Atlanta United suffered a 1-0 loss to the New England Revolution at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Saturday afternoon. It was a frustrating day for Atlanta, who saw Carles Gil convert a penalty and had a pair of goals taken off the board, ultimately settling for just four points out of a possible nine during a three-game home swing.
| Get Atlanta United training ground updates, audio and video content you won’t see anywhere else, Discord access, and more. Support us on Patreon and help support independent soccer coverage here in Atlanta! Click here to start a 7-day free trial. |
The big news was, of course, Pedro Amador’s return to the XI, but Ronny Deila opted to put Miguel Almiron on the left wing and Saba Lobjanidze on the right. Tristan Muyumba remained in the midfield with Bartosz Slisz while Luis Abram started once more at center back in place of the injured Derrick Williams.
Atlanta certainly enjoyed better of the play in the early stages and had a great chance to go ahead in the 17th minute through Latte Lath, but Aljaz Ivacic made a solid save to keep the match scoreless. In the 24th minute, Latte Lath and Almiron each had efforts of their own, but Ivacic came up big once more as Atlanta looked to find a spark.
Ivacic, though, was finally beaten by Almiron, who let loose a scorcher of a shot to seemingly make it 1-0 before a Video Review check found an apparent offside in the buildup…you be the judge.
The Revs, though, made it 1-0 in the 36th minute as Carles Gil was ruled to have been fouled by Latte Lath in the box and converted the resulting penalty. Again, you be the judge.
Atlanta looked to have scored again just minutes into the second half, but Latte Lath’s finish from close range was (rightfully) called offside. He came close to an equalizer in the 85th minute but saw his header hit the post. Then, Almiron’s volley in the 86th was robbed by Ivacic, followed by a flurry of chances for Atlanta as it looked to get on the board.
But the tying goal never came for Atlanta, who put a total of five shots on frame but failed to beat Ivacic. After a wild 4-3 win over NYCFC, it drew FC Dallas 1-1 before today’s defeat and now sit at 2-3-3 (9 points) on the season. Alexis da Silva didn’t do himself any favors officiating this match, but Atlanta didn’t help its own cause, to be fair.
Atlanta United visits the Philadelphia Union next Saturday.
Can’t wait to see the MLS PRO review of that offsides call this week, assuming it makes it to the show. Same with MLS Instant Replay…I feel like Wiebe will have some input here.
Instant replay came out, and Wiebe explains that the letter of the law would mean offsides though the letter of the law seemed to not be the same as what he was saying. The laws appear confusing.
Either way, it appears I like others (even some Revs fans) would have expected that to not be offsides and that the law is a bit unclear about how we define “deliberate play” on the ball.
Guys, even though we got robbed, we still didn’t score. Are we just jinxed? Seems we are not getting the calls and opposing goalies have their best performances against us, the posts and crossbar seem to grow when we take a shot that beats the goalkeeper, the ball bounces right into opponents, and we can’t make that last pass. Maybe we need a medicine man to help us. Not happy at all.
Maybe I’m wrong and don’t understand the rules, but growing up if a ball took a major deflection off of the defending team it was deemed to no longer be valid for offsides. What is the difference between this first goal and any other ‘goal poacher’ sort of setup/followthrough?? It shouldn’t matter that the ball was kicked while he was offsides, it deflected off of a guy in the middle and then went to a separate guy on the outside of the box. This shouldn’t be even close to considered by my definition
Well take it to an extreme example, where one team plays a diagonal through ball in front of a forward with a defender right behind him. The cross barely grazes the defender but still gets through in front of the forward who was offside. Should the offside call be negated just because it grazed the defender? Probably not right?
Now in today’s case I think it was more of an intentional touch to break up the cross, not a deflection, so I do think offside is the wrong call here. But if you call it a deflection, then I think offside is the right call.
As long as the touch is intentional. This was a play on the ball whereas a defender getting grazed is just (more than likely) a positional play
I don’t think intentionality matters since they were trying to break up the cross. The IFAB rulebook says:
A player in an offside position receiving the ball from an opponent who deliberately played* the ball, including by deliberate handball, is not considered to have gained an advantage, unless it was a deliberate save by any opponent.
*‘Deliberate play’ (excluding deliberate handball) is when a player has control of the ball with the possibility of:
So, even though the player deliberately puts his foot forward to intercept the cross and block it, it is still offsides violation. The one argument you could make for it not being offsides would be to say he wasn’t breaking up the cross but actually trying to clear it. But I would be hard pressed to agree with that if you look at the body position the defender was in.
The other argument is that Amador is actually onsides when the ball touches the defender. But currently, the rulebook doesn’t really carve an exception for that.
I haven’t seen the replay myself, but the key is the word “deflection.” Deflection doesn’t negate offside. Intentional play (even if bad) does. There are a few things to consider in whether the contact with the defender is deflection or intentional:
– distance from ball when kicked
– speed of ball
– movement of defender’s body
So basically, if it’s hit hard at you from a short distance, probably a deflection, and offside will still apply. If the ball is played a little longer and you make an effort to play the ball and make contact with it, it’s intentionally played and offside will not apply.
…
And well. I paused writing this to go watch the highlight aaaaaaand Jesus. What an awful call. All the stuff I mentioned above completely supports an intentional (bad) play on ball, which negates the offside. Wild.
da Silva was atrocious.