Huddersfield's winning goal

[the full harris]

Did anyone else see this? It was the offside rule gone crazy!
The ball was cleared out by the Lincoln keeper and the Huddersfield player was right next to him (trying to charge down the clearance). The keeper's clearance was headed straight back into the half Huddersfield were attacking by a Huddersfield defender and took a flick off of a Lincoln defender on the way through to.................the Huddersfield attacker who was standing at least twenty yards offside, maybe more. Everyone stops and the Huddersfield attacker goes around the keeper and slots it into the goal. He doesn't celebrate, neither do his teammates, they just trot back assuming a freekick will be given. However, the referee, AFTER CONSULTING HIS LINESMAN, awards a goal to Huddersifeld who therefore take the lead and end up winning. The Huddersfield players can't beleive their luck, the other team go mental!
The new rule means it wasn't offside because, although the attacker was clearly in an offside position when his teammate heads it forward, because he does not touch the ball until after it has flicked off of a defender's head he is deemed as not interfering with play.
This new offside rule is ridiculous and made that eventual result a complete mockery of it.

 

[Sheebo]

crazy shit

 

[Lord Bracknell]

The idiocy is that the guy who scored the goal (who plainly thought himself that he was offside) could just as easily have grabbed hold of the ball in this hands and placed it for the freekick. This to avoid the usual timewasting by goalkeepers who love to see a minute or two taken up by ballboys running around.

What would have happened then?

A red card for deliberate hand-ball?

At least the new rule brings an element of complete random chance into the game. Football will soon be as popular (and as fair) as the National Lottery.

 

[donuts]

it was a joke (utter madness)

 

[Gary Nelson]

Not sure if I have read this right but if a defender has the last touch then you are not offside. This has always been the case, our defeat away to Rotherham last year happened like that. Chippy went in for a tackle, it cannoned off him and went through to Byfield I beleive who was a couple of yards offside. Had it been a pass throguh he would have been off.

 

[Brighton Boy]

Never a goal. Okay the defender got the last touch but the ball had been played 30 yards foward before ye got that touch...The score was 20 yards behind..It was stupid

 

[The Wookiee]

The linesman actually had his flag up, but the ref overuled him.
Does anybody know if the ref has spoken about his decision?

 

[Seagull over NZ]

Not sure if I have read this right but if a defender has the last touch then you are not offside. This has always been the case, our defeat away to Rotherham last year happened like that. Chippy went in for a tackle, it cannoned off him and went through to Byfield I beleive who was a couple of yards offside. Had it been a pass throguh he would have been off.

Except though in this case the Huddersfield player knocked it forward. at which point the Huddersfield scorer was in an offside position. I assume what they are saying though is because the scorer only touched the ball after the Lincoln player touched it, that negates the original offside position. Sounds stupid to me.

 

[The Wookiee]

MOMENT OF MADNESS COULD COST IMPS DEAR


10:30 - 23 February 2004

If Lincoln City miss out on promotion by a point this season, then Saturday's farce at Huddersfield will immediately spring to mind.

In 25 years of regularly watching football, it is hard to remember such an incompetent piece of officiating than that perpetrated by Bootle's George Cain on Saturday.

It was a moment of madness which left everyone in the McAlpine Stadium shocked and bewildered, and totally eclipsed what had been an enjoyable and hard-fought encounter between two evenly-matched top seven sides.

Not for the first time this season, the referee was the post-match talking point.

It's easy to blame the officials.

They have a difficult job to do, with key decisions having to be made in a split second.

They are bound to get things wrong, that's just human nature.

But Mr Cain's decision on Saturday wasn't made in an instant.

He had several minutes to think about it, plus the advice of his assistant to help make his mind up.

Yet he chose to award Huddersfield a crucial second goal - one which went against every rule in the book.

A grey area has appeared regarding the offside law, with teams now blatantly putting players in offside positions at set-pieces because they are not deemed as interfering with play.

But Saturday wasn't anything to do with being a grey area, it was black and white and, Mr Cain, you got it wrong - big time.

The drama arrived in the 66th minute with the two sides locked at 1-1 and the match very delicately poised.

Under pressure from Pawel Abbott, Imps goalkeeper Alan Marriott kicked a hopeful ball downfield where it was headed forward again by home skipper Efe Sodje.

Paul Morgan and Andy Booth challenged for it, and the ball found its way to Abbott who was yards offside as he made his way upfield.

All the players stopped as the assistant had quite rightly raised his flag for offside, but Abbott carried on and rounded Marriott - whose only concern was to get the ball and take the free-kick - and tapped the ball into an empty net.

There was no celebration from the Huddersfield players and fans and, for a moment, Abbott must have thought he might even receive a yellow card for kicking the ball away.

But, inexplicably, referee Cain ran over to assistant Allan Rawcliffe and a heated discussion ensued with several Huddersfield players joining in.

Then Cain unbelievably awarded the goal. He was immediately surrounded by Lincoln players and debates took place all over the pitch, with even the home players unsure what was going on.

The remainder of the game saw the Imps press hard for the equaliser, but by then the match had developed into a farce.

Cain had lost control and there should have been a penalty at either end, but the referee didn't have the courage to give either of them.

He was forced to play five minutes of added time at the end and blew the final whistle at a point when he was as close as he could be to the players' tunnel which he ran down like on Olympic 100m sprinter - not even waiting for his two assistants.

And, not surprisingly, he refused to talk about his decision when invited to do so after the game.

Perhaps the actions of a man who knew he had dropped a clanger?

It seems Mr Cain believed Morgan got a touch to Sodje's header forward, which means Abbott was played onside.

However, even after watching it several times on television replays, it's very difficult to see if there is any contact, and even harder to say whether it was Morgan or Booth.

That aside, the laws of the game clearly state that it would have to be an intentional back pass for that scenario to come into play.

There is no way Morgan could have gone up for a challenge with a striker some 35 yards from goal and have made the decision to glance it back to Marriott. So how could that be deemed as intentional?

But the key consideration is that as soon as Sodje headed the ball forward Abbott was clearly in an offside position and play should have been stopped then, regardless of Morgan and Booth's subsequent tussle.

An extract from FIFA's very own rules say:

In the opinion of the referee, offside is judged at the moment the ball is played. In this instance, the attacker was in an offside position at the moment when his colleague played the ball to him.

It is immaterial whether the ball is subsequently deflected or inadvertently touched, or mis-kicked by a defender or not.

The attacker should be penalised for being offside at the moment the pass was made to him, irrespective of how many deflections it takes on its way - an indirect free-kick should be awarded to the defending team for offside by the attacker.

Abbott was at least six-yards offside when Sodje headed the ball forward, and at that moment he became active, so offside should have stood.

It seems Mr Cain simply got the rules wrong.

No doubt the debate will run on for many weeks, but only time will tell how damaging it could be for the Imps.

There is scope for yellow and red cards to be rescinded, if the referee is prepared to say he has made a mistake.

But there is no comeback over goal which should never have been.

The match will not be replayed and City have been robbed of at least a point in a game where they were at least on par with the Terriers.

It's Mr Cain's final season as a Football League referee, and it seems the Third Division has been blighted this season by officials who are either running down the clock or in their first year.

 

[Reading Posh]

I've seen this "goal" a few times now.


I still don't believe it

 

[Gary Nelson]

As I havnt seen the goal yet I cant really argue. All I know is if a defending player passes the ball to the opposition who is in an offside position then play continues.....

 

[chips and gravy]

If this had been a Brighton game I would have had one of two emotions.

If it had gone our way I would have been overjoyed

If it had gone against us I would have been livid

In all seriousness though this has taken the 'new interpretation' to its logical conclusion. It is a farce.

 

[Publius Ovidius]

Bottom line is

The ref gave it, 3 more points to the Terriers.

Lets face it, we have had some dodgy goals awarded to us in the past ( Zamora at Cheats is a classic example)

I do agree the "new rule" is plainly daft, when on saturday, Middlesboro striker scored a prefectly good goal from an onside position, but Juninio was ruled offside when he clearly was coming away from the goal.

The FA and EUFA really have not got a clue.

 

[Seagull Stew]

Ok maybe Mark McGhee needs to be thinking about this for Saturday.
Ben Roberts has the ball in his hands, Trevor Benjamin stands in line with the last defender and Jake Robinson takes up a position around the edge of the penalty box, clearly offside.
Roberts kicks the ball in the direction of Benjamin but not ahead of him, therefore not bringing Robinson into play. Robinson is heading back towards the half way line at this point.
The ball drops, Benjamin jumps for it just enough to put off the defender but deliberately makes no contact with the ball so the defender gets his head to it. I reckon at least once out of every 10 drop kicks by Roberts the defender will mis-time his header and the ball will fall behind him.
Leaving Robinson to pick up the ball and have a clear run on goal.
Come to think about it, you can't be offside from a goal-kick, so why has no-one tried this anyway!

 

[Publius Ovidius]

Bring back "goal hanging"

I was brilliant at that in the park on a Wednesday evening after school

 

[Reading Posh]

Bring back "goal hanging"

I was brilliant at that in the park on a Wednesday evening after school

Have you seen the goal Dave? That is EXACTLY what the Huddersfield forward was doing!

 

[Publius Ovidius]

exactly, no problem with it at all.

Terriers homing in on that 3rd place spot

 

[Jim D]

Wasn't Benjamin in an offside position on Saturday when the ball was 'passed' to him? If so, it's the same thing.

 

[ChutneyStirrer]

Wasn't Benjamin in an offside position on Saturday when the ball was 'passed' to him? If so, it's the same thing.

Not the same thing.......

As I understand it, when the ball was played forward the Hudd striker was offside but 'inactive' as he was making his way back towards an onside position. The ball then makes its way through to the striker who now becomes 'active' as he is involved in the play and he IS offside (as the lino's flag indicated) because at no time between the forward ball being kicked and him collecting it to go on to score did he return to an onside position. Therefore, the goal shouldn't have stood and the ref made a balls up.

On Saturday Benj was in an offside position but the ball was played 'foward' by the Cherries' defender so no flag.

 

[CAFC Matt]

It was a goal because the defedner headed it on to him. FACT