UEFA Competitions 2023-2024 Referee Discussions [Rs]

One insight, which I've yet to see anywhere, and a couple of thoughts:

First, this was Marciniak's decision to stop play, not his AR's. And I don't mean that in the pedantic Law 5 sense that a referee has ultimate authority. Watch the replay. Marciniak's whistle is at his mouth before the flag went up. You can actually see the AR in the foreground looking toward Marciniak with the flag not yet raised. What that means is that the AR was telling Marciniak over comms that he had offside position and, then, inolvement. Marciniak was then the one making the decision for when to activate that decision. I don't know what exact shorthand he would use (and certainly not in Polish), but essentially Marciniak quickly told the AR to put his flag up and then Marciniak whistled. It all happens so fast that it looks almost simultaneous. But referee is going before AR here. And AR definitely isn't going before referee. So just on the question of where blame lies if this was actually an irreversible error, it's with Marciniak. I point this out because I think a lot of commentary here is going to key in on the AR flagging too early. That's where my mind immediately went. But it's not what happened. Marciniak made the decision on when to stop play on his own.

Second additional thought is just on the idea that this did or did not stop a sure goal. I think @code1390 is right with "we'll never know." But the more I watch, the more I lean (somewhat strongly, at this point) to the idea that a goal was pretty unlikely without a whistle. Nacho (#6) pulls up before challenging Mueller and raises his arms in the universal "I'm stopping so I don't violently clatter you late" gesture. Mueller probably gets to the ball first anyway, but does he win it cleanly or can he get it to de Ligt without Nacho deflecting it? Possible bordering on probable, I'd say, but not definite. Then de Ligt shoots, but his mark (#3, Militao) pauses before challenging him and then sort of does the defensive statue rather than the extended leg; you've got to think, without a whistle, #3 is closer to de Ligt and trying harder to block the shot. And then there's Lunin, who makes almost no effort to stop the ball, which is pretty understandable given the whistle had gone at least a full 2 seconds before it crosses the goal line.

So you end up with three different components of this play, all after the whistle, all where the Real Madrid players did something different than they otherwise would have done. It's entirely possible that without a whistle, Mueller wins it cleanly, de Ligt gets the exact same shot off, and Lunin can't save it. But I don't think all three of those individual components are likely to have occurred in succession.

Now, with that said, this whistle (and, yes, flag) is still too early. It's an attacking opportunity and the defensive header has not reset the APP--I mean, the ball is still in the attacking penalty area! Given how delayed some flags been at the top level, and in largely unnecessary situations where the offside is clear, this decision should be shocking regardless of whether or not Bayern really would have scored. It's a super tight offside with an immediate attacking opportunity in leg 2 of a UCL semifinal and the referee just blows it dead. Marciniak has been walking on water for awhile, but this is bad. I might even suggest hubris plays a role in this.

Final thought is on the SAOT question. Yes, of course, the image wasn't generated because it wasn't reviewable so the VAR team would not (cannot, really) go tilting at windmills. But there's no reason why UEFA couldn't after-the-fact. There are a lot of political factors involved, relative to both clubs and Marciniak's team, and I don't know which way those all fall. But if SAOT could prove this was offside, nothing is stopping UEFA from communicating that to the masses. If they don't, people are going to believe the opposite.

 

The problem is precedent, though. If you do it here, you'd have to do it in any similar situation--even if the SAOT showed offside. So I can understand why UEFA would just stay quiet, even if offside was the correct decision.

Of course, the likelihood of a similar situation happening is quite low, so I can also see the argument for releasing it as a one-off and just hoping history never repeats itself. But big bureaucracies like UEFA are inherently risk-averse.

And then there's also the political angle. Marciniak gets publicly saved for this, but another referee doesn't for something else? The veracity of Real's win gets upheld publicly by UEFA, but something related to Barca or Inter next year doesn't? Etc., etc. I think most of us focus on the truth. But you can't dismiss the idea that anything UEFA does publicly could lead toward accusations of playing favorites.

 

But it's over and we're onto the final. What does UEFA care about what happened today?

Unless you want to calm Bayern supporters. But, then that gets into favoritism issues. Or precedent ones.

And again, I know that most of us care about the truth or the larger game. But even if "the game" is served, UEFA isn't necessarily. They are managing a large political organization with a wide variety of stakeholders. UEFA's concern is pleasing those stakeholders. Doing something extraordinary upsets that apple cart and potentially makes it harder in the future.

 

No, it makes total sense. That's what I was trying to explain. ARs are trained to say something like "position, position, position" which means an attacker is in an offside position, as the ball comes in. They then say something like "delay, delay, delay" once THEY have an offside offence but are indicating they are delaying the flag due to the VAR protocols.

Very often--and sometimes it is referee preference--the referee then tells the AR to put the flag up if he thinks the reason for delay is over. Essentially, the referee knows the AR is calling offside but the referee makes the determination on when the flag should go up. In this case, you can visually see it because Mariniak's whistle is at his mouth before the flag even goes up. Nothing really wrong mechanically, honestly. The problem isn't the mechanics here, it's with Marinicak's judgment.

As for the idea that the AR apologized, which I read elsewhere... A) it's coming from Tuchel, so it's third-hand knowledge and B) while I don't doubt the AR quite literally apologized for the situation, as it's the only thing he could do, I don't think that means he personally is accepting the blame--it's not like an AR would turn to the Bayern bench and say "it's not me, it's him!"

 

But honestly, he screwed up. Regardless of the veracity of the offside and the likelihood of goal or no goal, Marciniak was wrong to stop play when he did. If I were one of his competitors in the referee community, with some big assignments in the offing this summer, I'd be more than a little peeved if he got publicly defended for a screw up when you know there will be referees who are tossed overboard even when they do the right thing. I get they all root for each other to some extent, but that seems like next level unfairness.

Not sure I get this. The issue isn't right or wrong on offside, it's that everything was blown dead too early to even be able to check. I absolutely believe an AR would apologize for that.

I'm not sure of this. I've been privvy to a good amount of VARing and I haven't heard of any situations where VARs have done this. Honestly, in MLS you'd get in a lot of trouble for doing this. It's a waste of time and a distracts from your duties. Layer in the fact that the UEFA system requires the SAOT components and I just don't see it. Maybe I'm wrong, but until I hear this is a real thing that's been done before, I am sure in the other direction.