Question Number: 31302

Law 12 - Fouls and Misconduct 2/28/2017

RE: Competitive Under 17

Aaron Speca of Virginia Beach, VA United States asks...

The weather is starting to warm up! :) :)

So on this play, #18 Blue and #21 Red chase down a ball in Red's defensive box. Ball and both players meet at the same point. Do you think there is a call here?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N01rDVeTQZw

** Call on field: Foul on #18 blue, DFK restart from that spot in the box.

** My thought: ball went over end line off red, corner kick for blue. No foul, both players contacted the ball and it was not a careless challenge, to me. It looked bad because of the momentum of red #21 as she was running full tilt.

Note 1: I do not recall where the CR was positioned (although he is never in the frame of the video). I do remember that it was the AR following the play down the sideline that made the call.

Note 2: #21 Red was shaken up but came back into the game later, so that's a good thing.

Answer provided by Referee Joe McHugh

Hi Aaron
My take on this is that I would have no difficulty with the on field call. It looks to me that Red is much faster gets there a shade sooner and in front of Blue so it is a foul for me. I am unsure as to what Blue is trying to attempt other than what looks like a tackle and it does look like a careless foul on Red. It would have been interesting had it been the other way round with Red being the attacker?
Sometimes we have to go with what it looks like and this looks to me that Blue has not gained control of the ball and then attempts to play it from the poor position of behind the player. From a player perspective Blue does not look like she is trying or able to say hook the ball back which is all she can do in this position to keep the ball in play yet rather it looks like tackle contact on Red from behind.
So I have no issue with careless foul and no disciplinary action taken. The ref does not have the camera angle of view nor slow mo, freeze frame nor the ARs view.
Good play by Red to prevent this attack.

Answer provided by Referee Richard Dawson

Hi Aaron, nice to hear from you again,
I have no issues with the call as the angle of your video can not truly be classified as a 100% definitive interpretation. I concur with my colleague it looks like blue allowed the ball to remain challengeable out in front and red cut in to get to the ball as the blue foot perhaps caught her as she moved across. The CR would not be in a position to counter argue it . We trust our ARs to make the same call we would as if we saw it ourselves. I think the DFK out is all that was required if the AR did see the foot contact the back heel of the other. I can not verify if they both hit the ball at the same time and the red player simply fell over the ball. It would not be the most disputed call if there was no call and a corner. It looked as if the red player made a decent defensive play and blue was a bit sloppy in guarding the ball.
Cheers

Answer provided by Referee Jason Wright

Hi Aaron,
Warming up? We just had our last day of summer down under - currently sitting outside where it's about 32 degrees Celsius (Google tells me that's about 89.6 degrees Fahrenheit).

My first reaction was that blue committed the foul. I though that red kicked the ball first, blue missed the ball and kicked red. Not intentional, no doubt - purely an innocent play at the ball and probably not realising red would get there first, but missing the ball and tripping the player with a kick would constitute a late tackle, and no worse than careless.

Upon replaying it I realised that blue kicked the ball first. As you know, kicking the ball first doesn't necessarily mean a foul, but usually it does. Among other things we consider the amount of force involved, and how much the player got the ball versus how much was on the player. A solid kick on the ball and collecting the player would be judged differently to if the kick only lightly grazed the ball. This got a solid amount on the ball and I don't believe the amount of force was disproportionate (there was no unnecessary after-swing).

So, for me, this is no foul. Just an unfortunate incident - although good defending by red!

However, given I first thought that blue didn't touch the ball, I wonder if that's what the referee also thought happened.