Why Barca's 2-1 was offside

Raúl Cabañero Martínez

Yesterday, there was one big mistake by the referee team leaded by David Fernández Borbalán who has worked - apart from this call - very well and who has shown why he is thus well-regarded in Spain at the moment.

Barca scored their second goal in the early stages of the second half, but the attentive spectator has already recognized in the real pace that there was something wrong: the goal followed an offside offence, however, Raúl Cabañero Martínez, his first assistant referee, did not flag for it which he should have done. Nonetheless, it has to be emphasized that this call was probably hard to make.



The following screenshots show the situation:

# 1: the goal attempt develops

# 2: the underlined defenders are still in passive offside

# 3: a great tight-pass aimed at striker B, defender A sees the danger..

# 4: ...and clears the ball. Striker B's offside position is now active

# 5: the clearance arrives at another Barca striker who makes a shot

# 6: Marcelo unsaveably deflects the ball, 1-2 for Barca!

It is one of these paramount examples one needs to make the new rule clear which was a bit altered at the start of this year. The rule 11 clearly emphasizes that a player commits an offside related infringement in the following cases:

A player in an offside position is only penalised if, at the moment the ball
touches or is played by one of his team, he is, in the opinion of the referee,
involved in active play by:
• interfering with play or
• interfering with an opponent* or
• gaining an advantage by being in that position

[* And there may not be any doubt on the statement that the defender A's behaviour or action was based on his fear that a 30-million-striker stands behind him...]

In the FIFA Laws of the Game document's 2nd part, there is also a description with examples which generalize such situations. Picture 9 is suitable here, the defender's distraction through the opponent being in an offside position does not automatically require a contact between two players:

It would have been great if - in this special match followed by millions of spectators all around the world - the assistant referee had raised his flag, so that it would have been made clear for all these supporters when this rule change is effective.

Summarizing one can say that the referees missed this offside decision which unfolds to be of match influencing or even decisive nature, but this may not compromise the good work the team did throughout the whole clásico, some mistakes are just humane...

• Reference: France-Ecuador (u20 WC 2011), a similar situation, match refereed by Kim Dong Jin (KOR)