mathguy86 said:

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PatAg said:

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mathguy86 said:

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PatAg said:

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I know they are being told to do this, but the AR waiting that long to raise the flag is going to get players hurt.

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There was a minor wording change in the Law last year that is really being seen and felt at higher levels. It's has to do with waiting until the offensive player actually touches the ball. Not all refs at this level are having their ARs adhere to it it the strictest of senses. And in the end the Center Ref is the one who tells his ARs how he wants them to call it.

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This is a ridiculous change, imo.

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Oh I agree. I threw a flag for offside about 50 yds from goal on a long ball over the top where a clearly offside attacker turned and went after the ball. The (much younger and overly full of himself) CR waited to blow it offside until the attacker actually touched it at the top edge of the area. It cost the defense 30 yds in field position. We had a lengthy discussion afterwards. I might or might not have called him an idiot for penalizing the defense like that. Big difference between the letter and the spirit of the Law.

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wait, so not only is it a delayed call, but the spot of the infraction is WHEN the whistle is blown, not where he was initially offisides?

I just feel like the issue with your situation, that keeper could come out and injure the guy on the breakaway..or vice versa.

and what if a player reaches out and intentionally fouls the guy...is it just called offsides at that point?

The simple version of offside is what you normally see. Offside position and you touch the ball that is played to you by a teammate or off a deflection from the goal or save from GK. You can also interfere with an opponent (screen a GK or shield a defender from making a play). However you can also be offside by attempting to play a ball that is close to you or by influencing a defender. That's why players in offside positions let balls go past them. They aren't making an attempt to play it. So in theory a ball played long to an player in an offside position only initiates the offside offense when the player is close enough to play it and makes an actual attempt to play it. And the infraction occurs at that point. If the CR wants to be hard nosed about it they can wait and see what happens. The AR isn't actually making the call. They are just signaling to the CR that they have identified a player in an offside position who they believe has made active participation. The CR has the whistle and makes the actual call and the restart is where they made the call . If they want to piss off the players and coaches by waiting until something bad happens that's their prerogative. Every now and then you find one that wants you to call it that strictly. And the CR actually calls the game. The AR just assists. If he says call it that way you are supposed to follow his guidance. In the same way if he says do not call fouls you are not supposed to call fouls. But that is a whole other complicated discussion.

But to answer your questions, yes, yes and yes. And all that is on the CR.

Furthermore Klinnsmans response to any criticism was basically, "you're just a dumb American who doesn't understand this sport." Once you've played that card you'd better be cranking out results.

Also he seemed to coach like a lot of former great players in different sports do. They often believe that everything comes down to training, effort and hard work, and if you fail it's because you're lazy, not because of tactics or legitimate skill

Bunk Moreland said:

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Don't really follow the umnt outside of major events. Caught this 2nd half by accident.

I did see that arena benched a bunch of guys for this game, this isn't close to our top roster, and Martinique isn't good.

My question is this... Is Arena good? I thought Klinsmann was pretty good and the decision to remove him was shirt sighted. I didn't think he was aggressive enough at times but I don't know enough about the inner workings of soccer or the politics of us national soccer.

Not looking for tons of substance, just if you guys who follow it closer think arena was a step up for the future of us men's soccer from Klinsmann.

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Woof. I got a bit of heat for just asking this question at the time.

What a pathetic showing by the USMNT and the coaches.

I definitely have an amateur eye in this sport, but the idea of returning to Arena seemed so wrong on multiple levels.

Gulati refuses to resign

We didn't fire JK to hire Arena, we fired JK because he'd lost the locker room and was an overpaid *******. The reason we went to Arena was because there's not many quality coaches on the market halfway through WC qualifying.