Legalism at Euro 08

Remember during Chief Justice Roberts's confirmation hearings when he repeatedly analogized the role of a judge to that of an umpire or referee? I never thought that analogy was particularly apt, for lots of reasons. But one that popped to mind yesterday is the different in time frames involved in making decisions. A judge - particularly a Supreme Court Justice - doesn't need to decide anything on the fly. She can ponder, reflect, send the clerks out to research arcane cases, and then make a decision, sometimes months after the case is submitted.* A ref, on the other hand, has to make a split-second decision, have an almost instant recall of all the rules in order to make it right, and make the decision, even if it goes against common sense.

Yesterday was the opening day of games in the "Group of Death" in Euro 08. After a stupor inducing scoreless draw between Romania and France, Holland put three past Italy for a somewhat surprising result. The first Dutch goal has been the subject of a lot of debate, as the goal scorer appeared to be clearly offside. Here's what happened:



You can also see it from every angle (literally) via BBC Sport's Virtual Replay.

Note how, when clearing the ball, the Italian keeper runs into one of his own players, who falls out of bounds. The goal scorer clearly only had one Italian player between he and the goal - the keeper - which makes him offside, right? That's certainly what the TV pundits thought. A horribly blown call.

Only it wasn't. As UEFA has since clarified, the officials got it right:

UEFA General Secretary David Taylor was reacting to claims from some quarters that Van Nistelrooy was standing in an offside position when he scored the first of the Netherlands' goals in their 3-0 win. 'I would like to take the opportunity to explain and emphasise that the goal was correctly awarded by the referee team,' he said. 'I think there's a lack of understanding among the general football public, and I think it's understandable because this was an unusual situation. The player was not offside, because, in addition to the Italian goalkeeper, there was another Italian player in front of the goalscorer. Even though that other Italian player at the time had actually fallen off the pitch, his position was still relevant for the purposes of the offside law.'

Basically, if you leave the field of play without the ref's permission, you're still counted for offside purposes. That interpretation of the FIFA Laws of the Game keeps defenders from being able to play attacking players into an offside position just by stepping over the end line. But it's applied very rarely and is counter-intuitive: how can a player who isn't on the field of play be part of the play?

It's a very legalistic reading - one that the ref and his assistants made correctly in the heat of a major tournament game between two of the top teams in the world. Let's see the SCOTUS folks do that!

Speaking of goals, there was no doubt about the legitimacy of the second Dutch goal:



End to end in seconds, with the decisive cross delivered by the same player who cleared the defensive line 100+ yards away. That, my friends, is why it's the beautiful game.

*Am I a tad miffed that we're still waiting for a bunch of big SCOTUS cases to be decided this term? You bet!