R12 vs Wanderers | Sunday 28th Dec | 7:00pm | RoF

I'm enjoying the debate too, it's interesting to hear how other people see it. My understanding of the LOTG is in line with mjp2's - I would think 2 players running after the ball are engaged in a challenge. 

This sentence is also vague: “Careless” means that the player has shown a lack of attention or consideration when making a challenge or that he acted without precaution.

That implies that the lack of attention or consideration applies to making a challenge, but that acting without precaution doesn't.  So even if you think that they weren't engaged in a challenge, you could still say that the defender was acting without precaution.

And if you don't agree with that interpretation, then you could still argue that he impeded Krishna's progress because as far as I see it, he did change the line he was running. But if that's what O'Leary was calling for then it wouldn't be a penalty - it would be an indirect freekick.

OK so I've been doing quite a bit of digging and I'm now starting to lean towards El Grap's interpretation of the law. This website which appears to be run by referees suggests that an accidental trip is not a foul. Furthermore, my initial interpretation of 'acted without precaution' is probably wrong, in that it means he did not take care to avoid doing something he did, such as lifting his foot before stepping on the opponent's foot — if such avoidance was possible. In other words, if someone steps on another's foot without malice but still stood on it anyway he acted without precaution. It would seem in the instance of an accidental trip from behind there really is no reasonable way for him to have avoided tripping as he had no idea he was doing it in the first place (if that makes sense?).

Also I don't think you can say Alessi impeded Krishna as the definition is "Impeding the progress of an opponent means moving into the path of the opponent to obstruct, block, slow down or force a change of direction by an opponent when the ball is not within playing distance of either player." Alessi never moves into Krishna's path.

So I now think as by the letter of the law, O'Leary got it wrong. However I've seen this kind of decision so many times that it really appears that this law is interpreted differently by different referees, which is not surprising considering the debate we're having here!

Fair enough, that sounds reasonable. I will just say that I can't help feeling that the LOTG aren't actually as clear as they could be around this sort of situation.

If that happens on a counter attack, the majority of times it will be a foul and a yellow card.

The defender tries to run across to get to the ball initially then bends his run to get goal side of the attacker, clipping his heels as he does so. 

It's contact in the box, the player is prevented from getting to the ball because of that contact and if Vince Lia did it we would be getting stuck into him for being careless/old/useless/etc with etc being the worst. 

It's an unfortunate pen for the defender, and maybe unlucky, but for the same reason that players put their arms behind their backs when defending- they don't want to risk ball hitting arm being given and I think a similar principle applies here. Contact in the box is a risk, so take extra bloody care not to do it.

It's not like the dives from Brown or Coveny. We're talking contact, somewhat carelessly from the defender, who runs behind the attacker, and this prevents the attacker getting the ball in the box. 

I'd also disagree with this. Krishna gets the jump on Alessi who then has to change direction to try and get between Krishna and the goal- hence the contact. If they were running parallel in the same direction, Krishna would have stayed goal side of Alessi and there would have been no contact. 

Again an unfortunate situation, but contact is initiated by Alessi's change of direction and Krishna is disadvantaged inside the box because of that. Khrishna can't see where Alessi is, but Alessi can see where Krishna is. 

I find the discussion fascinating, regardless of who is actually right.

This is one of the reason I read this great website - to learn something new about football at my advanced age.

Oh, and also for Junior82's sense of humour, which is 1) never abusive and 2) quite often inane (both reasons merit loud applause).

Thanks MFC, but I think you'll find most of my posts are quite abusive.

Interweb forums are great places to post rude words that I wouldn't normally use (e.g. knob-end, bumder and cheese).

Absolute rubbish, you are contradicting yourself, its not just a matter of contact. There was contact, but it was made by Krishnas leg going upwards or backwards.

Its down to the interpretation of carelessness, which obviously the ref agreed with.

I am just saying the ref has made the wrong call, I don't think the defender did anything wrong.

Also the laws of the game say nothing about anyone being entitled to "the normal kick back of his foot to be untouched"

This debate proves that even with the same laws, each match is refereed differently, and both ways of refereeing would be correct!

So, how about the non-call on Brockie last night.... pretty similar, although the ball was closer

I had it as no contact. It was very odd

Yeah, that occurred to me at the time.

I think it was more of a penalty, as the defender did more to deliberately get his legs in close behind Brockie's, potentially tripping him.