Euro 2008 - Italy vs Holland. That offside!

Holland and THAT “offside” goal.

A cheeky glance to the assistant referee from the goal machine that is Ruud Van Nistelrooy speaks a thousand words. He thought he was offside, the Italian defence were up in arms and could hardly believe there was no flag. Pundits called it the worst offside decision there had ever been in the history of the game, a truly horeendous decision, calls for the referee never to officiate another such high profile game. Supporters all over the Europe and more likely the globe could not believe that such a decision was not given, and I’ll have to include myself in that majority of people.

There was however a voice who went against the grain, one Gordon Strachan, who rightly understood the full interpretation on the offside rule and enlightnened us about Law 11, Article 11 of the UEFA publication “Advice to Referees on the Laws of the Game” which states the following, 

A defender who leaves the field during the course of play and does not immediately return must still be considered in determining where the second to last defender is for the purpose of judging which attackers are in an offside position. Such a defender is considered to be on the touch line or goal line closest to his or her off-field position. A defender who leaves the field with the referee’s permission (and who thus requires the referee’s permission to return) is not included in determining offside position.

So let me quickly fill you in on the situation for those of you who do not already know or have been on holiday to some far flug destination over the last few days. Christian Panucci was struck in the head by goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon as he went to punch a cross away from goal, Panucci then left the field of play as he was hurt, the ball was then fired from the edge of the area to the 6yrd box and subsequently turned into the net by Van Nisterlrooy. Van Nistelrooy was in an offside postion if Panucci was not counted as in play.

I have a couple of issues with this interpretation of the now infamous Law 11, which I will go into later. First though, if the referee’s assistant did infact kno of this interpretation of the rule, he must be commended, as most of the footballing world had no idea of the rule at all. After speaking to a few local referee’s they came up with the idea that the referee had made a mistake and UEFA looked at a way of getting the referee out of jail so to speak.

My bone of contention lies with the fact that Panucci was adjudged to have been in play. As the rule is interpreted I can understand the need for it, basically to stop defenders or goalkeepers stepping off the field and thus ruling opposing players offside. This makes perfect sense to me. However, with my interpretation of another part of the offside rule. When he was lying clutching his head he was at least 10 yards from Van Nisterlrooy and the ball was traveling away from him. So the question can be asked, was Panucci active in play? As I see it he was not active and thus not playing Van Nistelrooy onside. Again adding to the contention of this interpretation Panucci did not walk off the pitch he was ‘punched’ off, which again goes against the interpretation and adds further mist to an already cloudy situation.

Another rule which can also be related to this incident is the issue of injury. If a player has a head injury the referee will immediately stop play so the player can receive treatment, obviously this is subject to the player being on the pitch. So what I am suggesting is that if Panucci was on the pitch surely the game would have been stopped and hence no goal conceded. 

Dirk Kuyt also thought that the first goal was offside he said “We were waiting for the flag but it didn’t come,” and germany coach Joachim Loew said, “I knew nothing about it,The players talked about it and so did the coaches. We all wondered what you could do in a situation like this.We know that a player can’t deliberately leave the field to avoid being offside but when he’s knocked from the field, and it’s unintentional, that’s different. I was very surprised by the interpretation of the rule.” He was backed by Portugal coach Luiz Felipe Scolari who was unhappy with the referee’s ruling.

“I’m in total disagreement with the decision but then no one listens to me,” Scolari said.

“The interpretation is made by he (the referee) who is there, I would have given offside because the player went out of the pitch involuntarily.”

 

Czech Republic coach Karel Brueckner said he watched the match with Miroslav Liba, a Czech referee who is also a UEFA match delegate. “He is a great expert on soccer rules and he said the goal was perfectly legitimate,” Brueckner said in Geneva. “So I will stick with his opinion that this goal was perfectly alright.” And chairman of Austria’s refereeing commission Gerhard Kapl, also said the decision was “100% correct”.

 

The fact remains that if the rule is interpreted to the letter then it was applied correctly and there should be no agruments and it was a truly inspired piece of refereeing. It also shows the lack of in-depth knowledge of the actual rules from those closest to it, namely player and coaches. It can only be said that decisions with so many variables and in such a high profile game occur almost never and if nothing else, the majority of thr footballing watching public have at very least been enlightened. Incidents like this make football the sport it is and they can be debated for years to come.