Soccer Could Save Itself Some Headaches With Video Review on Debateable Offside Calls

So very much about “sports” remains wholly irrational. For some odd reason we’ve collectively decided that what made sense in, say, 1884 or 1932 was good enough, so why change it? By the same token, imagine where the NBA would be if it didn’t adopt the 24-second shot clock in 1954? Anyways.

Soccer and technology remain a lot like baseball and technology, very uneasy bedfellows. While the game, tactics and physicality of the athletes themselves change, often the governing bodies with soccer like to pretend the games are still played exclusively on muddy bogs with heavy, leather balls in gloomy industrial Victorian England.

If you were one of the millions worldwide watching Manchester United defeat Liverpool on Sunday, you no doubt saw Juan Mata score from an offside position, putting United up 2-0. Granted, it was a semi-fluky play. Ashley Young sent in a cross from the left side which Robin van Persie rose up to meet with an ever-so-slight glancing, knock-down header. Since the ball played off van Persie before it fell to the feet of Mata at the backpost, the Spanish midfielder was offside, even though he wasn’t when Young sent in the initial ball. It’s easy to see in replay or in the screenshots that follow, less so if you’re the linesman looking at it in real-time, lest you have the best vision on the planet.

The nature of officiating in soccer is you have to get it right the first time since there isn’t a replay system. If not, you’re setting yourself up for thousands of instantaneous screenshots, memes, Vines, etc. of your mistake for the world to see on social media. Honestly, these days watching soccer it seems like every single call by the referee on a tackle of any note is immediately uploaded on Vine for people to debate, turning the game into a tedious series of flashpoints. Once upon a time it was, perhaps, easy to move on from these plays, but now all you have to do is click a few links and it can live on forever in six-second bursts, queuing up anger from the aggrieved fanbase.

The state of officiating in the EPL in 2014-15 has been quite poor and this isn’t a defense of some truly awful calls, but refereeing remains rooted in judgment. Major League Baseball has taken numerous steps in recent seasons to eliminate the dreaded human element from games, but has left balls and strikes calls out of the replay jurisdiction, leaving it to the individual judgment of the umpire behind the plate.

Offside in soccer isn’t a judgment call. Either a player is or is not offside. It’s fairly straightforward and simple. I’d guess there’s a generation of soccer watchers who’ve grown up playing FIFA — where a digital eyelash will deem your player offiside — especially irked by the offside call since the video game never, ever gets it wrong or gives a fraction of leeway, but I digress.

The EPL added goal line technology this season and so far it has worked without a hitch, quickly determining if a ball crosses the line or not within seconds. A similar system could be instituted for offside, although it would likely need a human watching the replay to make a judgment vs. the computer system used on the goal line. However it would be set up, all it takes is someone to watch a replay (the fourth official via a monitor?) from multiple angles and then buzz down to the official whether or not the player was offside — the camera angles and the technology is there. Whatever delay this might have on the match, I’d wager the lost 30-odd seconds is a small price to pay for ensuring the offside decision was accurate.

The point is, with a few minor changes you could fix the offside rule without changing the fabric of the game, while cutting out needless controversy and vitriol aimed at the officials as a bonus. To me that sounds like a win-win situation.