeing that it is a great opportunity for the other team, tries to grab the shirt of the attacker but he breaks free and is streaking down the side, angling towards the middle of the field. I yell play on loudly. After about 3-4 touches and about 3-4 seconds have elapsed, he makes a bad touch and that same defender that tried to grab him clears the ball upfield and the attacker takes a dive. Eventually, the ball goes out and I card the defender for attempting to break up a promising attack. The fouled team could not comprehend how I could play on, give a card and not go back to the foul. I tried to explain that in my opinion, the attacker had indeed taken advantage of the play on, and that by the time he made a bad touch, there was no "advantage didn't materialize" to go back to.
Side note on that: the team was almost all comprised of people from Jordan and they kept saying that in Jordan, you go back to that. So perhaps in other countries our colleagues hold advantages longer?
Anyway, that is the scenario. What is the point of no return on an advantage? One touch, 2-3 seconds, the attacker getting out of the jam? And of course, it goes without saying that skill level comes into play as well. But what constitutes the end of the "advantage"? Let me know in the comments below or mull it over as an icebreaker when you don't know what to talk about during a break with your next crew.
1 comment:
The Laws deliberately avoid a fixed "point of no return" for advantage. With all the "you-had-to-be-there" caveats, you're perfectly justified in what you did. Law 5 says you can penalize the foul if advantage doesn't materialize "at that time, or within a few seconds". You evaluated the 3-4 touches as constituting a realized advantage.
On the other hand, mere possession rarely, if ever, constitutes a true advantage. For an actual advantage to be present, the probability of a promising attack should outweigh the benefit of a free kick, and you should use the "4 P's" to help you decide, a good discussion of which can be found at Paul Rejer's recent" MLS Play of the Week"
https://theref.online/mls-play-of-the-week-9-advantage/
During the last couple of years, I've tried to train myself to delay signaling advantage until I've decided that the advantage has already occurred, unless it's precipitated by a particularly hard foul, in which case I want the players to know I saw it. In the latter case, if I have to pull it back, I make sure I sell it as strongly as possible - announcing loudly that "advantage didn't materialize, we'll go with the initial foul".
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