Watching football on television in a public place is obviously not the same as viewing it in the comfort of your own home. For a start as well as people you know, there are likely to be people you don’t know. If it’s an England game and you are watching in England, then it’s pretty certain that everyone one will share the same allegiance. Not necessarily so if you are watching a game like the recent Manchester United v Liverpool encounter.
The country is said to be divided into two halves, those who support Manchester United and those who don’t. Most of the crowd where I was watching the television, seemed to be anti-United, for the Liverpool goals were greeted with great delight and cheering. Cheers too went up when Vidic was sent off after he had pulled down Gerrard as he headed for the United goal.
It was then that the United supporters in the crowd started to be noticed. They voiced disapproval of Vidic’s dismissal complaining ‘he wasn’t the last man’. A couple of weeks ago I wrote about phrases in common use, which only mislead players and spectators about the laws and the ‘last man’ is one of them.
Prior to 1980 there had been misgivings about players, encouraged by coaches, blatantly bringing down opponents who looked in a good position to score. Better a free kick than an almost certain goal was their thinking. It was an incident in the FA Cup Final of that year, however, that led eventually to the law as it stands today.
Willie Young of Arsenal deliberately fouled Paul Allen of West Ham who had a clear run at goal. As the law stood at that time, referee George Courtney could only issue a yellow card. The following year the FA proposed to the International FA Board, that such an offence be made a mandatory red card offence. This was rejected, but at the 1990 World Cup, FIFA instructed referees to send players off for what they called a ‘professional’ foul, so widespread had it become.
The following year that was incorporated into the laws and subsequently the term ‘professional foul, always a misnomer, was replaced with the current wording which reads, ‘A player is sent off if he denies an obvious goal scoring opportunity to an opponent moving toward the player’s goal, by an offence punishable by a free kick of penalty kick’. No mention anywhere of ‘the last man’.
So what is it a referee looks for when deciding a goal could have been scored? In the FIFA guidelines for referees
on the Laws of the Game, they are told they must consider a number of points before making this so important
decision:
The distance between the offence and the goal. The farther away the player the less obvious the opportunity but Gerrard was just outside the penalty area and in a couple of strides would have been inside with the goal at his mercy.
The likelihood of the attacker being able to reach and control the ball successfully. He must be able to play the ball. Gerrard had the ball at his feet and looked to be in complete control. The direction of the play.
The law says the attacker must be moving towards the goal which Gerrard was.
The location and number of defenders. In other words, where were the defenders at the exact time of the offence and did any of them have a good chance of getting back to provide cover? In the Manchester United/Liverpool game, there was indeed a Manchester United player nearer the goal line than where the offence took place. However, he was on the far side of the penalty area and therefore it would have been almost impossible for him to have been able to get across to tackle Gerrard before he shot at goal.
Last man? Irrelevant.
Dick Sawdon Smith
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© R Sawdon Smith 2009