In many ways referees are like policemen. When they are recruited they are asked, even instructed, to carry out their duty in a fair, firm, and unbiased way regardless of who the teams are, or who is playing

Other people make the laws – we apply them. We don’t have a choice in the matter.

In a recent game in the MLS a referee decided, for whatever reason, to flout the FIFA Laws of the Game by awarding a yellow card when the incident required, nay demanded, a red card.

Arsenal collected important three points in its fight for the spot in the next years Champion’s League by defeating Norwich 3:1 in a dramatic and controversial finish in the Barclays Premier League at the Emirates Stadium.  Norwich went ahead of Arsenal on Michael Turner’s goal in the 56^th minute of the game.  Arsenal could not break Norwich defense until 85^th minute of the game when Mike Jones, following signal from the assistant referee Richard West, awarded Arsenal a penalty kick which was converted by Mikel Arteta. Only three minutes later, Oliver Giroud added Arsenal’s second goal sending Arsenal’s fans into wild celebrations.  Unfortunately, things got even worse for Norwich when Lukas Podolski scored Arsenal’s third and final goal in the 92^nd minute of the game, completing Arsenal’s remarkable comeback.

After a spirited and full of drama game, Borussia Dortmund defeated Malaga 3:2 in Westfalenstadion on Wednesday April 9 2013, securing its spot in Champions League seminal.  Borussia Dortmund was favored to prevail in this clash but Malaga did not go down quietly.  In fact, Malaga broke the impasse first when Sanchez Joaquin scored the first goal in 25^th minute of the game. Borussia’s Robert Lewandowski, however, brought the teams on level terms just before the half-time in the 40 minute of the game.  In the 82^nd minute of the game, Malaga struck again and recorded its second goal on Pereira Eliseu’s easy tap-in and, with less than eight minutes remaining in the regulation time, a huge upset appeared to be in the making.  Just when it all looked like Dortmund was out of the Champions League (at this point the German team needed to score two more goals), Marco Reus breathed some glimmers of hope to the Dortmund’s side when he scored and brought the two sides level once more in the 91^st minute of the game.  And then the unbelievable happened!  With seconds remaining in the game, Augusto Felipe Santana pounced on a loose ball in Malaga’s penalty area, sending Borussia Dortmund to the Champions League semifinals.

Paris Saint-Germain and Barcelona drew 2:2 in the first leg of the quarterfinal game in the Champions League at Parc Des Princes this past Tuesday. The game started according to the script with Lionel Messi scoring the first goal in the 38^th minute of the match.  Messi’s goal came after Barca’s Dani Alves beautifully curved the ball with outside of his foot into PSG’s penalty are and towards incoming Messi.  Messi let the ball fall and bounce and then without hesitation unleashed a shot across the penalty area, past the diving goalkeeper, and into PSG’s goal.  This was typical Messi, making the difficult look easy.  However, in the 79^th minute of the game PSG’s Zlatan Ibrahimovic equalized when he collected the ball inside the five-yard box that bounced off the far post after it was headed by his teammate. After the fortuitous rebound, Ibrahimovic was the quickest to react and simply tapped the ball into Barca’s goal.  Barcelona players were quick to protest the goal, arguing that Ibrahimovic was in an offside position when the ball was last played by the PSG player.  As we discuss it in much detail below, the replays showed that these protestations were well warranted. 

We have written about handling offenses a lot on this blog and for good reason.  These decisions almost always seem controversial. One reason that these decisions invite so much controversy and discussion stems from the fact that the Laws of the Game state that a handling offense occurs when a player “handles the ball deliberately.” In other words, the referee is required to determine whether the player, whose hand/arm came in contact with the ball, intentionally or deliberately played the ball. A lot of controversy, however, also arises from a failure to understand what “deliberate” means in the context of the Laws of the Game and how referees are instructed to look at and judge these offenses. We wanted to use as an example of a correct call referee Roger East made to award a penalty kick for handling in the recent game between West Brom Albion and Sunderland in the English Premier League.  In the 35^th minute of the game, West Brom Liam Ridgwell’s cross struck Sunderland’s Craig Gardner in the arm. Mr. East, who was perfectly positioned to make the call, immediately pointed to the spot (see the video below).    

In the 91^st minute of the game between West Brom and Aston Villa, Aston Villa’s Lowton and West Brom’s Lukaku were locked in a fierce battle for a ball near Aston Villa’s penalty area. Panicking Lowton, who appeared to be on the losing end of the battle for the ball, in his last ditch effort to prevent Lukaku from taking control over the ball, kicked the ball toward his goalkeeper Brad Guzan. Guzan calmly collected the ball and the dangerous attack petered out. Despite some protestation from West Brom players, Referee Lee Probert did not spot any infringement and let the game continue (see the video below). We believe Mr. Probert decision to let the play continue was wrong.

In the 42^nd minute of the Community Shield match between Chelsea and Manchester City, Referee Kevin Friend showed Chelsea defender Branislav Ivanovic a red card for a tackle on Manchester City’s Aleksandar Kolarov. As the footage below shows, Ivanovic attempted to dispossess Kolarov by a sliding tackle. While sliding toward Kolarov and the ball, Ivanovic raised his leading leg off the ground,  exposed his studs and -- with speed and fully outstretched leg -- barreled his way into Kolarov’s shin, taking him down in the process. Mr. Friend did not hesitate and immediately showed Ivanovic a red card. Despite Chelsea’s protests at the severity of the punishment, Mr. Friend was absolutely right in dismissing Ivanovic from the game because his tackle was not merely “reckless.” Rather, it was "serious foul play." 

For the reasons explained below, Ivanovic was guilty of “serious foul play” when he tackled Kolarov and therefore deserved the most severe form of punishment.

The U.S. Women Soccer Team defeated Canada 4:3 to reach the final at the London’s Olympic Games. The game was fast-paced, hard-fought and highly entertaining. Indeed, Canada led the U.S. Women on three separate occasions and the U.S. team came back to tie the game each time. The U.S. Women’s final game winning goal also came in a dramatic fashion. It was scored in the 123^rd minute -- the last minute of the added time in the second overtime  -- by Alex Morgan (click here to see the highlights from the game). Now in the finals, the U.S. will be given opportunity to avenge its loss from the last World Cup final against Japan. The gold medal match between the U.S. and Japan  will begin at 2:45 p.m. ET on Thursday, August 9, 2012 at Wembley Stadium in London. It should be equally entertaining game.

Recently, we confronted those who follow us on Twitter with a rather thorny question regarding outside interference. So, without further ado, here’s the question that we asked: Goal Kick is taken by the goalkeeper. The ball leaves the penalty box and then hits an overhanging tree branch. The ball bounces back into the penalty box and the goalkeeper catches it with his hands. Decision?

Now, before we provide a correct answer to this question, we have to admit that we posed this question being fully aware that it would cause some difficulty, because the Laws of the Game do not specifically deal with the situation we described. We also posed this question because we knew that your first reaction would be to call for the restart by dropped ball since there was “interference” when the ball contacted an object that was not part of the field of play. Finally, we wanted to examine more closely the USSF’s analysis of what constitutes “outside interference” and what a proper restart is when it occurs.