[Offside] Was the defending player's clearance 'deliberate play'? A goal disallowed after a goalmouth scramble

The key question in this very close incident is whether the touch by Nagoya's No. 13, a defending player, just before the ball reached Kobe's No. 15, who was in an offside position, counts as "deliberate play" under the Laws of the Game. Several players touched the ball in succession during the goalmouth scramble, making this a complex incident that was extremely difficult for the match officials to judge with the naked eye. First, as background, an on-field review is not normally carried out for an offside decision. Whether an attacking player was in an offside position is a factual matter, so it is enough for the VAR to check the footage and tell the referee over the radio. The fact that an OFR took place here suggests that a subjective judgement by the referee was needed to decide whether the conditions for an offside offence were met. There are two main cases in which offside requires the referee's subjective judgement: ・whether a player in an offside position affected an opponent, for example by obstructing the opponent's line of vision ・whether the defending player who touched the ball immediately before did so by "deliberate play" This OFR appears to have been carried out so that the referee could check the second point, whether the defending player had deliberately played the ball, on the footage. Set out in sequence from the corner kick, the play went as follows. ① Kobe's No. 10 met the cross from the left at the far post. ② The ball rebounded off the post and Kobe's No. 4 played it (pausing the footage shows that Kobe's No. 15 was in an offside position at this moment). ③ Just before the ball reached Kobe's No. 15, Nagoya's No. 13, a defending player, touched the ball while trying to clear it. ④ Kobe's No. 15 turned the loose ball into the goal. If Nagoya's No. 13's touch at ③ is judged to be "deliberate play", Kobe's No. 15 is no longer penalised for offside and the goal stands. If it is judged not to be deliberate play, the offside from ② stands. Under the Laws of the Game, "deliberate play" means a player playing the ball while in control of it and able to make the next play. In other words, what matters is whether the ball was under the player's control. Here, Nagoya's No. 13 did move a leg to clear the ball, but rather than having the ball under control and trying to kick it, the player appears only just to have stretched out and touched it. As the player simply touched a ball that was not under control by stretching out a leg, this was not deliberate play, and the offside offence was judged to stand. The OFR followed the proper process and reached a reasonable conclusion. The Laws of the Game also set out five indicators for judging whether a defending player was in control of the ball and deliberately played it: ・Did the ball travel from distance, and did the player have a clear view of it? ・Was the ball not moving quickly? ・Was the direction of the ball not unexpected? ・Did the player have time to coordinate their body movement (rather than instinctively stretching or jumping, or only just touching the ball)? ・Was it a ball moving on the ground, which is easier to play than a ball in the air? Measured against these indicators, Nagoya's No. 13 was not in control of the ball and only just stretched out a leg to touch it, so I believe the offside decision was reasonable and correct. (A supplementary note follows.) Other interpretations are also possible, such as: ・Kobe's No. 15 interfered with a Nagoya player, and the offside offence was given for that. ・Kobe's No. 4 touched the ball between ③ and ④, so No. 15 was onside. On the second point, I suspect there was no footage that clearly confirmed Kobe's No. 4 had touched the ball. The first point is also possible to some extent, but I personally think it is more likely that the OFR was used to check whether the touch was deliberate play, so that is the main focus of this explanation.