Daily Mail - 03.03.2020

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Daily Mail, Tuesday, March 3, 2020^

EvErton’s disallowed goal
against Manchester United on
sunday succinctly highlighted
the problem with the modern
offside rule. It doesn’t exist.
Football’s authorities have
tampered with it to such an
extent that many calls are
now just a matter of opinion.
When Harry Maguire deflected
a shot by Dominic Calvert-
Lewin (right) past the prone
figure of Gylfi sigurdsson and
beyond David de Gea in the
final minutes at Goodison
Park, views were divided in a
way they shouldn’t be. He
didn’t touch the ball, so he’s
fine. no, he made a movement
so he’s active. Yes, but the
movement wasn’t towards the
ball, so he can’t be. He’s in the
goalkeeper’s eye-line — surely

that counts? But not when

the shot was made, so it

doesn’t apply. And this is a

conversation between former

professionals and people who

are paid to report football.

richard Keys and Andy Gray

couldn’t make sexist jokes

about females not knowing

the offside rule any more —

because nobody knows

the offside rule now.

not even the

officials. Jon

Moss, who

was on

vAr duty,

was lauded

by Mark Halsey

in one newspaper

for getting the call

right. sigurdsson was

obstructing De Gea’s

line of vision, he said. He even

cited Law 11. Moss was also

supported by Peter Walton

and, almost reluctantly, by

Keith Hackett who said it was

offside but there was doubt

because De Gea was already

wrong-footed by the

deflection. Walton denounced

that as irrelevant. Mark

Clattenburg, meanwhile,

said he would have

given the goal because

De Gea had a clear

view of the original

shot.

this is offside,

remember, an issue

supporters of vAr

tell us is so black

and white only a

Luddite cannot

accept lines that

cancel goals by the breadth of

a pinkie nail. It’s a mess. the

starting point for the rules of

any sport is that they should

be fair; next, they should be

fathomable. For those who

have not come to rugby from

schooldays, it was always a

source of amusement that at

any given moment some of the

greatest minds in the game

don’t appear to know what is

going on. Football isn’t

perfect, we laugh, but at least

we can understand it.

And now we can’t. A goal was

scored by Everton and in the

immediate aftermath nobody

knew for certain if it should

stand. Whether the final call

was right or wrong, as a

matter of process that is the

most colossal failure.

BEForE the Carabao Cup final, there was a

great debate about Aston villa’s priorities.

Would they rather win the trophy, or stay up?

Yet why does it have to be either/or? Having

lost the final, it is quite possible villa could still

go down; had they won, it would have been no

barrier to survival. Wigan lifted the FA Cup and

were relegated in 2013, and the same happened

to Birmingham with the League Cup in 2011 —

but that fate did not befall Portsmouth in 2008,

swansea in 2013 or Middlesbrough in 2004.

And all of those teams went down eventually,

because it is the nature of modern football that

only a handful of elite clubs are safe.

so imagine if they hadn’t taken that chance of

glory — probably the best day out their fans

will ever have.

the either/or choice seems another convenient

myth perpetrated by the elite, as if success

should be the preserve of a tiny few, and the rest

must just battle for survival. trying to win a

trophy will merely distract from that annual slog

to the mighty pinnacle of 14th, and is therefore

to be discouraged. only the big boys can handle

it. What a crock that is. Another myth? that

poor little villa are kept in their place by the

mighty wealth of Abu Dhabi-owned Manchester

City. villa have ambitious owners willing to

invest to stay in the Premier League and, if done

well, thrive in the future. It is not City that holds

them back; it’s financial fair play.

Falling to earth:

Laura Kenny is

helped off the

track after a

crash in Berlin

AFP

germans are

crazy to hound

hopp the hero

DIEtMAr HoPP is a

software billionaire

who in 2000 began

financially supporting

his favourite team,

Hoffenheim. they

were in verbandsliga

nordbaden at the

time, which is the

sixth tier of German

football. Actually,

that’s stretching it.

there are 20 leagues

separating the

regional Baden league

from the Bundesliga,

although a team only

needs to win

promotion through

five of them. Hopp had

been on Hoffenheim’s

books as a teenager

and ploughed his

money into a grown

man’s fantasy.

Hoffenheim rose

steadily, finally

reaching a professional

league in 2007 and the

Bundesliga the year

after. they have

remained there since,

and qualified for the

Europa League and

Champions League.

Hopp also gave a

break to two of

Europe’s brightest

young coaches: ralf

rangnick and Julian

nagelsmann. over

here he would be a

hero, a Jack Walker

figure making dreams

come true. In

Germany, he is

despised.

on saturday, Bayern

Munich fans visiting

Hoffenheim unfurled a

banner calling him

‘son of a whore’ and

their match was

temporarily

suspended. When the

players returned they

spent the last 15

minutes passing the

ball between

themselves, like a

warm-up, in protest.

It did not effect the

outcome, as Munich

were leading 6-0 at the

time. Yet that’s still

not enough for some.

In Germany, owner

investment is seen as

somehow illegitimate.

Borussia Dortmund

and Borussia

Moenchengladbach

supporters have both

produced banners

putting Hopp in rifle

crosshairs. red Bull

Leipzig are equally

hated, for being born

of new money.

Wolfsburg, too.

And if Germany’s

traditionally run and

funded clubs had

found a way to

challenge Bayern

Munich’s supremacy

in recent years it

might make sense.

Yet Munich are now

three points clear and

closing in on their

eighth straight

Bundesliga title. It is

almost as if the rest of

German football has

been brainwashed into

believing this is how it

has to be. Hoffenheim

were a village football

team who now draw

average crowds of over

26,000 — more than

Crystal Palace — and

holds their own in one

of Europe’s biggest

leagues.

Hopp is a great man,

whose love of football

and his home town

should be lauded.

Instead, he is insulted

and made a pariah.

that’s why German

football is such a hard

sell beyond its

borders. Who wants to

watch a league in

which ambition and

competition are dirty

words?

glory days aren’t

only for the elite

Why cycling world

has gone up a gear

Stephen parK, the performance

director of British Cycling, has

warned that Great Britain could

return from this summer’s Olympics

with its lowest medal haul since 2004.

‘We should temper our expectations,’

said park, after elinor Barker was

Britain’s sole gold medallist at the

track Cycling World Championships in

Berlin. ‘the days of any nation winning

10-plus medals have probably gone.

that is a result of worldwide

competition increasing and the

difference in terms of equipment and

technology decreasing.’

In other words: they’ve rumbled us.

Britain’s sudden eminence at cycling

was not just about a handful of

brilliant individuals coming together.

It was a well-honed medal-winning

strategy born of the realisation that

cycling provided big opportunities

and small fields. not a lot of countries

were good at it, but there were a

great many medals available. and it

was a technological sport, so

responded to money. Invest

significantly in cycling and, with the

right athletes, you could reap

rewards.

now the rest of the world knows.

they see how ruthlessly team GB

targets its low-hanging fruit, which is

why it will spend big on modern

pentathlon and skeleton but ignore

basketball and volleyball. Cycling

finds its home in central europe so it

is no surprise to now see holland,

Germany, Denmark, France and Italy

above Britain in the track Cycling

World Championship medal table.

now everybody has worked out how

it is done, expect everybody to

start doing it.

In the line of fire:

one of the protests

Does anyone know offside rule?