The Wenger offside law that FIFA will test (or how to kill flies in pipes)

2023-07-16 09:00:56

BarcelonaThe irruption of VAR at the 2018 World Cup in Russia was the start of a tortuous journey in which justice has been won but freshness has been lost. The idea of ​​filling the stadiums with cameras and making them available to referees had the aim of avoiding scandals such as Maradona’s hand in Argentina-England in the World Cup in Mexico or Tassotti’s elbow to Luis Enrique, but in return it has forced the collegiates to review absolutely all the actions. This has been a problem for the referees, as they have seen their management capacity reduced and cannot turn a blind eye to certain actions.

FIFA is moderately satisfied with the use of VAR, but there is one aspect that has it in the back of its ear: offside. The technology determines precisely when a player is in an illegal position and this sometimes goes against the spirit of the rules. The English, purists of sorts, argue that the essence of the rule is that the striker does not benefit from being ahead of the defender, but the reality is that nowadays goals are disallowed for imperceptible differences.

The idea of ​​changing theoffside it has been studied for years. In 2021 Marco Van Basten proposed to definitively eliminate offside and this year it was Arsène Wenger who put forward a revolutionary idea: to invalidate the action only if the striker has all parts of his body advanced in relation to the defender. In other words: if the VAR draws the line and Lewandowski’s heel overlaps Carvajal’s shoulder, the play is legal.

The application of Wenger’s law raises many doubts

The Wenger law was born to end millimeter offside, but its application generates many doubts. In the arbitration field, the assistants would need to immediately readjust theirs mode of operation and yet it would be an almost impossible mission to determine whether a striker is in an offside position with a high success rate. In any case, the current controversy would not go away, as VAR would continue to disallow goals under the current system.

In the football field, this regulatory change could be a before and after in the way of defending (and attacking). It would be necessary to get used to seeing goals in which the striker is a meter ahead and, obviously, this would also not be in the British line of respecting the spirit of the rule. No doubt, much more striking scores would be seen, due to the fact that the striker would have a decisive advantage and the defender an insurmountable handicap, but it is not known to what extent this would be an incentive or if it would distort the game.

The coaches should rethink the strategy of pulling up the defensive line, since the attackers would be enough to put their foot back a little to validate their position. With the application of the Wenger law some managers could also choose to organize their team without intending to leave the opponent offside and, in practice, they would see centrals collapsed in their own area and accumulating men behind.

To get the clear water out of it you will have to wait for the starting shot of the experimental phase that will take place in Sweden. It will be tested initially in the men’s under-21 and women’s under-19 championships and, if predicted to be successful, it will be the turn of Italy and the Netherlands.

Many unknowns to solve in a context of uncertainty in which the International Board, the body that regulates the rules of the game, has preferred to focus on offside without providing solutions to larger problems such as the puzzle of hands