Soccer experts, please tell me why that shouldn't have been a penalty kick for France due to a hand ball?

PS. And can someone tell me why the US was offsides on the third goal?

If you are "even" , are you on or off as it looks even to me?

https://ibb.co/GTzsvqn

rojo wrote:

PS. And can someone tell me why the US was offsides on the third goal?

If you are "even" , are you on or off as it looks even to me?

https://ibb.co/GTzsvqn

Even is fair game.

While there are clear-cut cases of hand balls, this was not one of them. There are a few things to consider. First, she is in what any soccer player would recognize to be a "natural" position--angled diagonal to the offensive player with her arm slightly away from her body for balance, and at the same angle as her body. As such her arm is not extended to take up space (to the side) in an "unnatural" way. Second, she made no movement toward the ball. Third, she was not attempting to gain an advantage. Fourth, there was such a short distance between the two players that there was no way for her to avoid the ball. For these reasons the ref, who was on top of the play immediately signaled off any call for a hand ball--that is, she recognized while it might have seemed to be a hand ball, it wasn't given the intent of the rule. Are there refs who might have called hand ball--sure, just as there are refs in football that would call pass interference when 90% of the refs wouldn't. The Ukrainian ref was very good today, and my guess is that she'll get the final to ref.

As for the offsides, Dunn's foot is about one or two inches ahead of the French player. Technically, this is offsides. Did it give her an advantage? No.

--she wasn't making her body bigger, a telltale sign of hand ball

The PSG call was correct as a hand ball.

And you can't say that it was clearly not on goal, because the MU player hit the ball.

Being on goal doesn't matter anyway. If it had been a pass that was handled in the box, penalty.

The US/France call should have been a penalty. More importantly, they should have gone to VAR.

Quarterfinals, world cup? come on!

If they decide after VAR for no penalty, just live with it.

However, the refs in this tournament have gone to VAR for everything and anything, so why not this?

Soccer isn't just played with the feet.

http://as01.epimg.net/futbol/imagenes/2018/06/01/mundial/1527836817_858951_1527837080_noticia_normal.jpg

Montesquieu wrote:

First, she is in what any soccer player would recognize to be a "natural" position

This. And the offsides on the US goal was a bad call, anyway.

It was an unintentional hand ball. The only way could have avoided it was to have her arm amputated before the match.

That said, I have seen that type of a hand ball called in other matches. Depends on the ref.

I don't disagree. The true spirit of offsides is that one player's body is not in an advanced position, thus gaining an advantage. But now, because of VAR, we are in a position to see if a toe is centimeters ahead of another player's toes. I don't think the intent of the rule aims at covering such a case. Yet, how could one reformulate the rule such that we can say Dunn was onside?

rojo wrote:

PS. And can someone tell me why the US was offsides on the third goal?

If you are "even" , are you on or off as it looks even to me?

https://ibb.co/GTzsvqn

First of all, it's not offside(s) like in American football, it's offside.

The image that was shown is of no value because the ball had not been played yet. We would need to see where the player was at the moment the ball was struck to determine if they were truly offside. (No S)

Any Which Way But Loose wrote:

The US/France call should have been a penalty. More importantly, they should have gone to VAR.

Quarterfinals, world cup? come on!

If they decide after VAR for no penalty, just live with it.

However, the refs in this tournament have gone to VAR for everything and anything, so why not this?

I just thought they should have gone to VAR on both. The hand ball and the offsides on the third US goal. I mean basically either one of those calls TOTALLY changes the game.

rojo wrote:

Any Which Way But Loose wrote:

The US/France call should have been a penalty. More importantly, they should have gone to VAR.

Quarterfinals, world cup? come on!

If they decide after VAR for no penalty, just live with it.

However, the refs in this tournament have gone to VAR for everything and anything, so why not this?

I just thought they should have gone to VAR on both. The hand ball and the offsides on the third US goal. I mean basically either one of those calls TOTALLY changes the game.

I think, although I'm not certain, that the Dunn offside was reviewed, and if you look at the picture carefully--looking at the red and blue lines--you'll see part of her foot is in an advanced position.

However, there was no need in the ref's judgment for the O'Hara play to be reviewed. She was in excellent position, about ten yards away (if memory serves), and she saw the ball hit O'Hara's hand. She has the final judgment. VAR cannot overrule her, it can only assist her. She clearly did not think she needed any assistance; the situation was a common one, one that she had unquestionably seen many times. In 2014 she was ranked as the second best woman ref in the world; in 2015 she was ranked the best ref in the world; she refereed four games in the 2015 World Cup, including the final.

The ref who made/blew the call is from Ukraine. What explanation is required?

Surprised that there seem to be 10s of 1000s of US fans who made the trip to France. They were easily as loud as the French fans. Tuesday's semi will be interesting. If the US loses, will Megan Rapinoe let us blame it on the gays?

As far as the handball goes, both this no-call call and the PSG call were correct. The rule is designed to punish players using their hands/arms for an advantage, not to reward attackers who kick the ball into the defenders hands/arms.

The PSG player turned their body as they jumped and used their arm to make their body bigger as part of an attempt to block the ball.

O'Hara's arm was in a natural position near her side, not extended out of the frame of her body and the ball likely would have hit her body if it didn't hit her arm first. She was also closer to the ball (and thus had less time to react) when it was struck which is another key component of the rule.

Soccer rules have allowances for everyone having arms and not being able to remove them at will. A strictly enforced handball rule with no exceptions would just lead to every attacker only trying to hit their opponents hands in the box instead of the goal. That would mean a parade of penalty kicks and would ruin the game.

The only situation that is strictly enforced is if an attacker plays the ball (on purpose or by accident) into the goal off of their hand/arm. That is always a handball without any of the above exceptions. Of course an attacker getting called for a handball has lower negative consequences beyond the goal being disallowed, it's just a routine free kick 100 yards away from goal.

The handball wasn’t intentional, and the offside was the right call. It looks even on the picture, but the picture on an angle and a top view. If you were level with the field and looking straight on, it would be more clear. Even if the player is just a few inches behind the last defender, it counts as offside.

Can someone explain how this was any different because it was called and it cost Japan a trip to the quarterfinals. She literally had zero time to react:

https://mobile.twitter.com/TelemundoSports/status/1143623354517270528?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fd-36011584462084873847.ampproject.net%2F1906282130140%2Fframe.html

It’s because she is holding her arms out wide, not in close to her body. The us players arms were in tight, not out away from her body.

Same with the PSG player. His arm was up and away from his body. As a defensive player your arm should never be up like that. Just watch any free kick.

Montesquieu wrote:

However, there was no need in the ref's judgment for the O'Hara play to be reviewed. She was in excellent position, about ten yards away (if memory serves), and she saw the ball hit O'Hara's hand. She has the final judgment. VAR cannot overrule her, it can only assist her. She clearly did not think she needed any assistance; the situation was a common one, one that she had unquestionably seen many times. In 2014 she was ranked as the second best woman ref in the world; in 2015 she was ranked the best ref in the world; she refereed four games in the 2015 World Cup, including the final.

Exactly right.

Rojo, this comes down to experience with the game. I know I've had reactions similar to yours when watching sports with which I'm less familiar, like American football. A bunch of my friends will jump up and immediately recognize something should be called, and it takes three replays for me to see what they're talking about. When you know a game as well as an elite ref, everything you've seen is a variation on what you've seen before, and the brain can instantly categorize it into one of those boxes.

It's the same for players. Sometimes you an intricate set of passes looks astonishing to someone who doesn't play, but that's because those players aren't holding the position of each player in their head and calculating exactly where they can go; they're thinking in terms of broad patterns. When a number of players respond quickly to the patterns they see, it can look like it's choreographed, but it's not. Chess is another example. Expert (or even average) players can play games in their head and remember perfectly the position of every piece, but if you scatter the pieces randomly on the board, they're no better than a non player at remembering their positions because it's just a ton of data, rather than a handful of larger patterns that they've seen a million times.

The two calls are very different from a VAR perspective. The PSG handball required VAR because it was very fast, and the ref didn't get a good look. Watched live, even from the field, it probably looked like the ball went off the defender's back. But because of the defender's movement, there's no question it's a handball IF it touched his arm. VAR was necessary so the ref could be sure of what actually happened. With O'Hara, the ref knew what happened, and the question was how to interpret it. An inexperienced ref might have used VAR to stall so she could have decided how to interpret it, but that's not what VAR is for. This ref was experienced enough to decide instantly, reflexively that what happened was fine.