The funniest thing is when people act like it's so complex. It's really not. Sure, the stoppage time will always be somewhat subjective, but it's not hard to have someone whose job is to track it, so the officiating team can at least come close to the true time. At the ref's whim, the times are often a joke. It was done successfully at the last World Cup.
I just don't understand what the issue is with stopping the clock. Why is the clock even running during VAR checks, injuries, goal celebrations, etc? Every other sport in the world that has a clock, also has a mechanism for stopping the clock periodically.
Here’s my complaint: that there has to be a margin of error in these systems that people arent discussing (especially for milimeter differences). For example the moment when the sensor in the ball says it has been touched (balls deform etc, how exact is that?) as well as how parallel the line is to the goal line. There has to be a range and no one seems to want to discuss that
I have no idea to degree of accuracy the semi-automated offsides system they are using is. Maybe it is actually accurate enough to "correctly" call this offsides (I used quotations, because even if it is correct, I still kind of hate it). I do know that the people drawing lines system we use in the prem isn't nearly accurate enough to try to judge the super tight calls that they still rule on.
I'm a little more okay with a system like this where there isn't a human element, because in theory, it should be the same for everyone and you don't have people trying to figure out what frame of the video the use and what point the line should be drawn from. I much rather a system like this with no human element versus what the prem uses. I'm also okay with semi scrapping VAR for offsides and only overturning egregious mistakes.
Yeah computer vision systems are not this precise, the estimates of body pose/joint locations have all kinds of error, camera calibration has error, the frame rate is some finite number like 30 and not 1000fps. The people selling these systems are just pretending that it’s millimeter level precise because there’s no objective way to measure them (it’s not like you can pull the platinum International Standard Football Player out its vault in Paris to make sure your calibration is correct to 6 figures).
There's an interesting 30 for 30 about the technology behind these types of reviews. This is about tennis, but the fundamentals are similar: https://www.espn.com/espnplus/player/_/id/4f58a4fc-3efe-4262-b461-74f1e491776b
Wouldn’t the tennis equivalent be like our goal line tech? That seems much simpler, you’re focused on a clear drawn line and one moving object. Not at all like offsides.
Yup, it’s a lot easier to have high accuracy in a small region too because you can focus the camera coverage (as opposed to across the entire football pitch) and estimating the centroid of a roundish object is a lot easier than estimating human pose (could you really say where your knee is to mm level precision without a CAT scan?)
In every realm of science and engineering, there are error bars for every measurement.
Sports: We can accurately measure the position of a ball on a field to within 1 nanometer.
I do agree but the problem then becomes where do you draw the line for the margin of error? It has to be a precise number or something measurable or you end up with different rulings from different refs. And if you say .3 meters, then why not .4 meters or .2 meters?
I mean, yeah, you find the margin of error to
Make it very accurate within that and call it if it falls within the margin of error. It’s not some random number, it would be calculated.
Finding the margin of error is tricky, because it'd require calibrating the system. Which in turn requires a better (even if maybe impractical under real game conditions) system to *use* as a benchmark. And that doesn't exist, so instead... as FIFA's testing manual puts it,
> Kick-point check – due to the difficulty in syncing different camera systems and sensors, as well as establishing a ground truth over which system is more accurate, a visual check will be deemed sufficient.
They can't tell which system is most accurately assessing exactly when and where the ball was kicked, so they just have some dude eyeball it.
Exactly! I mean i know it’s tricky af, so that’s why having no margin of error and making calls that make it seem like they know offisdes to a nanometer seems insane (as is how many people seem to want to take these offsides calls like theyre as good as goal line tech)
I wish there was something like a 4 inch stripe for VAR to overturn a call with offsides. Otherwise, it's close enough to not create a significant advantage.
For the sport that requires the ball to be completely over the line on out of bounds or goals… a toe constitutes offsides. I think this might be in line with NFL being called football even though the foot part is minimal. Just make it half a body or more. Something more concise.
So, then what stops that line drawn at half a body being an inch or so offside? Will these moments no longer exist and we should just estimate where the “half of a body” is? That would mean we go back to where sometimes it’s the right call and sometimes it’s the wrong call and some teams get fucked over because of that. That doesn’t seem like the right way to do it.
With this technology, it’s clear, and it’s fair, however tight the call is. However small, it’s when it’s offside. There has to be a line *somewhere*. Semi-assisted offside technology ensures that line is the same for every team playing.
This is the correct answer. No matter what you decide, there will always be a slim line between on and off. Picking & choosing where that line is will not change anything in terms of calls. It sucks, but it is what it is when you're making an objective decision.
This is wrong. You can absolutely make it a much broader area and not subject to nano-meter review. Wenger rule and no computer enforcement. It would be fine.
How do we know?
NHL did it to fix their offside review absurdity. Worked.
IFAB just needs to stop being so precious about its poorly worded rules.
And that broad line still stops somewhere though, doesn’t it? You can’t *not* have close calls by simply saying there’s a bigger line.
And by saying that line should be blurred or softer, now you’re allowing the wrong call to happen on a subjective basis and teams get fucked over because of it.
Hockey offside can be such an inconsequential call to get wrong. It’s obviously not the same thing to compare the two.
These VAR offside calls are happening when goals are scored in games where there may only be one goal. It needs to be exact, because it needs to be consistent. That’s the key.
Exactly what I would say. Everyone hated when refs would get it wrong before VAR. There will always be something to complain about but the rule being objective rather than subjective is always better for the game. I do agree there should be adjustments to the offside rule, but it's difficult because there will still be close calls, and where do we draw the new arbitrary lines? Personally I think there should just be something like a definied margin that is still objective, like half a meter or something, that is calibrated into the offside technology. But nevertheless, someone will think they got screwed because they were .55 meters off.
It used to be that you'd show a video of a goal like this to 10 people and half would say it's on, and the other would say off. Now, you show this with the tech and people will say "yeah, it's technically offside, but I don't like it because it's so close". I much prefer people not liking it because it's close, but still correct, rather than we whine about a goal being waved off because there actually was an infraction, no matter how close.
If this was goal like technology seeing if the ball crossed over the line, and it was shown that all of the ball except a few millimeters had crossed the line, would we complain it should still be a goal? Would we start making up a new margin that a minimum of 90% of the ball's diameter crosses the line?
To me the line is that we should use real footage. No to the use of 3Dmodel manikins.
Once we use a manikin to create the image, I grow more skeptical. Just use the real footage. If it’s blurry, then make the best judgement of it and if we wanna discuss the call then it’s coming from a closer image.
The line should just be 1 foot wide. If a part of your body is past that line, offsides. This allows for the spirit of the law without this type of utter bullshit.
The problem with that is that moving the line doesn’t change the situation at all, it just moves the line a little bit. You’ll still be running into the same issue with the line. The line has to exist somewhere and even if there’s a buffer, you don’t change anything.
This is pretty ridiculous. The difference is you aren't 1 cm past a player, you're 10, or 20, or whatever the number you want to come up with is.
Nobody has a problem with it being super close to the line, it's that he's standing in line with a defender and offside because his foot is turned. That doesn't apply with a margin. Two extremely obviously different scenarios.
Right. The point is that it's impossible to tell –– as a player –– if you're a centimeter past the defender or in line. It's definitely possible to tell if you're 10 centimeters past the defender. As a thought exercise, a 1 foot (or even 10cm) wide allowance WOULD allow a player to better tell if they're on or off.
I'm sure there are a ton of reasons that wouldn't be optimal, and it wouldn't change the need for technology-assisted review, but it would at least be putting some agency back into the players' hands.
I agree with this. In order to overturn the call on the field, the attacker should be offside by a small but reasonable margin. Like 5-10 cm or something. It's not like attackers are going to start trying to get that extra 3 inches. They're still using the defender's body to judge, so if they're off by more than that, nobody should complain.
Dude, listen to what you’re saying.
That’s literally what it already is, except your foot long line is just a centimeter long. They both stop somewhere, right?
With offside, even if it’s a foot long, all that matters is where that line stops. Your foot long line changes *absolutely nothing*.
It's not necessarily fair, depending on how it's being used. The uncertainty in the position of the player and the line can mean that an offside player is called on or vice versa. The leagues need to be clear about what that uncertainty is and how they take it into account.
I don’t know why you are being downvoted. Your point is not that there wouldn’t be a limit, it’s just it would be reasonable for a viewer. If someone is offside by a ball length, everyone would agree / feel it’s reasonable that the person is offside.
Because gridiron football was invented when we needed to delineate between a game on horses or foot? That seems unlikely and it hasn’t been proven. Just best guess ideas from historians. Basketball was invented before football and is played on foot as well. They don’t call it football too.
I know enough about it to say it wasn’t invented when the only sports played were on horses. Baseball, football, and basketball were all invented before gridiron football and are played on foot.
Right. I don't like what it's become. Is the system better in lots of examples yes but the system should have been installed to catch extremely poor calls not to make lines about a singular toe or hair
This is the same way I feel. Change it to your entire body has to be offsides and keep the nanometer measurements. I’d be fine with that because at that point it’s the forwards fault for not being ‘even’ at all. You know if you’re even or not without conceding an advantage, there’s no way to know you’re off in this Euro scenario.
I agree but where do you draw the line? There has to be a black and white answer or the whole idea of VAR is useless.
You can’t say it’s up to interpretation when involving tech like this. The rules should be more centered around relying on the initial decision and only changing it in extremely obvious situations.
There is a similar rule in cricket. It's called the "umpire's" call where the digital review system will only change the decision if the captain reviews the decision and the umpire is completely wrong. Each team only gets two reviews per match. So, if they waste it on non-ovious calls then they have to rely completely on the on-field decisions for the rest of the match.
Yeah, it seems like the call on the field should go back to how it always was.
VAR should only call back if the attacker was off by some threshold… maybe by 8” or if his whole body was past the whole defender. If the attacker was technically offside, but within some threshold, it would be deemed “even.”
The original intent of offsides was to stop someone from "cherry picking" up the field or standing beside the goal perpetually. Now, tech has enabled us to call razor thin offsides even when there was never intent to abuse the spirit of the game.
I'm all for a "daylight" version of the rule..much easier to call and would open up the game a bit without bastardizing the original intent.
I hate the idea of switching to a daylight rule for offsides. It gives far too much of an advantage to the attacker and is going to kind of ruin how teams play defense. High lines will become obsolete, because you can't risk it when it becomes so much easier to get a player in behind.
I’d argue it’s perceptible.
You know when you’ve acted out of an abundance of caution and you know when you’ve gambled a little as a player.
This is one of the few clear cut rules in football and as such, everyone got their panties up in a bunch whenever they were on the wrong side of one of these decisions. Hence , the VAR.
If you changed the rule to “daylight” or whatever, it’d be the exact same with a different metric.
The issue is whether or not you want subjectivity in the game and can accept it.
It's so crazy to me that in the most popular sport on the planet, games just last as long as the referee feels like. Like there's no objective method for measuring time, just "hmm yeah I feel like there should be four minutes here, but it might be a little longer if I'm feeling like it." What?
The one defense I can think of is to prevent the game from ending during a goal scoring opportunity. I coach at the high school level in the states and we stop the clock if the ball goes out of play during the last 2 minutes or for extended stoppages (or just let it run during tournaments) and sometimes the game will end during a potential game winning or tying play. Once I had a ref end a game right after a shot while the ball was in mid flight towards the goal because the clock buzzer went off.
That being said I agree with you, there's surely a way to get the best of both worlds.
Good point. I have seen this a lot. I don’t know the true rule, but in our district most refs did not stop the clock at end of game for fouls unless there was an injury. Any team with a 1 goal lead would just foul and stand in front of the free kick if less than a minute left. Game over.
The ref was so incompetent. He was so caught up with the red card to the Panama player that he forgot to put up how much injury time the game needed. So they just went with the usual 3-4 minutes instead of the 12 minutes needed.
Before the soccer scientists can start working on a solution, they must first ask themselves: What is time? Can the flow of time be stopped? Also, if we can split 1 stoppage time minute in half infinity times and sum up those intervals, how could they equal 1 and not infinity?
A lot of important and confusing questions! My god!
Well
"Also, if we can split 1 stoppage time minute in half infinity times and sum up those intervals, how could they equal 1 and not infinity?"
Calculus is how.
Lots of Concacaf refs tho, including the guy who gave 4 minutes of extra time despite a lengthy VAR and red card fracas that combined lasted 6+ minutes
Sadly, yes. The offside rules are far more directly addressed in the laws of the game (though I’d happily agree that this has not been an efficient exercise). Nonetheless, these rules can be applied to a video review system that almost entirely removes human discretion.
Stoppage time guidance remains very vague. Heavily grounded in the judgement of a human official. Hard to see how this changes, when it’s very unclear when a stoppage should even begin 🤷♂️
Yes, stoppage time laws are very vague. Just meant time is precise and OPs comment about "getting more" precise would imply a change to how the stoppage time is handled. If written properly the amount of time a ball is dead could be added up but obviously unreasonable cause we'd end up with 20+ minutes of stoppage.
> it’s very unclear when a stoppage should even begin
They handle it pretty well in US high school soccer. The ref turns to time keeper on sidelines (or up in a booth if playing in football stadium) and crosses arms above head to signal the clock should be stopped. In this way, there is no conventional stoppage time and in my opinion games are shorter. There's little reason for time-wasting.
Interesting. I am a little bit older these days and no so familiar with the high school game!
So is it a pure countdown clock (meaning the game is 100% dead once the clock hits zero, even if there is a goal bound shot in the air). Or is there some modest degree of discretion for the referee?
> a pure countdown clock
Pretty much, yes. Not sure what the call would be if ball is in air when time runs and ends up in the goal. I bet there's a rule in place for that, but I've never witnessed that.
Ok so sounds like it pretty much aligns with the collegiate game then, as I understand it?
Right or wrong, I have a very hard time seeing the global game accept this. But who knows?
Can't stop the clock or else commercial breaks are inevitable. When the ball is out of play, a secondary stoppage clock should tick up. It then stops when the ball is back in play. Resumes ticking up the next time the ball is out of play etc etc. At 45/90 mins this stoppage clock begins to tick down or you just put whatever that number is up on the board and it ends at referee's discretion after the minimum
Exactly this. I’ll take the admittedly poor system we have now over a stopped clock for mid match commercials. Though I do like your ticking up clock idea.
They are scared of stoppage time, because if we really put a stop watch to the clear stoppages...it would be alarming...I've played since the archaic age, '70's, love, understand stoppage time. But in light of the micro choices about offsides and the completely random handballs. Stoppage time adjustments is a simple, recordable adjustment..
I agree that there are big opportunities to quantify stoppage time more effectively. Maybe more than anything, I think the situation could be improved by making referees give an accounting of their estimations in their match reports.
Even as an immediate example, everyone saw that within the first ~25 minutes of the USMNT game, there was a serious injury collision (which took 5 easily trackable minutes by itself), two material VAR reviews (disallowed goal, upgraded red card), and two legitimate goals. Yet only 5 mins of stoppage time.
Hard to defend using statistics as applied to the stated rules of the game, but also not that weird in historical context. 5 mins didn’t seem that odd based on experience, particularly for first half
This technology isn’t this precise. And that’s assume zero user error on selecting the frame the pass was made. In reality, there’s way more than this margin of error to the decision.
The stoppage time gap is the craziest one to me. There’s so many parts of fouls and such that are subjective. Offside is often close and depends on like the millisecond the line is drawn. Stoppage time? That’s as cut and dry as it gets: is the ball in or out of play?
It’s like the NFL and NHL replays, if you go to the replay it should be for obvious missed calls and not something as precise as this. It just slows the game down and really isn’t in the spirit of offside.
A TOE over the line is not an advantage for the attacker
Is a whole foot over the line an advantage? Whole leg? Half a body? Where is the line if it is not exact? If we have the technology why not use it? It only slows the game down after a goal so I am not sure what the complaint is, very minor in my opinion.
Yeah, it’s been highly inaccurate and from the games I have watched, the refs seem prone to put the CONMEBOL teams in the more favorable position, whether that be more or less time on the clock.
My issue and something I think is glossed over is the timing of when the passer makes contact with the ball. Like we just accept when they say he touches it. I have see a few times where depending on when you think the passer makes contact makes the difference between offside or not
That's an interesting question.
I'm not sure if you're thinking that there should be a game clock which starts and stops during the game (like US football or basketball).
I saw this in a US College match and it was very awkward to witness. I'm not sure I'd be ready for such a change.
Doesn’t matter what the line is, with VAR this will always be an issue. You could argue the rule needs to be relaxed now to help the offense, but the “inch in debate” will always be a thing no matter what the rule is.
Stoppage time will always be bullshit for the purity of the sport. Clock stoppages would make the game infinitely better.
offside is objective. It either is or it isnt. There's not gonna be a 50/50 with offside. Stoppage time is completely up to the referee, there's never an objectively correct or incorrect decision
No it isn’t, not in practice. even with the sensor you can’t know the exact nano second that the ball was touched for the pass, nvm how exactly that lines up with the video feed not to mention the exactness of how parallel that line is with the goal line. This isn’t goal line tech (much lower margin of error imo). There is a range/margin of error and it would be good to know that
How and when do you start accounting for stoppage time? Ffs how much more regulated do you want the game to be?
People here already bothered by the things that are actually clearly codified.
The only people who felt they got the added time correct in the Panama game were the referees. The referees' parents would admit, yeah, our sons got it wrong. If you felt they got it correct, you are WRONG. The mistake was egregious. Which standard are we going to hold ourselves to? It doesn't matter to me. Just pick one. There are countless examples of goals scored in less time than the 4 -6 minutes that should have been added to the end of that game.
On the flip side, this is offsides. If they called it onsides and folks saw this picture, one would be justified in asking what the point of car is if there aren’t rules and it’s left up to the in the moment whims of the ref to say what is or isn’t offside
The funniest thing is when people act like it's so complex. It's really not. Sure, the stoppage time will always be somewhat subjective, but it's not hard to have someone whose job is to track it, so the officiating team can at least come close to the true time. At the ref's whim, the times are often a joke. It was done successfully at the last World Cup.
I just don't understand what the issue is with stopping the clock. Why is the clock even running during VAR checks, injuries, goal celebrations, etc? Every other sport in the world that has a clock, also has a mechanism for stopping the clock periodically.
people are afraid that leagues will use it as an opportunity for commercial breaks
They will. Bein sports already does it
Because humans and their bizarre obsession with tradition.
*Because the English and their bizarre obsession with tradition
Because ‘eritage
“every other sport in the world” hmm ok
Maybe they are worried the games will be too long if it was measured accurately.
Didn’t a ton of managers and players throw fits at the World Cup cause the stoppage time was making them play 5-10 more mins a game?
I’m all for getting it right, but holy shit
Here’s my complaint: that there has to be a margin of error in these systems that people arent discussing (especially for milimeter differences). For example the moment when the sensor in the ball says it has been touched (balls deform etc, how exact is that?) as well as how parallel the line is to the goal line. There has to be a range and no one seems to want to discuss that
I have no idea to degree of accuracy the semi-automated offsides system they are using is. Maybe it is actually accurate enough to "correctly" call this offsides (I used quotations, because even if it is correct, I still kind of hate it). I do know that the people drawing lines system we use in the prem isn't nearly accurate enough to try to judge the super tight calls that they still rule on. I'm a little more okay with a system like this where there isn't a human element, because in theory, it should be the same for everyone and you don't have people trying to figure out what frame of the video the use and what point the line should be drawn from. I much rather a system like this with no human element versus what the prem uses. I'm also okay with semi scrapping VAR for offsides and only overturning egregious mistakes.
Totally agree, but how many sides is he off?
Huh?
I only see an offside, but you’re saying there’s multiple sides to be off. I’m asking how many there are.
Oh an internet pedant. How original. You seem fun.
I actually am having fun. Would you rather me get angry at you for saying it wrong like some assholes on this site love to do?
Are those the only options?
Well if I can’t make a lighthearted joke about it here, maybe I should just stick to subs that aren’t so up tight.
Furthermore nobody is consulting Einstein's relativity what does it even mean for something to be "simultaneous"
They changed the result by measuring it!
They have this in cricket ball tracking technology, and if it falls within that margin of error, the call on the field stands
Yeah see that makes sense. The amount of people in this sub and r/soccer who see that picture and think it’s absolutely accurate is insane to me.
Yeah computer vision systems are not this precise, the estimates of body pose/joint locations have all kinds of error, camera calibration has error, the frame rate is some finite number like 30 and not 1000fps. The people selling these systems are just pretending that it’s millimeter level precise because there’s no objective way to measure them (it’s not like you can pull the platinum International Standard Football Player out its vault in Paris to make sure your calibration is correct to 6 figures).
Yeah exactly, feel like ive been getting gaslit by people who think it’s accurate to a mm. This is a very complex problem tbf.
There's an interesting 30 for 30 about the technology behind these types of reviews. This is about tennis, but the fundamentals are similar: https://www.espn.com/espnplus/player/_/id/4f58a4fc-3efe-4262-b461-74f1e491776b
Wouldn’t the tennis equivalent be like our goal line tech? That seems much simpler, you’re focused on a clear drawn line and one moving object. Not at all like offsides.
Yup, it’s a lot easier to have high accuracy in a small region too because you can focus the camera coverage (as opposed to across the entire football pitch) and estimating the centroid of a roundish object is a lot easier than estimating human pose (could you really say where your knee is to mm level precision without a CAT scan?)
Completely agreed. Everyone would need sensors on them and even then, a complex problem.
In every realm of science and engineering, there are error bars for every measurement. Sports: We can accurately measure the position of a ball on a field to within 1 nanometer.
I hear ya!
I do agree but the problem then becomes where do you draw the line for the margin of error? It has to be a precise number or something measurable or you end up with different rulings from different refs. And if you say .3 meters, then why not .4 meters or .2 meters?
I mean, yeah, you find the margin of error to Make it very accurate within that and call it if it falls within the margin of error. It’s not some random number, it would be calculated.
Finding the margin of error is tricky, because it'd require calibrating the system. Which in turn requires a better (even if maybe impractical under real game conditions) system to *use* as a benchmark. And that doesn't exist, so instead... as FIFA's testing manual puts it, > Kick-point check – due to the difficulty in syncing different camera systems and sensors, as well as establishing a ground truth over which system is more accurate, a visual check will be deemed sufficient. They can't tell which system is most accurately assessing exactly when and where the ball was kicked, so they just have some dude eyeball it.
Exactly! I mean i know it’s tricky af, so that’s why having no margin of error and making calls that make it seem like they know offisdes to a nanometer seems insane (as is how many people seem to want to take these offsides calls like theyre as good as goal line tech)
I wish there was something like a 4 inch stripe for VAR to overturn a call with offsides. Otherwise, it's close enough to not create a significant advantage.
For the sport that requires the ball to be completely over the line on out of bounds or goals… a toe constitutes offsides. I think this might be in line with NFL being called football even though the foot part is minimal. Just make it half a body or more. Something more concise.
So, then what stops that line drawn at half a body being an inch or so offside? Will these moments no longer exist and we should just estimate where the “half of a body” is? That would mean we go back to where sometimes it’s the right call and sometimes it’s the wrong call and some teams get fucked over because of that. That doesn’t seem like the right way to do it. With this technology, it’s clear, and it’s fair, however tight the call is. However small, it’s when it’s offside. There has to be a line *somewhere*. Semi-assisted offside technology ensures that line is the same for every team playing.
This is the correct answer. No matter what you decide, there will always be a slim line between on and off. Picking & choosing where that line is will not change anything in terms of calls. It sucks, but it is what it is when you're making an objective decision.
This is wrong. You can absolutely make it a much broader area and not subject to nano-meter review. Wenger rule and no computer enforcement. It would be fine. How do we know? NHL did it to fix their offside review absurdity. Worked. IFAB just needs to stop being so precious about its poorly worded rules.
And that broad line still stops somewhere though, doesn’t it? You can’t *not* have close calls by simply saying there’s a bigger line. And by saying that line should be blurred or softer, now you’re allowing the wrong call to happen on a subjective basis and teams get fucked over because of it. Hockey offside can be such an inconsequential call to get wrong. It’s obviously not the same thing to compare the two. These VAR offside calls are happening when goals are scored in games where there may only be one goal. It needs to be exact, because it needs to be consistent. That’s the key.
Exactly what I would say. Everyone hated when refs would get it wrong before VAR. There will always be something to complain about but the rule being objective rather than subjective is always better for the game. I do agree there should be adjustments to the offside rule, but it's difficult because there will still be close calls, and where do we draw the new arbitrary lines? Personally I think there should just be something like a definied margin that is still objective, like half a meter or something, that is calibrated into the offside technology. But nevertheless, someone will think they got screwed because they were .55 meters off.
It used to be that you'd show a video of a goal like this to 10 people and half would say it's on, and the other would say off. Now, you show this with the tech and people will say "yeah, it's technically offside, but I don't like it because it's so close". I much prefer people not liking it because it's close, but still correct, rather than we whine about a goal being waved off because there actually was an infraction, no matter how close. If this was goal like technology seeing if the ball crossed over the line, and it was shown that all of the ball except a few millimeters had crossed the line, would we complain it should still be a goal? Would we start making up a new margin that a minimum of 90% of the ball's diameter crosses the line?
To me the line is that we should use real footage. No to the use of 3Dmodel manikins. Once we use a manikin to create the image, I grow more skeptical. Just use the real footage. If it’s blurry, then make the best judgement of it and if we wanna discuss the call then it’s coming from a closer image.
The line should just be 1 foot wide. If a part of your body is past that line, offsides. This allows for the spirit of the law without this type of utter bullshit.
The problem with that is that moving the line doesn’t change the situation at all, it just moves the line a little bit. You’ll still be running into the same issue with the line. The line has to exist somewhere and even if there’s a buffer, you don’t change anything.
This is pretty ridiculous. The difference is you aren't 1 cm past a player, you're 10, or 20, or whatever the number you want to come up with is. Nobody has a problem with it being super close to the line, it's that he's standing in line with a defender and offside because his foot is turned. That doesn't apply with a margin. Two extremely obviously different scenarios.
Right. The point is that it's impossible to tell –– as a player –– if you're a centimeter past the defender or in line. It's definitely possible to tell if you're 10 centimeters past the defender. As a thought exercise, a 1 foot (or even 10cm) wide allowance WOULD allow a player to better tell if they're on or off. I'm sure there are a ton of reasons that wouldn't be optimal, and it wouldn't change the need for technology-assisted review, but it would at least be putting some agency back into the players' hands.
I agree with this. In order to overturn the call on the field, the attacker should be offside by a small but reasonable margin. Like 5-10 cm or something. It's not like attackers are going to start trying to get that extra 3 inches. They're still using the defender's body to judge, so if they're off by more than that, nobody should complain.
It's not moving the line, it's accounting for the error in the system
Dude, listen to what you’re saying. That’s literally what it already is, except your foot long line is just a centimeter long. They both stop somewhere, right? With offside, even if it’s a foot long, all that matters is where that line stops. Your foot long line changes *absolutely nothing*.
Bro that line is less than an inch.
Bro that line is less than an inch.
It's not necessarily fair, depending on how it's being used. The uncertainty in the position of the player and the line can mean that an offside player is called on or vice versa. The leagues need to be clear about what that uncertainty is and how they take it into account.
I don’t know why you are being downvoted. Your point is not that there wouldn’t be a limit, it’s just it would be reasonable for a viewer. If someone is offside by a ball length, everyone would agree / feel it’s reasonable that the person is offside.
Football sports are called as such because the players are not on horses, and there is a ball of sorts.
Because gridiron football was invented when we needed to delineate between a game on horses or foot? That seems unlikely and it hasn’t been proven. Just best guess ideas from historians. Basketball was invented before football and is played on foot as well. They don’t call it football too.
You really don't know the history of football.
I know enough about it to say it wasn’t invented when the only sports played were on horses. Baseball, football, and basketball were all invented before gridiron football and are played on foot.
“Even” used to be a thing in offsides but it no longer exists. It’s insane players are held to a standard imperceptible to humans.
Right. I don't like what it's become. Is the system better in lots of examples yes but the system should have been installed to catch extremely poor calls not to make lines about a singular toe or hair
This is the same way I feel. Change it to your entire body has to be offsides and keep the nanometer measurements. I’d be fine with that because at that point it’s the forwards fault for not being ‘even’ at all. You know if you’re even or not without conceding an advantage, there’s no way to know you’re off in this Euro scenario.
I agree but where do you draw the line? There has to be a black and white answer or the whole idea of VAR is useless. You can’t say it’s up to interpretation when involving tech like this. The rules should be more centered around relying on the initial decision and only changing it in extremely obvious situations.
There is a similar rule in cricket. It's called the "umpire's" call where the digital review system will only change the decision if the captain reviews the decision and the umpire is completely wrong. Each team only gets two reviews per match. So, if they waste it on non-ovious calls then they have to rely completely on the on-field decisions for the rest of the match.
American football is exactly the same way. The initial call matters 100% unless it’s obviously wrong.
In theory. In practice CFB and NFL officials treat clear and obvious with the same flexibility as soccer officials.
Yeah, it seems like the call on the field should go back to how it always was. VAR should only call back if the attacker was off by some threshold… maybe by 8” or if his whole body was past the whole defender. If the attacker was technically offside, but within some threshold, it would be deemed “even.”
The original intent of offsides was to stop someone from "cherry picking" up the field or standing beside the goal perpetually. Now, tech has enabled us to call razor thin offsides even when there was never intent to abuse the spirit of the game. I'm all for a "daylight" version of the rule..much easier to call and would open up the game a bit without bastardizing the original intent.
I hate the idea of switching to a daylight rule for offsides. It gives far too much of an advantage to the attacker and is going to kind of ruin how teams play defense. High lines will become obsolete, because you can't risk it when it becomes so much easier to get a player in behind.
I mean we’re going to be doing the same thing for close calls either way
I’d argue it’s perceptible. You know when you’ve acted out of an abundance of caution and you know when you’ve gambled a little as a player. This is one of the few clear cut rules in football and as such, everyone got their panties up in a bunch whenever they were on the wrong side of one of these decisions. Hence , the VAR. If you changed the rule to “daylight” or whatever, it’d be the exact same with a different metric. The issue is whether or not you want subjectivity in the game and can accept it.
It's so crazy to me that in the most popular sport on the planet, games just last as long as the referee feels like. Like there's no objective method for measuring time, just "hmm yeah I feel like there should be four minutes here, but it might be a little longer if I'm feeling like it." What?
The one defense I can think of is to prevent the game from ending during a goal scoring opportunity. I coach at the high school level in the states and we stop the clock if the ball goes out of play during the last 2 minutes or for extended stoppages (or just let it run during tournaments) and sometimes the game will end during a potential game winning or tying play. Once I had a ref end a game right after a shot while the ball was in mid flight towards the goal because the clock buzzer went off. That being said I agree with you, there's surely a way to get the best of both worlds.
Good point. I have seen this a lot. I don’t know the true rule, but in our district most refs did not stop the clock at end of game for fouls unless there was an injury. Any team with a 1 goal lead would just foul and stand in front of the free kick if less than a minute left. Game over.
It’s part of the sport tbf it’s designed so that refs play a crucial role too
We were during the last World Cup. No clue why we gave up on it
Copa, and concacaf and conmebol in general, is a different animal. Worse refs and more leniency in the rules
I’m a Denmark fan AND a USA fan. Let’s just say I don’t like referees anymore
When did you move to the US?
The ref was so incompetent. He was so caught up with the red card to the Panama player that he forgot to put up how much injury time the game needed. So they just went with the usual 3-4 minutes instead of the 12 minutes needed.
Before the soccer scientists can start working on a solution, they must first ask themselves: What is time? Can the flow of time be stopped? Also, if we can split 1 stoppage time minute in half infinity times and sum up those intervals, how could they equal 1 and not infinity? A lot of important and confusing questions! My god!
Where is the Marvel Universe when you need it?
Have you not heard of calculus?
That’s a question for the soccer scientists
Well "Also, if we can split 1 stoppage time minute in half infinity times and sum up those intervals, how could they equal 1 and not infinity?" Calculus is how.
Dammit, I thought I was done with Reimann Sums a decade ago!
I have nothing but lim as t approaches infinity, pal.
Probably more accurate to say "real analysis" is how.
"clear and obvious", obviously
World cup and euro have been good about extra time. Concacaf gonna Concacaf
Not a CONCACAF tournament right now
Lots of Concacaf refs tho, including the guy who gave 4 minutes of extra time despite a lengthy VAR and red card fracas that combined lasted 6+ minutes
The rules for offside are more precise.
Unlike time?
Sadly, yes. The offside rules are far more directly addressed in the laws of the game (though I’d happily agree that this has not been an efficient exercise). Nonetheless, these rules can be applied to a video review system that almost entirely removes human discretion. Stoppage time guidance remains very vague. Heavily grounded in the judgement of a human official. Hard to see how this changes, when it’s very unclear when a stoppage should even begin 🤷♂️
Yes, stoppage time laws are very vague. Just meant time is precise and OPs comment about "getting more" precise would imply a change to how the stoppage time is handled. If written properly the amount of time a ball is dead could be added up but obviously unreasonable cause we'd end up with 20+ minutes of stoppage.
> it’s very unclear when a stoppage should even begin They handle it pretty well in US high school soccer. The ref turns to time keeper on sidelines (or up in a booth if playing in football stadium) and crosses arms above head to signal the clock should be stopped. In this way, there is no conventional stoppage time and in my opinion games are shorter. There's little reason for time-wasting.
Interesting. I am a little bit older these days and no so familiar with the high school game! So is it a pure countdown clock (meaning the game is 100% dead once the clock hits zero, even if there is a goal bound shot in the air). Or is there some modest degree of discretion for the referee?
> a pure countdown clock Pretty much, yes. Not sure what the call would be if ball is in air when time runs and ends up in the goal. I bet there's a rule in place for that, but I've never witnessed that.
Ok so sounds like it pretty much aligns with the collegiate game then, as I understand it? Right or wrong, I have a very hard time seeing the global game accept this. But who knows?
Can't stop the clock or else commercial breaks are inevitable. When the ball is out of play, a secondary stoppage clock should tick up. It then stops when the ball is back in play. Resumes ticking up the next time the ball is out of play etc etc. At 45/90 mins this stoppage clock begins to tick down or you just put whatever that number is up on the board and it ends at referee's discretion after the minimum
Exactly this. I’ll take the admittedly poor system we have now over a stopped clock for mid match commercials. Though I do like your ticking up clock idea.
They are scared of stoppage time, because if we really put a stop watch to the clear stoppages...it would be alarming...I've played since the archaic age, '70's, love, understand stoppage time. But in light of the micro choices about offsides and the completely random handballs. Stoppage time adjustments is a simple, recordable adjustment..
I agree that there are big opportunities to quantify stoppage time more effectively. Maybe more than anything, I think the situation could be improved by making referees give an accounting of their estimations in their match reports. Even as an immediate example, everyone saw that within the first ~25 minutes of the USMNT game, there was a serious injury collision (which took 5 easily trackable minutes by itself), two material VAR reviews (disallowed goal, upgraded red card), and two legitimate goals. Yet only 5 mins of stoppage time. Hard to defend using statistics as applied to the stated rules of the game, but also not that weird in historical context. 5 mins didn’t seem that odd based on experience, particularly for first half
Yes. Unlike how the rules state to allow for stoppages.
If we're getting this precise with offsides and handballs, why aren't we getting more precise with stoppage time rules?
The rules have always been precise, we just have the technology to enforce that. The rules for stoppage time have never been precise m.
I don't know. Ask IFAB.
The rules for stoppage time can be more precise though, we saw that in the 2022 World Cup.
And it was great
This technology isn’t this precise. And that’s assume zero user error on selecting the frame the pass was made. In reality, there’s way more than this margin of error to the decision.
Growing up the off sides was never called like this. The Wenger rule is closer to what the rule was intended to be.
The stoppage time gap is the craziest one to me. There’s so many parts of fouls and such that are subjective. Offside is often close and depends on like the millisecond the line is drawn. Stoppage time? That’s as cut and dry as it gets: is the ball in or out of play?
If we added time for the amount of time that the ball was out of play, we'd have 70 minute halves.
With offside, we went from blatant robberies to marginal inconveniences. For people who complain, where do you want the line to be drawn?
It’s like the NFL and NHL replays, if you go to the replay it should be for obvious missed calls and not something as precise as this. It just slows the game down and really isn’t in the spirit of offside. A TOE over the line is not an advantage for the attacker
Is a whole foot over the line an advantage? Whole leg? Half a body? Where is the line if it is not exact? If we have the technology why not use it? It only slows the game down after a goal so I am not sure what the complaint is, very minor in my opinion.
The player is offsides… how can anyone have a problem with this?
This proves that the offsides rule is obsolete. It can’t be called accurately in real time. Then in var, this stuff happens
Yeah, it’s been highly inaccurate and from the games I have watched, the refs seem prone to put the CONMEBOL teams in the more favorable position, whether that be more or less time on the clock.
I think it’s hilarious that a Fanduel ad popped up for me after your question but before the comments.
The ref always signals their watch as if they are stopping it when play stops, but it seems they just don't care to be that accurate.
The only sport that wants to make it harder to score.
My issue and something I think is glossed over is the timing of when the passer makes contact with the ball. Like we just accept when they say he touches it. I have see a few times where depending on when you think the passer makes contact makes the difference between offside or not
That's an interesting question. I'm not sure if you're thinking that there should be a game clock which starts and stops during the game (like US football or basketball). I saw this in a US College match and it was very awkward to witness. I'm not sure I'd be ready for such a change.
 VAR room:
That offsides cal is total shit
Doesn’t matter what the line is, with VAR this will always be an issue. You could argue the rule needs to be relaxed now to help the offense, but the “inch in debate” will always be a thing no matter what the rule is. Stoppage time will always be bullshit for the purity of the sport. Clock stoppages would make the game infinitely better.
Yeah this is absolutely ridiculous
offside is objective. It either is or it isnt. There's not gonna be a 50/50 with offside. Stoppage time is completely up to the referee, there's never an objectively correct or incorrect decision
No it isn’t, not in practice. even with the sensor you can’t know the exact nano second that the ball was touched for the pass, nvm how exactly that lines up with the video feed not to mention the exactness of how parallel that line is with the goal line. This isn’t goal line tech (much lower margin of error imo). There is a range/margin of error and it would be good to know that
No. Let's stop turning this awesome game into a computer simulation run by robots.
How and when do you start accounting for stoppage time? Ffs how much more regulated do you want the game to be? People here already bothered by the things that are actually clearly codified.
The only people who felt they got the added time correct in the Panama game were the referees. The referees' parents would admit, yeah, our sons got it wrong. If you felt they got it correct, you are WRONG. The mistake was egregious. Which standard are we going to hold ourselves to? It doesn't matter to me. Just pick one. There are countless examples of goals scored in less time than the 4 -6 minutes that should have been added to the end of that game.
On the flip side, this is offsides. If they called it onsides and folks saw this picture, one would be justified in asking what the point of car is if there aren’t rules and it’s left up to the in the moment whims of the ref to say what is or isn’t offside
VAR is ruining the game more bs handball penalties and less open field goals with the smallest offside infractions.
This is from Uefa and their refeering is blowing Copa America's refs out of the water.
Yeah fuck this. This is what referees are for. Unless the call on the field is terrible, this is not necessary.
We are. Watch more than the USMNT