Well done to Howard Webb tonight - thought he did really well, and made some very sensible decisions.
Absolutely excellent refereeing performance. If England don't make the final he looks a certainty.
A player may be in an offside position, but because he did not play the ball, the assistant rightly kept his flag down, and when the goal was scored it was another phase of play. That is the interpretation, but I am not saying I agree with it.
If the ball hits the woodwork or rebounds off the keeper then it is deemed that it is in the same phase of play.
Things were a lot simpler a few years back, but that is how the law makers say we must proceed.
In addition, can it reasonably be argued Navas was not interfering with play? Were he not there, perhaps the keeper would have come flying out directly at Iniesta, narrowing the angle with the intention of challenging for the ball? With the position Navas was in, the keeper is less inclined to commit as he will be aware of the option of the pass & doesn't want to gift an open goal opportunity?
Absolutely. He had a great game, and he could easily have sent off the Czech player in the last minute, but used common sense.
Frank, I appreciate the answer you've given, but given that both players were on the edge of the 6 yard box when the ball was played through, why is Navas not interfering with play as per my previous query?
Sniffer, When the opponents coach approached you and started ranting, I wonder how long it was before the referee realised the situation that was developing, because he should have gone over to the coach and told him to move away from the line that you were patrolling. From your report into what happened, it is clear that the referee let you down badly. He should have backed you up, as you were assisting him. It is pointless reporting the opposing coach if he did not take action at the time. He has left himself wide open for an appeal. If I was you, I would bring the incident to the attention of the Referee's Secretary of the league in which your son's team play in.
Offside causes more arguments than anything else, particularly at local level where there are not official assistants appointed. The referee was right to ask you to hold the flag until you knew who was receiving it. The change to law was brought in to stop assistants flagging a player offside who was not interfering with play. It can get confusing when first and second phases of play are brought into consideration, but my advice for assistants is simple. Hold the flag until the player receives the ball or is directly interfering with play. For example, being in the goalkeepers line of visiion. The only time I would ask for an early flag is if a player is chasing the ball as it goes towards the goalkeeper. Stop the game early to prevent a risk of injury due to a collision.
I hope that clarifies things a little.
a brief pause to tie our defender's laces
.
So to sum up...The ref is shit?
We had a nice ref in micro's game on Sunday (a 7-6 humdinger that should have been first up on MOTD2 (BOOOOOO BBC for ignoring the grass roots). Really reffed the game pretty well, but he played 2.5 minutes of added time in a 20 minute half when we were hanging on at 6-6 and then blew up within a second of the winner being scored. There were no injuries so it was a bizarre amount of Fergie time (only stoppage was a mass substitution by each side and a brief pause to tie our defender's laces).
Oh well. Cracking game though.