It's A Stupid Rule!
It's A Stupid Rule!
Oi! It's snowing!
The Week In Ball
Well... we have to start with the Manchester Derby don't we. I was still coming through the other side of my Covid vaccine booster (seriously Pfizer is a bitch, I was so ill) so I wasn't paying as much attention as I should have but it was clear even through the haze of fever remnants that this was not a good performance by United. An own goal and an extemely sloppy second for City and the game was basically out of sight. United are a shambles, there's really no other way to put it and the fact is that with players of the quality and dedication they have in their squad you have to look to the coaching to find the issue. Is Ole clear? Does he even know what he wants? Does he understand how to get the best from his players? His post match interviews are often delusional at best. Many people have already and will continue to say it better than me but it's definitely time to reassess this experiment in nostalgia if the team is to reach their previous dizzy heights.
So from one manager who continues to underperform but appears to be Teflon, to another who finally got the win his team craved, only for his position to be immediately terminated post match. Yes, Norwich disposed of Daniel Farke after their best performance of the season, a 1-2 victory over Brentford. For my mind it seemed baffling timing, until you consider that they'd probably made the decision before the game in order to coincide with International Break, giving them the space they need to bring in a suitable replacement. I hear Neil Warnock is currently free... ;-)
Elsewhere on Saturday, Mendy decided that it would be a fantastic time to concede a goal, the day I put him in my Fantasy Football team as a guaranteed 6 pointer against Burnley. Thanks Edouard. This is the last time I post or write about how much I love you.
Newcastle ground out a draw against Brighton who once again played extremely well, only to tail off at the end. The very best thing about this game was of course the sending off of Robert Sanchez after all the subs had been used, meaning Lewis Dunk, an outfield player, had to go in goal. What a treat! And a clean sheet! As I tweeted at the time, get him on the plane!
Sunday was bookended with two fantastic Serie A games, more of which later, as before that, two dramatic games in the Premier League.
Arsenal managed to extend their unbeaten run to eight games in the Premier League. If you'd told me that in August I'd have laughed and laughed and laughed. We're now fifth. FIFTH. My 'hopeful' goal for this season was 'top half', assuming it'd be 8th or 9th. Now I'm gunning for a Champions League spot!
The game of course wasn't without controversy. The goal came after the ball was put out for an injury to a Watford player and the Gunners failed to return it, leading to a (wonderful, brilliant) goal by everyone's favourite son, Emile Smith Rowe. Maybe it lacked sportsmanship, maybe there was a foul in the build up too, but you know what lads? I simply can't be arsed to care. We had so many chances, scored two offside goals and missed a penalty. The game was ours and even if it wasn't? Eh, so what. These things even out over a season, no need to get your knickers in a twist.
Then of course we move to West Ham v. Liverpool. I have no real beef with the first goal, argue amongst yourselves about obstruction or whether Ali actually touched or whatever. It was what it was. However, I do have doubts over the decision to not even card Aaron Cresswell for the challenge on Jordan Henderson. For me, it was the act of falling over and the momentum from that which caused his foot to strike Henderson so high (on the knee), however he must have also gone in with his studs up for his foot to be in that position to start with, so shouldn't have gone completely unpunished.
Anyway, much later in the game a free kick was awarded to Liverpool, in a tasty position too and this gave us a Trent Alexander-Arnold wonderstrike and for those of us with him in our FPL team some hilarious assist points for Salah for the act of lightly stopping the ball with his foot so Trent could wallop it.
It ended 3-2 to West Ham which shows they're real contenders this season and props to them for that. I also wonder if Liverpool are going to go the way of 2019 and smash it in Europe while the league eludes them. So far they look extremely unbeatable in the UCL.
Would you have believed anyone who said in August that this would be the Top 5 at this point in the season?
And so as promised, we hop over to Italy.
The day started with Venezia v Roma. Venezia were already 1-0 up when I switched the game on, only to see the lead chipped away by half time thanks to goals by Eldor Shomorodov, ably assisted by Tammy Abraham, who then got one of his own in stoppage time.
AND YET, in a classic Jose move, accelerating his Season 3 shenanigans to three months, Venezia came back after 65 minutes with a coolly taken penalty and then a brilliant goal for the lead and the win by David Okereke.
As you can see Jose was in a super mood right from the off.
However this was nothing compared to the violence Venezia chose when summing up the game on their twitter...
Then the end of the day gave us the Derby della Madonnina. Milan v Inter. Champions v. Wannabe Champions. The physical embodiment of the ma che vuoi emoji (Barella) vs the physical embodiment of the old man emoji (Zlatan).
It was a fast, breathless game at the start with both teams really going for it under the encouragement of a cracking atmosphere. After only 11 minutes a penalty was awarded to Inter which was converted by Milan old boy Hakan Çalhanoğlu. He gave a delightfully full celebration (I'm very anti being muted against your old club, fuck it, you scored!) marred only by Edin Dzeko shoving him violently to his knees for some reason...
It didn't take Milan long to draw level with a goal officially credited as a Stefan de Vrij own goal but which was celebrated so fulsomely by Fikayo Tomori it may as well have been his...
Maybe I wasn't paying the greatest attention but after that there didn't seem to be too much to report, other than another beautiful but ultimately fruitless low and true free kick from Zlatan. It was definitely a well fought contest and one day I'll be able to break it down in terms more technical than 'it was good' or 'that shot was nice' haha.
The final games to mention are, I guess, two suboptimal performances by my Germans and Spaniards. Firstly, my German lads lost to RB Leipzig. They're not in the greatest place right now with injuries so I suppose I'll accept it but urgh, support a Bundesliga team I thought, that'll be fun and stress free I thought...
Which leads me to Barcelona. Barca Barca Barca, wyd my loves? 0-3 up at Celta Vigo only to piss it away for a draw and an injury to Ansu and Nico in the process. Prayer hands emoji for Xavi and that no-one else gets broken during the international break either.
Lastly, a note to say that that wasn't the only 3-3 nonsense from a team who should know better this weekend, with Atleti getting pegged back to a draw in stoppage time after being 1-3 up and seeing Griezmann score an absolute wondergoal. It makes you wonder whether anyone actually knows how to defend any more.
We now have an International Break during which I'll be seeing my Dad for the first time since Before so there might also be a Newsletter Break next week. It all depends on whether any nonsense occurs in any of the games tbqhwy!
Kick Off
*deep breath* OK. Here we go. This week we're tackling OFFSIDE.
I'm not going to get out the salt and pepper pots or accost you in the pub and start moving glasses around, however there does seem to be some confusion in what is and isn't offside, when really, except under an exceptional set of circumstances where about five things happen at once that would normally only happen individually, it's pretty simple.
The basic rule is that an attacking player must have two opposition players either ahead of or level with them when receiving a ball that leads [or could/should lead] to a goal. This is the straightforward bit, the bit I imagine we all understand. As you can see from this stunning graphic, poor old Phil Foden has found himself in an extremely obvious offside position being as he is, significantly ahead of the last but one defensive player, the much maligned Harry Maguire.
Where the waters get muddied, either genuinely or wilfully, is when we start talking about body parts, how tight it was, what the exact millisecond was that the ball was played and so on.
Let's defer to the FA and Rule 11 to clarify the first part:
A player is in an offside position if:
any part of the head, body or feet is in the opponents’ half (excluding the halfway line) and
any part of the head, body or feet is nearer to the opponents’ goal line than both the ball and the second-last opponent
The hands and arms of all players, including the goalkeepers, are not considered. For the purposes of determining offside, the upper boundary of the arm is in line with the bottom of the armpit.
Armpits! Oh god armpits! If you've watched any game over the past 18 months you won't have escaped commentators, summarisers and pundits sweating over armpits like a man sending an unsolicited DM to a woman who's posted a selfie of her in sleeveless top. It's simple though isn't it? Just pretend the player doesn't have arms and there's your measurement.
In terms of the second part, 'how tight it was', I'm actually quite firm about this. Offside is offside is offside. Human error can creep in when it comes to the moment the ball was passed to the player in question (point 3, this I accept), or in the way they move the lines around on the screen in the VAR hub (I mean this shouldn't be an issue but OK) but the fact of the matter is whether your whole body or just the very tip of your toe is ahead of the second to last player you're offside. It's black and white. What you don't like is the parameters. Again though, the fact is that this is a game played with feet, they're the danger area (to run with a theme, as any woman posting an inadvertent toe online will know), that's why we don't care if your arms are flapping about like a wacky wavy arm flailing inflatable tube man.
What I don't agree with is the current trend for play to be allowed to continue until either the ball goes out of play or a goal is scored before the assistant referee flags. Now we have VAR in place, why not give the officials a bit more autonomy on obvious calls. If a goal gets scored it's going to be checked anyway right?
So, that's your simple, bog standard offside. Player A passes the ball to Player who is ahead of Player C from the opposing team. Easy right?
The real muddying of the waters comes with the relatively new introduction of a player being in 'active play'. Let us again cross over to Peter Walton, I mean let's defer to the FA and Law 11 again:
A player in an offside position at the moment the ball is played or touched* by a team-mate is only penalised on becoming involved in active play by:
interfering with play by playing or touching a ball passed or touched by a team-mate or
interfering with an opponent by:
preventing an opponent from playing or being able to play the ball by clearly obstructing the opponent’s line of vision or
challenging an opponent for the ball or
clearly attempting to play a ball which is close when this action impacts on an opponent or
making an obvious action which clearly impacts on the ability of an opponent to play the ball
or
gaining an advantage by playing the ball or interfering with an opponent when it has:
rebounded or been deflected off the goalpost, crossbar or an opponent
been deliberately saved by any opponent
A ‘save’ is when a player stops, or attempts to stop, a ball which is going into or very close to the goal with any part of the body except the hands/arms (unless the goalkeeper within the penalty area).
*The first point of contact of the 'play' or 'touch' of the ball should be used.
To wrap up, let's look at when you cannot be offside, take it away FA:
No offence
There is no offside offence if a player receives the ball directly from:
a goal kick
a throw-in
a corner kick
The {Offside} Thirst Trap
It should've been a dream fixture. Playing for the team his Dad wanted him to play for, in the local derby against Sevilla, a chance to shine and enjoy himself. Alas, it ended in tears with an unfortunate own goal, so as a boost, this week the Thirst Trap is one of the best, an og of the title, friends, it is of course Hector Bellerin.
Hector is a beautiful beautiful man. He's got style on and off the pitch (don't let Kieran Tierney ever take the tucked shirt crown), he's got great politics, a fantastic Cockneylonian accent and goddamn he's just so extremely handsome.
Spain seems to suit him well and he's looking at the utmost peak of deliciousness right now. His skin is clear, his hair is great and I'm even into the moustache. Have you ever seen someone score an own goal (middle pic) while looking quite so gorgeous? No, me neither.
Football 'eritage
This week Jeff Stelling announced he was leaving Sky after 30 years, most of which was spent at the helm of Soccer Saturday, wrangling a group of in studio and in ground pundits and reporters waiting eagerly to give updates on the day's raft of 3 o'clock kick offs. There have been many notable moments throughout that time, however the one we're settling on today is my favourite, one I know almost off by heart after it was put on a CD for me as a little added extra among the music.
Yes, it's Chris Kamara not knowing someone at the game he was supposed to be watching had been sent off. While we're ostensibly here to celebrate Jeff, I would argue that Kammy made his career off of this moment. Sure he was a well known player and a fun and charismatic person with it but this was the incident that forever propelled him into the public's consciousness and allowed him to lean into the confused clown persona he's taken on so well.
Anyway, enjoy, it absolutely still stands up today as comedy gold:
Kit Bag
Two treats to report this week.
Firstly, Napoli are at it again after their gorgeous Halloween kit, with this tribute to their adopted son Diego Maradona. It's... OK? I appreciate it as a piece of merch but I'm not sure I like it.
In the colder climes of Germany, FC Köln have released their yearly Karneval kit. It celebrates the Cologne Carnival which is declared open at 11 minutes past 11 on the 11th of the 11th month, effectively it seems, despite the carnival in its modern form having been around since 1823, just after the armistice of WWI. It's one of those bonkers old traditions that towns and cities have and you can read more about it here
At a first glance I loved these shirts: confetti! cute! But... they've got a goddamn bowtie on them. This is going too far towards the celebration of clowns for my liking! Also I'm not sure how I feel about football shirts having built in accessories?!? [OK I've just seen a dressing room pic with the kit and I'm delighted to report there is no bowtie on it! I've no doubt it's a safety hazard but also... CLOWNS!]
I forgive them though because they're a great team who seem to have strong Good Egg qualities. They also have an actual goat as their mascot! Their hashtag is cool! (#effzeh) I like their badge! Jonas Hector plays for them! (Sorry, very specific personal reason that ;-) )
Extra Time
I've spoken previously about how the youth are going to save Barcelona but maybe they're also going to save social media as they've been posting some very cute content this week.
During the Dynamo match in the week I made a joke about Gavi's gloves which went roundly ignore however it was nice to see that he himself acknowledged them in this sweet exchange with Nico Gonzalez, himself also a baby and someone who frankly if you told me he was actually Gavi's older brother I wouldn't be surprised, he's basically a taller version of him.
[Translation: "You've got to learn" "The gloves bro"]
In other news, as we ramp up to Christmas stores are going all out to advertise their wares to us and with a sudden injection of cash from somewhere or other, Sports Direct have gone further than anyone else with a £6m ad featuring a raft of sports people. I can't decide who my favourite is; Declan Rice excited for the snow? Evil Pickford? Jack being the brunt of the snowballs? Decide for yourself here
Finally, last week the subheader for the newsletter was Football is for everyone, following Josh Cavallo's coming out. Well, the boy continues to be a complete and utter legend, replying to hate group LGBAlliance tweeting about him with this simple message. The replies are glorious and heartwarming.
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