Yup, the 'never raise flags' rule is as dangerous as it is dumb. The funniest thing is when you see a player who knows he's offside looking at the linesman, the linesman has his flag down, both he and the defenders have that half second 'WTF' moment (you can see it on their faces' before continuing to play. The player scores, does not celebrate because he knows he was 2 yards in, the ref disallows it, play on. I mean, don't call out tiny offsides. But please, do call the clear and obvious ones.
Yeah, I think I've always trusted linesmen, and if it's such a controversy, it usually only happens when a goal is scored anyway. And we've all gotten over it, I know I've never complained so much about offside, you get on with it. I didn't mind too much with the new rules though until you see what you described happening over and over. Everyone looks to the linesman, because it's habit. Then oh, he's not flagging, let me try anyway. Then players score and look again and see ah, yes, it's up, hey can't blame me for trying;)
We had some cases where players were clearly onside and the flag was raised we also had some cases where the players were offside by the minimum margin but the linesmen could not detect, that was why the end of phase was introduced to let the play goes on and let Var decides afterwards, linesman still raise flag if the offside is very clear, they were just given two options. We have had some bad injuries around the midfield in the past, Patricio injury was one of those unfortunate days just like any other unfortunate days too. Offside rules have nothing to do with it.
Mate I've to disagree with you here man. I understand why the rule was introduced but the fact is, some injuries were preventable. As I said, I'd rather sacrifice a few wrong offside calls so that keepers and defenders don't take bad risks. The fact that when a striker is clearly offside means he's so much closer to goal than he should be, so defenders are going the extra mile and extra risk. I think we've seen enough bad injuries to prevent goals that wouldn't have mattered anyway to seriously consider retracting this new rule.
I can't recall all the times I wish the flag would have gone, so my team's defenders wouldn't have needed to run the full length down to clear and pull muscles, before flag finally, slowly, went up. A collective "eff you man" can be heard from them and me haha.
) so what fun is it in having them all winning in their matchups?
